With Internet marketing, our first effort is focused on building awareness, then we try getting people to come to our website, and then we want to get the visitor to convert into a lead.
A lead could be defined as someone that subscribes to receive our newsletter, downloads a white paper, registers for a webinar or fills out a form to request additional information from our company.
The main goal is to entice the visitor to like what they see on our site enough to make them want to give us their contact information. But what happens once they have done that? If a lead filled out a form that told us they were interested in your newsletter, do you let the lead sit there, send them newsletters and just hope that they call you someday to buy something you're selling? Converting a lead to a buyer will require more work, nurturing that lead to speed up the process.
Here are 10 Tips for Lead Nurturing to help you build your plan:
- E-mail your leads. If they have opted in to receive communication from you from the first form they completed on your site, you can send them special promotion messages, discount offers, in-store sale information and more. Read our blog article to help you monitor the appropriate frequency of your e-mail marketing messages.
- Contact your leads through snail mail (direct mail). If you are collecting a mailing address on your lead generation forms, you might want to send the leads postcards, personalized notes or letters, or maybe promotional items to help them keep your company top of mind and encourage them to make a purchase.
- Use social media to connect with your leads. Depending on your type of business, it might make sense for you to find your leads on social networking sites, such as Facebook, LinkedIn and Twitter, and request to connect with them there. Then you will have another avenue to communicate with them more regularly.
- Create white papers and distribute. If you create a white paper that further describes an element of your business, this could be a great excuse for you to follow up with your lead contacts. Send them the white paper via email as a free giveaway.
- Develop a print or e-mail newsletter. Again, this is just another form of communication that gives you an excuse to reach out to your leads and stay in touch.
- Record a webinar. You can send an e-invitation to attend a live version of the webinar, and then you can also record the webinar and e-mail out the recorded version to all your leads. This also gives you an opportunity to further sell your leads on your product or service.
- Send a handwritten note. So few people send handwritten notes that it now gets exciting to the person receiving the message. Consider using this personal touch to follow-up with your leads.
- Invite your leads to an event. If you market your business on a local level, you might be able to invite your leads to a networking event or something social that will help you connect with them more closely and hopefully bring you closer to a sale.
- Mail the lead an interesting book. Sending promotional items branded with your company's logo can be great, but it is sometimes easier and less expensive to find a book that relates to your industry and could educate your leads on why they should do business with you.
- Send a text-only, personalized email. Many companies using e-mail marketing to communicate with their leads are spending too much time and money creating graphic designs of emails with artwork that may not be viewed on all email browsers. Try sending a personalized email with text only to follow-up with your leads.
