Why worry about lead nurturing best practices? Simple: if you don’t send your prospects through a sales funnel, another salesperson will.
When you first started out in sales, did you expect to be writing and editing articles for your website? How about sending emails to leads before you picked up the phone to call them? A lot has changed in the past decade when it comes to sales and marketing, so brush up on these lead nurturing best practices before you contact another prospect.
What are lead nurturing best practices?
Lead nurturing, in its simplest form, is a marketing strategy for keeping a prospect’s attention. It’s done with recurrent touch points or content campaigns that will move leads from the point of interest into need and then, finally, a sale.
Think about it as a way to say, “Hey, I’m still here. Don’t forget about me,” to your prospects without getting in their face and waving your hands around. There are many ways to engage and motivate your prospects to take action, so why not take a soft touch and provide them valuable content in exchange for their attention?
While you’re reeling in the leads, we can assign your new prospects and automate your processes. Schedule a free demo of our lead management software, and turn prospects into customers in no time!
Inbound marketing techniques are driving sales, so what steps have you taken to nurture your leads? Here are basic lead-nurturing best practices:
- Optimize your website with industry keywords.
- Create forms to capture your leads’ information.
- Update your blog with content for which your prospects are searching.
- Send email newsletters to the leads whose information you captured.
One step before nurturing your leads
Plan out how you’ll send a prospect down your sales funnel. First, do the research to learn what keyword phrases they’re searching for online that are related to your products and services. Then, use that information to plan out a blogging editorial calendar. In each post you write, give your readers quality information, and before letting them leave the page, create a call to action for them to take. Send them to your sales page, product info, or a free trial. Offer exclusive discounts in email newsletters.
Then, test it, and test it, and test it again.
Put the pedal to the metal and keep creating
Once you’ve identified your funnel, it’s time to start pairing your content with your sales goals. You’re already blogging. What else can you do with that content? Think of the blogs as starting points for e-books and whitepapers. Write even more blog posts, script email newsletter welcome notes, and purchasing thank you letters.
Then, when your content is ready to go, but before you hit publish or press send, strategize once more. Have you created calls to action on your blog posts? Does your blog content and website link to sales pages, free trials, or info catching forms? Do you have e-books, worksheets, or templates that are downloadable? If so, are you capturing information that will filter to a CRM? Are you optimizing your posts and pages? Are your email subject lines attention grabbing?
Know where your leads fall in the funnel
One reason why email nurturing works so well is that, depending on the action a customer takes on your website, you can automate a particular email chain to start.
For example, someone who downloaded a brochure on the different types of life insurance policies you offer may be just beginning to search for an insurance agent, and only want to gather information. However, someone who completes a form and is looking for a quote is ready to purchase. You can automate a different email response to send to each prospect. Then, a chain of emails will kick off based on the original action. That is automation at its finest.
Analytics are your friend
You’ll never know if your lead nurturing best practices are effective (or mistakes) if you’re not regularly testing and measuring analytics. Create a set of baseline and high-end metrics you’ll track, and then reevaluate them monthly, quarterly, and annually.
Use the data to determine any changes necessary in your editorial calendar or email blasts.
While you’re reeling in the leads, we can assign your new prospects and automate your processes. Schedule a free demo of our lead management software, and turn prospects into customers in no time!
What lead nurturing best practices have you found to be the most successful in your business? Let us know in the comments!