If you’ve ever signed up online for a free piece of information – white paper, webinar, special report or maybe a 7-day introductory course in something – you’ve likely been exposed to an email-based lead nurturing program. Online marketers have used this tactic for years with huge success.

And so have Clicks ‘n Conversions clients.

Once it’s set up and working, a lead nurturing program can easily become your best source of new customers or sales-ready leads. But great lead nurturing programs don’t just happen. They are carefully developed with your prospects’ interests (not necessarily yours) in mind.

Whether you develop your own lead nurturing program or you let a pro do it for you, here are five areas that should be carefully considered.

Content

Lead nurturing messages must be interesting or valuable enough to the recipients to get them to take the time to pay attention. Obvious? Yes - but often overlooked.

The key phrase is “interesting to the recipients”. Unless yours is an entertainment product, messages should contain information that helps the prospects solve or understand a problem better, take advantage of an opportunity, maybe even become a better person.

This step requires some self-control because – although it often comes as a shock – what prospects want to hear is not always what you’re interested in telling them.

Frequency

Finding the right frequency with which to contact your prospects is a balancing act. Contact must be frequent enough that they don’t forget you but not so often that you annoy them. The first step toward not annoying prospects is providing the right content. But even killer content can be annoying if it shows up every five minutes.

The right frequency is also dependent on what you’re selling. More complex and expensive products and services naturally have a more complex and longer buying cycle. In these circumstances you’re likely to provide information that takes a while to read, absorb and act upon. Give them a chance to do this.

Delivery

Any message must actually reach your prospects before it can be absorbed. With email-based lead generation there’re plenty of details to worry about – spammers have made it difficult for all of us. ISPs (internet service providers), corporate spam applications and even Outlook and its junk folder all throw up barriers your message must navigate in order to reach the inbox. Using a good email delivery application, keeping a clean list and providing the right kind of message are necessary pieces of getting your message delivered.

Action

While the main purpose of your lead nurturing program may be simply to educate or stay in touch until the prospect is ready to buy, every communication should make an offer and
contain some call to action. This is a fundamental concept of direct marketing. You want the prospect to do something.

Taking action is vital for keeping the prospect engaged and involved. It is also valuable for helping you determine the prospect’s interest level.

Automation

Technology plays a big role in allowing marketers to run a lead nurturing program with reduced administrative cost. Autoresponder applications let you set up a series of messages to be sent at specified intervals from the time a prospect takes a certain action. This is a great way to lower costs and ensure messages are sent on schedule without your having to think about it.

But exercise caution here. These autorsponders do not know when to remove a prospect from one communication campaign and put them into another. Prospects who take a step forward toward becoming a customer can easily be alienated if you continue to send them a string of email as if nothing had happened. Human oversight is still important.

Don’t want to worry about it?

Successful lead conversion programs require careful planning and some understanding of persuasion and buying processes. That’s where Clicks ‘n Conversions comes in. We can design your lead nurturing program and hand it off to you for management or we can save you lots of time and manage it for you.

Either way, you get a powerful system for turning barely-warm prospects into red hot leads.

Take a closer look at our lead nurturing services or contact us right now.