A few weeks ago, I went to a local restaurant. The restaurant was good, the interior was fine, the food was nice. So, I decided to go there for lunches. On my second visit, the food wasn’t as good as it tasted before. Moreover, it took way longer to be served.
Anyway, I thought tiny mistakes can happen, and I didn’t mind.
Another weekend, I went there for dinner. It was jam-packed with people. I ordered steak. Again it took a while to have the food on my table. And guess what, the steak was half-cooked and had a plentiful of spices on it. It was tasteless.
I had this kind of experience one or two more times. Then I finally decided not to waste my money and stopped going there.
Like this, if you attract people to your business but fail to serve them quality service, your business will be on its way out.
You need to keep that level of quality up to keep your customers happy. Your leads and customers must have that smile on their face which they had when you got them as a lead.
If they’re happy, your bank account will be happy.
And to make that happen, I’ve put together 8 lead nurturing tips. Tips you can use to keep the smile on your customers’ faces.
#1. Get Quality Leads
Lead nurturing comes after lead acquisition. That’s why you need to acquire quality leads who have the best possibilities to become your customer. There is no benefit in coddling people who have no interest in you.
Pre-qualify leads before entering them into your sales funnel.
Here are four questions to ask yourself before pre-qualifying leads: –
- Do they need your service?
- Can you provide an unique angle they can’t get anywhere?
- Do they have the budget?
- Are they the buying decision makers?
Not pre-qualifying your leads will increase your lead acquisition cost. So, you’d better get those questions answered “Yes”.
#2. Respond quickly
People feel prioritized when they have a response to their questions and emails quickly. They feel special. Try to reply to your leads or customers as soon as possible. This will create trust and take you closer to them.
Trust speeds up the buying process. Here are a few tips to set up a quick response system: –
- Set up a strict guideline of responding to messages and tweets within 5/15/20 mins.
- Turn on alerts and push notifications.
- Have an email autoresponder.
- Say in advance when you’ll contact them.
Everybody likes to be treated in a good way. People feel pleasant when you give them importance. And you do that by replying fast.
#3. Offer value straight away
Amaze your audience right away with free gifts just for contacting you. This could be How-to-Guides, a checklist or an eBook. Goodies they can use even they decide not to buy your product.
This will help you in two ways:-
- If they get interested in you, this will take them deeper into your sales funnel.
- If they don’t, they’ll still remember you for your help. And perhaps they’ll buy from you in future. Because you have already planted a seed in them.
Moreover, they might recommend you to their friends. It’s a win-win.
I’ll showcase this process here for you to understand better.
WATCH CLOSELY –
Suppose a prospect just subscribed to your newsletter. Lead acquisition – done! Now comes lead nurturing.
Send a message immediately thanking her and offer an eBook that will provide benefit.
Remember: Be selective on what you offer. Different people have different needs and interests. Offering unnecessary content will turn off your prospect.
You started a conversation. After that, you can offer a deeper content like a guide. Reply fast and show interest in them. Don’t be a salesman. Engage in real conversation. This is how you develop trust, bond, and relationship.
#4. Give them a dedicated place to contact you
Tell them where they can find you. This could be an email address or your Twitter handle or a phone number. Give them a way to get in touch with you whenever they want.
Make yourself reachable.
#5. Ask about their needs
Ask them what their problems are. Know what they need, what they crave. This will allow you to help them better and move your relationship further.
You can: –
- Ask on newsletters about their problems.
- Create a survey.
- Engage in tweets, blog or Facebook comments to find out their problems.
- Observe what they’re writing on comments.
- Hop onto a phone call and discuss the problems and how you can help them.
The key to earn satisfaction is to help with a cordial heart. And for that, you need to know about their problems, needs, and desires. That’s why ASKING is one of the important things in lead nurturing.
#6. Use targeted content
There is no one size fits all when it comes to serving content to your audience. People have different tastes and mindsets. Curating content before serving them to people plays a vital role in lead nurturing.
Serving curated content establishes you as an expert in a certain niche. You don’t bore or irritate your audience with unnecessary content. Rather, you speak to their needs. Content curation also supports lead generation.
Before you jump into content curation: –
- Segment your audience according to age group, interests, job position, etc.
- Create a buyer persona
- Then tailor content accordingly.
Finally, let your content fly away to its destination.
Content curation is about being selective on the content you share, content you share to whomsoever.
#7. Keep in touch
49% of marketers interact less than five times with their leads before the final sale. [Source: Lead Nurturing Benchmark Study]
There are many people out there who don’t even send a welcome email when people subscribe to their newsletter.
Yeah, that’s true.
How can you satisfy your audience when you don’t even talk to them?
You need to be like a buddy. Talk to them, ask them about their problems, reply with a solution, give them something that could make their life easier.
Interact.
Otherwise, they’ll forget about you.
#8. Follow-up
People can be busy. They can forget to reply to your emails. But you mustn’t forget to follow-up.
You forget to follow-up, someone else takes your place. Some other marketer will keep your lead satisfied more than you. As a result, you miss a customer.
You forget, they forget.
Your audience is not bound to stick with you. There are many people out there standing in hunger to help your audience. Some maybe better than you. You loosen up a bit, some other will snatch your lead from you.
You could outperform that “perfect” guy with your lead nurturing. But only for your laziness, he will win every time.
Hustle it –
- Prepare a set of emails to send when someone subscribes to your newsletter.
- Set reminders to follow-up when somebody doesn’t reply to your email.
- Be patient. Don’t irritate people.
- Never, ever let your annoyance come out.
- Know when to let go.
- Use other ways of connecting (like social media, referral). Again, don’t annoy people.
- Murder your fear of rejection.
It happens. Sometimes people carry the interest in you. But forget about you in the bustle of life. That’s why following up can open boxes of opportunity. Don’t let your prospect forget about you. Remind them of your presence.
Wrapping up
So, here we’ve come to a conclusion. There is an end of everything. Know when to let your prospects go. You can’t push people to stay interested in you. If they aren’t loving you, it’s okay, let them go. No hard feelings.
Stay engaged with your audience. Always amaze them, entertain them, love them. They’ll love you back.
Images: ” Lead Nurturing 3d words on a cloudy blue sky to illustrate a selling process of educating prospects, customers and clients about your products and services /Shutterstock.com“
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