In any case I find value in getting different types of information at the appropriate time. Some of the time I may look at the information and other times I may ignore it but it is nice having that option. The idea of being able to nurture me may be a good business practice. So how does providing me with the appropriate information at the right time translate for someone interested in sales. If you look at the typical sales cycle a sales rep spends a good deal of the time trying to find someone that needs his product for a specific purpose. There is a problem that they have at that time that needs to be solved.
Over the years of doing sales, reps collect numerous contacts which they put into a hierarchy of how likely they are to do business with their company. Once that is decided however the majority of the contacts are ignored. For my part I have 100s of cards that I have collected over the years that have sat in a stagnant pile on my desk. So how can I make that pile of cards into something meaningful? That is where lead nurturing may provide a tangible value a sales rep. If a sales rep were to look at his Rolodex at all the business cards that he has collected over the years he can potentially create a lead nurturing campaign of his own. Here is a step-by-step process to create that campaign.
1. Look through all of your contacts and try to determine which ones are still valid. This could be done with business cards or by using social connection sites like LinkedIn. This enables you to stay up with your acquaintences.
2. Try to categorize or segment you contacts by what they do and where they do it. It doesn't make sense to send something that talks about high performance computing to your plumber.
3. Once you have figured out what everyone does then start thinking about how they could engage with you. Maybe there are some sales opportunities with people in that group but there also might be chances to partner with other people in their solutions.
4. Update people to your status. They may not know where you are or what you are doing and just letting people know what you have been up to may help them know what you can do for them. Social media makes this overly easy and there may be too many updates out there so you may have to make special efforts to actually meet and contact those people.
5. Don't rule out places where you tried to do business but lost. You solution may have been wrong at the time that you pitched to them but that doesn't mean you don't have something they can use now. There also may be other solutions that you didn't offer that may be something they need.
You have now prepared to make contacts . Whether it is via email or phone of blogs or social media. Get out there and start talking to people. You need to be judicious about how you use your time so another key component of effectively nurturing your customers would be using resources that are available to you to automate this process.
The next step is make sure that you have the appropriate content for your targets. Everything shouldn't be sent to everyone. If you send out everything that you have then you become a spammer. Find out what tools and content are available in your organization and how they are being used. If the right content is not there for you intended audience then create or find someone to create it. I mentioned marketing automation vendors in my first post as something that may be in use by your company. If it is find out how they are using it and make sure that the contacts that you want to target are in that list. This provides an automated way for you to start making contact. If your company allows you to help segment out what information goes to your clients add you input. If you don't help determine how things are done then someone who may not understand what you are trying to do will make the decision for you. This may not be an option for you in your current company but it doesn't hurt to ask.
Make sure that you are aware of what your company is doing to help you sell. If there is collateral or there are special deals that are coming up make sure that you are aware of it so you can make sure that your client has every benefit you do.
If one of your opportunities seems to have gone stale you can make sure they get included in other things that are going on in your company such as education events,seminars etc. This will keep things fresh in their mind.
Make sure that your prospects have consistent follow-up. I have worked with sales reps that have active deals that slow down and they don't keep up with their contacts. If you are consistently following up your chances become better.
One caution that I would make here is that you have to analyze constantly what you are doing. In this day and age where people may become overwhelmed by all the data that is out there and sending too much worthless information could annoy them it is important to ask what information is valuable to them and if they want to be included on what you have to offer on a regular basis.
Like I said in the beginning, now may not be the right time for someone to buy your product but with the appropriate nurturing one day it might. Too often sales and marketing do not understand what the other is doing and so effective nurturing of prospects doesn't get done. Sales may be do one thing and marketing may be doing another. By effectively working together on a strategy, sales managers and marketing professional that work together to create effective nurturing campaigns can in the long run be more successful.
