As a marketer you can generate a million leads a day, but if you don’t know how to nurture them, it’ll be as if you collected zero leads because you’ll have zero customers. Lead nurturing is a huge part of marketing because it takes that special and custom content that each of your leads is seeking out, to attract their attention and turn them into clients. Here are 5 lead nurturing mistakes you don’t want to make, to help you optimize your campaigns.
1. Just setting it and forgetting it:
Picture this, you make a path of rose petals, light some scented candles, cook a delicious meal, and then leave your date to eat while you go watch television. It won’t take long before you find yourself single. The same concept applies in lead nurturing, if you ignore leads they will go and seek out other options. Forbes has conducted research that indicates that companies do not follow-up with leads quickly enough, in fact the average follow-up time presented in Forbes research was 46 hours and 53 minutes. Do you remember all the websites you visited 2 days ago? Neither do your leads.
2. Using lots of gobbledygook & mumbo-jumbo:
Well, there’s a set of words I never thought I’d have the privilege of using in a professional setting. Luckily, one time was more than enough to get it out of my system. A highly technical sentence doesn’t interest people, it bores them! It may seem that technical terms make you sound more credible as a company, but in reality it is causing a disconnect with your leads. What good does throwing out fancy acronyms and technical terms do, if you don’t explain them to your audience? Speak to your audience as if you are speaking to a friend, after all, the point of lead nurturing is to build a relationship.
3. Not bothering to test:
Testing is a huge part of lead nurturing, one that is easily overlooked. Think about it as having to check your vehicles tire pressure to keep your fuel-efficiency and safety in check. An important maintenance procedure yes, but one that is often overlooked. Well, your lead nurturing campaigns should be the same way, except of course, the overlooking it. Test your lead nurturing techniques to find out what works best for your leads! For example, our CIO Larry, has shared with me from his tests that two question marks at the end of an email subject line gets more opens than just one. The more you know!
4. One-size-fits-all:
Except when it doesn’t. Just as no two snowflakes are alike, you shouldn’t expect all your leads to be the same. According to the Custom Content Council, 61% of consumers say they feel better about a company that delivers custom content are also more likely to buy from that company. Providing content that doesn’t match a persona or where your lead currently is in the buyer’s journey increases disengagement. Make sure you provide content that speaks to your personas and where they stand in the buyer’s journey.
5. Poor data quality:
Lead quality and data quality go hand in hand. It doesn’t matter how good your lead nurturing campaign is, if you have poor quality data you will not get results. Identify duplicates, break-up with your inactive contacts, and eliminate those “made-up” contacts. It’ll increase your chances of getting a response. It’ll also help positively influence the way you manage and plan future campaigns.
If you’re interested in learning more, feel free to download our free ebook for more traffic, leads, and sales.
