A research from Marketo suggests that 96% of website visitors aren’t ready to buy (yet). This seems kind of obvious as it is too much to ask from your visitors. Can you trust a company or brand just by visiting their website? If not, then you shouldn’t expect your prospects to behave that way either. To make a sale you will need to ignite demand and prove your skills to your prospects. This phase where you establish your authority in front of your prospective customers is called lead nurturing. There are plenty of ways to nurture leads. In this blog, we will discuss the 8 best ones to do it.
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Remarketing is a digital marketing practice where website visitors are consistently engaged using social media advertising and Google display advertising. A pixel (shortcode) is added to the website. This code is used to display targeted advertisements to your viewers on different platforms (social media and other online blogs). Remarketing can be used to collect information like email ids, phone numbers, etc from leads so that you can later engage them using email marketing.
While showing your ad to visitors is a common practice, that is not the only way of using remarketing. You can also engage your leads using remarketing by setting up custom audiences for different ads. For instance, you can offer a demo to people who have shown consistent engagement with content but did not engage through emails.
A customer onboarding drip is a sequence of emails that communicate a specific information to the lead in timely phases. To save the leads from information overload (the product, features, demo, usage, eBook etc.) the content is distributed in phases. For instance, for a SaaS startup the email drip sequence can be as follows:
If the person opts for a trial by this time then the sequence of emails will change to how-to guides. These guides will help the prospects fully understand the benefits of the product. Once they are through their trial phase you can pitch them for sale. If they don’t sign up then you can engage them with newsletters.
The newsletter is another way of using emails to engage and nurture leads. The fundamental difference between newsletters and onboarding sequences is that newsletters don’t necessarily follow a sequence and they are intended to direct the receiver to a specific action. The role of a newsletter is to engage users and effectively brand your company.
Common information that can be conveyed via a newsletter includes latest blog posts, press releases, new services and products and other relevant company announcements. Newsletters can be used to nurture leads who have opted out from customer onboarding sequences. Do make sure that you don’t overdo this technique else you will see a very high unsubscribe rate.
Social media is a very effective way to engage and retain leads. With the increase in social media activities, businesses are able to create better relations with their clients. Connecting to your prospects on LinkedIn and Twitter helps you generate a buzz around your brand, circulate your content and leverage the networks of your prospective clients, thus generating more leads.
Though calling is an old school marketing tactic, it still works. You will only need to change your approach from cold calling to reaching out to your customers at the right time. Some appropriate timings to reach out to customers include:
This helps you re-engage the leads, solve their queries and obtain feedback about your product/service.
Push notification is a relatively new technique where you send your viewers notifications about content via a browser. The good thing about these notifications is that they are very instantaneous and engaging. Push notifications also help in increasing the number of return visitors.
While on desktop computer push notifications are sent through the browser for mobile devices you will need a mobile app. When used on a mobile device these notifications sent out alerts to users for new information. For mobile devices, these are very common and almost all mobile apps use them to engage and retain app users (in your case, leads).
Chatbots are artificially intelligent software that can stimulate a human conversation and understand human queries along with the context. These automated solutions have become really popular in industries like retail, banking, and food. From a B2B perspective, these solutions can be used to nurture leads with content on platforms like Facebook Messenger, Slack, Kik etc.
Developing chatbots today is very easy as there are many tools that can help you create one in a matter of minutes without any coding. But these DIY (do it yourself) solutions offer limited scope. If you are looking for something highly specific then it is would be better if you contact a developer.
Last but not the least, there are new ways of engaging users via content. These include events, webinars, podcasts, vlogs (video blogging) etc. By asking your prospects to opt-in for these premium content you can offer a personal touch to the users. For instance, they can clarify their queries in the webinar Q&A section or meet you in an event. Afterall nothing beats a direct personal interaction no matter how much we digitize the communication.
Jump to Chapter 5 - How to Qualify Prospects for Sales
How about the tools that can solve both of your queries? Our ‘Intelligense’ software can generate leads and also provide tools to nurture them. We are preparing for the launch and proving 250 free leads to people who opt for early access. Check out our product website for more information: