Lead nurturing is the act of following up with leads in a consistent and, hopefully, logical way, moving them gently along the path of becoming a customer.
In some high-end, long decision process selling environments, it’s the only way a sale is made. “Hi, glad to meet you, call me when you’re ready to buy” isn’t a very nurturing approach.
In today’s marketing world, smart companies are tapping powerful nurturing tools and technology to help their prospects get to know, like, and trust them, make sales when competitors can’t get past the front lobby, and charge a premium for their products and services.
In some cases, it’s a matter of automatically dripping more and more information. In others, it’s the case of knowing exactly when your prospect is showing interest, and in still others, it can come down to gaining greater knowledge about your prospect by simply using technology to understand their behavior. (Don’t worry, none of this needs to be done in a creepy way, it’s all a matter of using technology and the information your prospects are willing to share.)
The secret is to stay top of mind and continue to educate, but do it in ways that have an impact.
The following ten tools are ones that I would suggest to almost any small business owner to use in tandem with a cadre of education-based marketing content in the form of ebooks, audio, video, newsletters, surveys and seminars.
1. BatchBlue – A lightweight CRM tool with a twist. BatchBlue makes it very simple to add your prospect’s social media profiles, thereby having access to their blog and Twitter feeds right at the point of interaction. Really great for your journalist target market too!
2. ACT! – Still the grandaddy of the desktop CRM software. Sage has done a nice job with the most recent release, and I still think ACT!’s campaigns are the most intuitive and effective for the very small business.
3. InfusionSoft – This is a hybrid CRM, email, shopping cart, and affiliate tool all rolled into one and not for every business, but if you have large lists to manage and want a really great tool for segmenting and targeting those lists, this is a great tool.
4. SwiftPage – This tool allows you to send batches of emails to prospects and then receive ranking reports based on how the prospect interacted with the email. Integrates with ACT! and Outlook and works for one email or many. The best time to follow up is when your prospect takes interest.
5. Enthusem – This is a fairly new tool to me, but I really like the presentation. You can send a high-end greeting card to prospects that send them to pick up a free report or watch a video. The system then alerts you when the recipient visits your landing page.
6. AWeber – This is a low-cost but very effective autoresponder and email service. Autoresponders have been around for some time now, but I still find them a very effective way to drip information to prospects via email.
7. Vertical Response – This email and postcard sending service is one of the simplest to use, allowing you to send large amounts of high-impact email messages, campaigns and newsletters.
8. SendPepper – Another tool that is newer to me, but I really like what they have to offer. Think autoresponder but with direct mail. Someone visits your site and fills out a form, and then they receive an auto email message right away and a high-impact postcard a few days later. The postcard further had a personal URL that sent them to a landing page to receive more details created just for them.
9. Web Conferencing – Using a service like iLinc, GoToWebinar, or Calliflower you can offer your prospects the ability to attend demos, peer2peer panels, collaboration sessions, or even sales presentations from the comfort of their office. Great to archive and offer in other formats as well.
10 . Hand-written notes – Low tech and still the greatest lead nurturing tool around. Get in the habit of sending a dozen or so a week, and you’ll be hooked.
Photo credit: BrockVicky
