Wordzopolis – Marketing, Campaign Planning, Content Marketing, Inbound Marketing , Content Creation, Social Media and Public Relations

You did it. You have worked hard to gain brand awareness, know who your ideal clients are and have generating quality leads. Now you have them interested in your services or products, but how do you keep them interested and lead them to buyers?

What is Lead Nurturing?

Leads nurturing is contributing to development of your prospects by showing them how your services or products can help solve their problems. You do this by touching and teaching prospects over a period of time, building a relationship as they move through the buying cycle. With each touch point, you are given the opportunity to influence prospects, show them that you understand their problems, have the solution and how you have helped others solve similar problems, which in turns builds credibility and trust.

Lead nurturing is creating content that is targeted, relevant, timely and valuable to the person receiving the content. In order to do this you must understand your company’s’ buying cycle. What stages do prospects go through from becoming interested in what your company has to say to actually purchasing from your company?

Leading nurturing is anticipating your prospects questions and objections and having an answer that is easy for your prospects to find and understand. The goal is to position your business a reliable and consistent source of information. When prospects are ready to buy, you have already built trust, credibility and a relationship with the prospect and the prospect will turn to your business why they are ready to buy.

How do you find out what your prospects need to know?

You can understand what you prospects need to know by listening to the questions that they ask. What type of questions are they posting in forums and groups? What questions do they ask your customer service or sales people? What articles or blog posts are read most often? Create polls and surveys and talk to you current customer and prospects.

When you take the time to listen to prospects, you can develop content that answers the questions that your prospects are asking or objections that they are raising. Prospects ask different questions depending on what stage of the buying cycle they are in and the questions will change as they move along the buying cycle. Providing content that answers prospects questions will help to move prospects along the buying cycle more easily. Tracking prospects as they move along the cycle will also alert you to when the prospect is moving from a warm prospect to a hot prospect.

Turning Warm Prospects into Hot Prospects

You turn warm prospects into hot prospects by educating them. Remember that it really is not about you but about them and their needs. Turning warm prospects into hot prospects is about teaching and guiding them towards making the right decision for their needs. Your goal is to build trust with your prospects.

You can use a variety of tactics to educate and guide your prospects gaining likeability, trust and credibility along the way. The tactics that you employ allow prospects to become familiar with your company and your company’s services or products will benefit them. You can establish expertise in your field, and show customers that you understand their problems and know how to solve them. Articles are an excellent way to educate and guide prospects. You are not using these tactics to sell prospects but to become a trusted advisor, an expert in their eyes.

Here are some other tactics you can use to educate and guide prospects:

Here are some tactics you can use to leverage your lead nurturing content:

Direct mail:
Personal letters, dimensional mailers, promotional items, books, newsletters, press releases, white papers, event invitations, research reports, case studies, how-to guides, success stories, article reprints and third-party articles.

Email:
Personalized one-to-one emails, by-lined articles, blog posts, relevant third party articles, case studies, press releases, white papers, e-newsletters, event invitations, archived events, research reports, blogs, success stories, case studies, how-to guides, videos, podcasts, e-books, special reports, podcasts, videos, e-classes and website content.

Events:
Trade shows, live seminars, webinars, webcasts, executive briefings, workshops, conferences, road shows, speaking engagements, networking, radio call in shows and on demand events.

Online:
RSS or email, blog posts, podcasts, vidcasts, webinars, websites, special reports, research reports, teleclasses, e-classes,  e-books, personalized microsites, how-to guides, wikis, polls, surveys and other multimedia.

Phone:
Develop relationships, share ideas, develop contacts, referrals, personal information and setting up meeting.

This is just a tip of the ice-burg. Your goal is to develop content that is relevant and in a variety of ways that will reach your prospects and teach them. Each tactic used focuses on the prospects interest and needs. By continuing to add relevant educational content to your website or blog, your prospects will return to your site to gain more information, become better informed and become a client.

How do you go about nurturing leads?

Are you ready for the 10-Week Marketing Challenge?

Look out for the next post:

Marketing Challenge Focus –Closing Sales, where I describe the Sale Closing Process and give tips on Closing Sales, Part 6 of a 7 Part Series

 Don’t forget to join the 10-Week Marketing Challenge.

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