Support the pipeline with more sales-ready leads
It's becoming ever-harder to find, attract, and convert new prospects to fuel revenue growth. Nurturing is critical to stay in front of prospects who aren't actively looking but will become buyers eventually — and if you don't act quickly, your competitor could snag them first.
Yet care must be taken to avoid alienating buyers with an aggressive approach. If you've ever been the target of an over-eager store clerk, then you know how the average prospect feels when being pursued by pushy marketers and sales reps. To engage with early-stage prospects, you must create compelling interactions that build relationship and stimulate consideration without heavy-handed tactics.
Apply these principles to craft nurturing campaigns that create a positive association with your brand and products:
- Catch interest with messages that establish relevance and create a sense of urgency by speaking to your prospect's current goal or pain. Talk about issues, not products, that appeal to their aspirations as business leaders and individuals.
- Demonstrate immediate value with insights about how to address the issues on their agenda. Avoid cumbersome forms or intrusive questions that assume a level of intimacy you haven't yet earned.
- Build trust by adopting the posture of an advisor who has the prospect's best interests at heart. Earn respect and the right to engage further with consistently valuable insights, and honor their preferences for interaction type, frequency, and format.
Choosing the bait
To convert prospects into sales-ready leads, you must educate them while subtly setting up your criteria for brand evaluation. Provide relevant information over time to build credibility and create a trusted relationship until the prospect is ready to see a salesperson.
Creating a steady stream of offers is key to maintaining ongoing dialogue with prospects. However, offer effectiveness depends on where your prospects are in their mind-set and buying process — stay relevant and in tune with them by creating a portfolio of offers by audience and buying-cycle stage. Topics of most interest include: business trends, technology trends, peer perspective, best practices, and case studies.
