Once you have found a good source of leads your next step is to entice them through your sales funnel. Your end goal is to have them purchase a product or sign up for your services. Not doing this step, unfortunately, is a mistake that many marketers both online and those who market locally make. They forget about how to nurture leads and process them through their sales funnel.
At first your main nurturing goal is to introduce you and your business to them. This should be done in a friendly and non-threatening manner, don’t come across as all salesy. Instead look to educate your reader on what you do and how you can help them achieve their goals.
Related article: Is the Sales Funnel Really Dead?
Back to local inbound marketing 101 basics
This article “Why Your Business Should be Excited about Lead Nurturing” by Jarin Chu, July 2013 explains in detail the process of nurturing leads for your business. I particularly like the section on Lead Nurturing – here’s a quick excerpt.
How do we build a nurture program that builds on the relationship the sales team has cultivated with a prospect? How do we interact and engage in ways that really bring value to the table, without exhausting your resources, or taking away the focus of your sales team, so they can keep selling, not just preparing to sell? How do we provide the information your prospects are looking for, at just the right time, without overwhelming them?
Heed this advice and apply it into your sales funnel either through the use of a local inbound marketing email campaign or in your use of social sites. If you are still unsure of how to go about nurturing your leads then this informative article will guide you in the right direction.
What are we trying to do?
The article 5 Steps for Better Lead Nurturing [Guest Post from Kapost] starts off by defining the word nurture as follows:
Nurture
- To feed and protect
- To support and encourage, as during the period of training or development; foster
- To bring up; train; educate.
The author goes into detail about understanding the process of your sales funnel by stating:
When buyers at the middle of the funnel aren’t quite ready to buy, it’s the modern marketer’s job to nurture them. How? Feed them a regular dose of content they care about, help them overcome their challenges, encourage them to engage further with relevant content, foster a relationship of trust and thought leadership, and educate them on how to be more efficient and successful.
Each person is different, with different needs and concerns. Modern marketers must read the signs, tailor campaigns to specific interests and goals, and most importantly, treat each lead like a human being.
With that in mind, here are five key steps you should consider before creating any nurture campaign:
The 5 main steps which are covered in more depth include:
- Know Your Buyer
- Set Clear Goals
- Create Targeted Content
- Make Multiple Tracks
- Plug the Leak
Watch this informative video which explains what nurturing leads entails. You will learn why you should focus on great content that you can share in your sales funnel. You may be surprised to learn that people are not answering the phones as much as they used to, and you will discover what you should be doing instead.
By using the advice within this article and on the video you can easily learn how to entice your leads to become long term buyers. You will be on the forefront of the next generation of what marketing is all about.
Jaco Grobbelaar is the owner of BroadVision Marketing. BroadVision Marketing works with business owners to put in place inbound and outbound marketing strategies that consistently secure new clients. The BroadVision Marketing Training Center is located in Petaluma, CA and primarily serves companies in the San Francisco Bay area.
Jaco can be reached at jaco@broadvisionmarketing.com or 707.766.9778 or connect with Jaco on Facebook - www.facebook.com/broadvisionmarketing - and LinkedIn - www.linkedin.com/in/JacoGrobbelaar. He can also be found at Jaco+.