Not everyone signs up after the first telling session or after a visit to your group. Do you effectively "nurture" your leads to convert them into prospects when they are resistant initially to becoming a member? If not, you might be leaving a tremendous number of prospects "on the table".
The subject of lead generation and lead nurturing has become a focal point for me - especially in our executive search practice and in attracting top talent for open positions.
Ellie Mirman, writing on the HubSpot Blog identified a series of reasons for creating a lead nurturing program to convert leads (prospects) into customers (members). She identified 9 different items, but two that caught my eye were:
Build Thought Leadership - People do business with businesses they know and trust. The first time someone converts on your website, the likelihood that they really know who you are or understand why they should do business with you is pretty slim. Lead nurturing is an opportunity to show that you are an expert in your field.
Identify Interest or Pain - Lead nurturing emails are a great way to learn more about your leads - what challenges are they facing? What features or products are they interested in? By presenting different questions or types of content and seeing who responds to what, you can qualify your leads and set yourself up for warmer sales conversations.
What's your lead nurturing program look like - what type of messages do you send - either through email or social media to continue to communicate, engage, excite, and nurture?
Is any of this communication automated OR do you create each individual message to each individual person on your list?
If you looked back over the past 2 years, how many potential members initially said NO, that you subsequently signed up as a member?
Is it time to start exploring the basic elements of putting an effective nurturing program together. This is the stuff I remember Jim Cecil talking about back in the early 90s in my TEC Group - at that time he called he drip nurturing. Today you can automate this nurturing and come at your prospects from both traditional email and social media.
If you would like to read the full article, click the link below:
The 9 Benefits of Lead Nurturing
Barry Deutsch
