Nathaniel Fried
When it comes to lead engagement, most businesses try to copy what large corporations do because advertising, marketing and lead engagement by large corporations are very visible. However, if you do not run a Fortune 500 company, then copying what a Fortune 500 company is doing when it comes to lead nurturing is not your best option. Your best option is to do what you need to do to grow your business. This article will introduce you to five simple steps you can take to increase lead engagement and nurturing.
1. Offer something of value in exchange for permission to contact leads
You may already have contact information of your customers because you have their billing addresses. Even if this is the case, you want to start by offering your customers and leads something of value in exchange for a permission to keep in touch with them.
If you visit several websites of large companies, you will see that most of them have bland, generic offers similar to “receive 10% off your first order when you sign up for our newsletter.” This is not the kind of offer you want to have because this offer is what your customers and prospects have seen multiple times and it will not excite them. If anything, it will communicate to them that it is possible to get a discount from you when otherwise they may be ready and willing to pay full price for your product or service.
Be creative and come up with something different. For example, if you sell running shoes, you can create a guide on how to choose the perfect running shoe, or a guide about newest technical gear for runners that your customers and prospects can get if they give you their contact information or express willingness to receive more communication from you. If you run a local insurance company, you could create a guide with steps to choosing the best insurance in your area. One of the shortcuts to creating something of value is to explain how to make a good decision buying whatever you are selling. A guide to choosing the car that is right for winters in STATE X. A guide to athletic dress shirts.
What do you know about your business that would be of interest to your prospects, yet it is likely that they don’t know it?
2. Keep in touch regularly
Once you create an attractive offer and start getting leads, your job is to keep in touch with your leads by selling to them but also by providing valuable content. If all you do is sell, then very quickly your leads will figure out that you only show up when you want to ask them for money and stop paying attention to the communications from you, which is why in your follow up you want to include a variety of topics.
If you are marketing to consumers, you may also occasionally include entertainment such as links to funny viral videos and publications of general interest to your customers that may have nothing to do with your business at all. Here’s what this will do: it will communicate to your customers that you do your best to deliver value to them and that you share valuable information, not just sell all the time. This is the key to high email open rates, high conversion rates, happy customers and lots of referrals.
Keeping in touch regularly doesn’t have to be hard. You can prepare a month worth of follow up in a few hours. Create some original content, talk about what is on people’s minds, record and schedule a few ringless voicemails in advance, and sign up for free Google Alerts to receive relevant news on your subject, so that you can be sharing them and commenting on them.
3. Use different kinds of media to follow up
While sending a weekly email is better than not following up at all, you would be better off if to the weekly email you add a video channel, a paper newsletter that you send in the mail and ringless voicemail reminders about upcoming personal appointments and general information about your business.
The reason for communicating via a variety of channels is simple: various people prefer to consume content in various ways. Someone checks their email on a regular basis. Somebody else will ignore your email, but will read the newsletter that they receive by regular mail. Yet another person will watch a video from you or listen to a podcast on the way to work.
4. Use ringless voicemail
Don’t be afraid to share the same information in different formats. If someone receives the same information they’ve seen before and they do not want to watch it, listen to it or read it again (and watching and reading again will happen if they like the content), they will think to themselves “oh, I’ve heard this/seen this” and they will scroll the screen, put the mailing aside or delete your ringless voicemail message, just like they do with other information that is of no high interest to them in the moment.
However, it is very possible that someone will watch a video even though you’ve sent an email with the same content before or someone will come to an event after getting a ringless voicemail invite even though the event was posted on your website. Ringless voicemail can be extremely effective when you want your customers to take action, be it showing up at an event, at an appointment, or responding to a promotion.
