by Richard Cunningham –
In the recent webcast co-sponsored by Compendium Blogware and Right On Interactive, Chris Baggott, co-founder and CEO of Compendium illustrated how business blogging – done the right way – will maximize organic search engine rankings and will have a dramatic impact on your ability to generate marketing leads. I spoke about the equally important aspect of cultivating these new relationships through a progression of relevant email communications – a multi-step lead nurturing program.
When generating leads via blogs or other social media initiatives, a lot of companies only reach out to these new leads via email or phone once or twice. Or, if a sales opportunity is created and later fizzles, the sales lead never makes it back to marketing.
Instead, the best lead nurturing strategy is an automated drip campaign that cultivates a relationship with each individual over time and automatically recycles inactive sales leads.
These lead nurturing campaigns can be time-based or response-driven where, based on how a lead responds to each step, a new path is taken – with an appropriate delivery cadence.
What’s the value? The results of multi-step lead nurturing campaigns are significantly higher than those with a single-step. For example, in a recent campaign, several thousand new web leads completed a six step process over a 15-week period. Each received a new article or whitepaper in a six part series. Engagement with this group was four-times the rate it would have been with a single-step campaign.
For your next blog or social media campaign, add a series of follow up email tactics that engage new leads with a series of related articles or other educational content. Marketing automation software enables you to quickly create this lead nurturing campaign, execute without manual intervention, and considerably improve business results.
