When your prospects engage, are you providing them with a great buyer experience, or are you scaring them away? Is the content you provide relevant enough to motivate them to return, or do they go somewhere else? Do you have a strategy for staying top of mind, or are your prospects forever lost as soon as they leave your website?
In this guest article Membrain has invited Square2Marketing to give their thought on how smart prospecting campaigns and improved sales and marketing alignment help turn more qualified leads into paying customers.
Don’t you just hate it when people call you and ask if you’re ready to buy their product? What about when they ask if they can come visit you or send you material you didn’t request? It’s time to stop cold calling and start nurturing your prospects.
These days, people don’t want to be sold to. They want to be educated and helped. They want to feel safe when making their purchase decision from a trusted provider. In order to adapt your marketing strategy and sales efforts to this new buyer behavior, you need to nurture your leads by educating them, not by hard selling to them.
Here are five reasons why lead nurturing works for your sales pipeline:
- You Can Automate It – The great part about lead-nurturing emails is that they are automated and can be sent behind the scenes. By writing these educational emails in advance, they can be sent automatically one day, three days, 10 days or even 15 days after another piece of educational content is downloaded. Automating lead-nurturing emails allows you to choose when the email is sent, what the message contains and from which sales person this email should come from. Now, after one of your prospects downloads an offer, they’re not receiving an interruptive call from a sales person. Instead, they are sent a lead-nurturing email that encourages them to check out another piece of content they might benefit from. You also add a level of control and consistency by knowing exactly what is being sent. No more worrying about each sales rep sending a different, or the wrong, message.
- You Can Track It – Being able to track who received your email, when they got it, whether they opened it, clicked anything or opted out of your campaign is essential to the success of your lead-nurturing emails. This transparency allows you to make adjustments as needed to ensure you’re giving your prospects exactly what they want at the right time.
- It Mirrors New Buyer Behavior – This is very important. Lead-nurturing emails are NOT sales emails. They are designed to help your prospects feel safe while they research your product or service. Lead-nurturing emails set you apart from the competition and position you as a thought leader in your industry.
- It’s Scalable – With lead nurturing, every single prospect gets a personalized message at the right time, whether you have three or 300 sales people. This enables you to extend your reach and keep your sales pipeline full.
- You Get Results – Companies that use lead nurturing generate 50% more sales-ready leads at 33% lower cost (source: Forrester Research). Those nurtured leads make 47% larger purchases than non-nurtured leads (source: The Annuitas Group).
Start Today Tip:
It’s time to take a look at your sales process to see where lead nurturing fits in. Maybe it’s right after you have qualified a lead, or it might be after a prospect fills out a form on your website. Choose a starting point and build a campaign. Decide how many emails you need, what the timeframe for sending these emails will be and make sure your emails don’t sound salesy. Remember that you are helping to guide these prospects; you’re not selling to them. Keep track of your progress and make necessary tweaks to your lead-nurturing campaign.
About Square 2 Marketing
Square 2 Marketing is a full-service inbound marketing agency designed to do one thing: get our clients leads. We bundle marketing strategy along with inbound marketing techniques including website design, social media marketing, email marketing, content marketing and other digital marketing tactics to help our clients get found, get leads and close deals. With a national client base, we specialize in helping clients in all industries, but offer specialized experience in professional services, healthcare, technology, business services, manufacturing, distribution and financial services.
Co-founder, President and Chief Marketing Scientist at Square 2 Marketing, Mike Lieberman is passionate about helping entrepreneurs and marketing professionals turn their ordinary businesses into businesses people talk about. Read more at http://www.square2marketing.com/