What would you say if someone asked you which part of sales and marketing is the most important? Lead generation? Closing deals? Customer retention?
What about the long-term nurture of slow leads?
Leads who don’t move through the sales funnel according to your typical pipeline stages or timeframe are too often left to slip through the cracks. If they don’t convert quickly, there’s not much point in investing any time in them. Hopefully, this post will convince you otherwise.
While lead generation and customer retention are essential, they shouldn’t be done to the detriment of contacts already in your database.
Generating leads is half the battle; don't let them go once you’ve got them! You are sacrificing potential lifelong customers if you allow slow leads to get lost in the abyss.
Why should you put more effort into slow leads?
Keep your sales pipeline flowing.
Long-term nurture will help prevent slow leads from clogging up your sales pipeline. It’s a low-effort marketing branch that can tick over in the background without much work.
Increase conversions and ROI
Capitalising on leads who would otherwise be overlooked will help you increase your conversions. Long-term nurture is low-cost and will improve your ROI.
Slow leads are not lost leads.
A lead falls off the track for many reasons, but most of those reasons won’t stop a lead from being a customer altogether. Perhaps they’re not ready to buy, or they’ve yet to feel a connection with your business. There will be plenty of slow leads in your database, which you can convert to customers – however long it takes.
Long-term nurture workflows can act as lead magnets.
Long-term nurture campaigns will encourage slow leads through the sales funnel and complement your other essential marketing efforts. They can also double up as lead magnets. If you create a high-value campaign to nurture your slow leads, encourage new leads to subscribe, too!
Gather information on your leads.
These campaigns are an excellent opportunity to gather information on your leads. Using data on their interactions with your long-term nurture content, you can determine important information, such as what content they like and when they want to engage. You can use this type of data to inform other workflows.
How can you put more effort into long-term nurture?
Investing in slow leads doesn’t require much effort. It’s quick, simple and low-cost.
The key is to step back and remove ‘selling’ from the picture. This may seem counter-intuitive to the rest of your sales and marketing strategies, but you must remember that these leads are not ready to buy. That’s why they’re not moving through your sales pipeline as quickly as other leads.
To start with long-term nurture, set up workflows designed to last longer than your usual campaigns. Create content that’s relaxed and valuable to your contacts.
While you aim not to close deals, you must still set campaign goals. You could consider objectives such as:
- Engaging with an email
- Filling out a form
- Visiting your website
- Clicking a link
What types of long-term nurture workflows are effective?
There’s a lot of scope for being creative regarding long-term nurture. Ultimately, you want to engage your leads and keep your brand in their minds. These types of workflows shouldn’t be pushing for sales.
Some ideas for long-term nurture workflows include:
- Industry-relevant newsletters
- Introducing your team
- Behind-the-scenes stories about your business
- Case studies
Consider segmenting contacts and personalising long-term nurture content based on data you already hold on them.
Many businesses neglect their slow leads, favouring lead generation and customer retention. While these are important, long-term nurture is crucial for mopping lost leads. You need to invest enough time into them to reap results.
At Flowbird, we help our clients with long-term nurture strategies that engage leads and ultimately result in customers. For more information, contact us today.
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If you’re like many small business owners we’ve worked with, you have leads, but you’re having trouble making sure you’re spending your time and resources on the ones most ready to buy. Nothing is more frustrating than wasting energy on cold leads.
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