For anyone who runs a business, lead nurturing is a critical component of staying afloat. It’s not enough to just get the leads; you also have to nurture and feed them once you’ve landed them. It’s a little bit like planting a garden: you can put seeds in the ground all day long, but nothing’s going to happen unless you water and fertilize them.
Today, lead nurturing is a difficult concept for many marketers to grasp, and understanding it is critical for anyone who wants to run a successful company. With this in mind, here are our top lead nurturing tips, and some helpful ways for you to boost your PPC results in the new year.
What is Lead Nurturing?
Lead nurturing is a general term that primarily refers to the process of building relationships with customers throughout the buyer’s journey. Lead nurturing uses marketing and connection tools like content, email, and PPC to build trust and answer questions. Offering this valuable information encourages customers to continue moving through the sales funnel with your company.
Best Lead Nurturing Practices
Even if you run the best PPC campaign in the world, lead nurturing is the critical element that will ultimately separate the wheat from the chaff. With this in mind, here are the top lead nurturing practices for 2017 and beyond:
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Use social proof to build out your lead nurture strategy.
Social proof is one powerful weapon that can convert leads to customers. Leveraging it in your favor is a smart move. According to Zendesk, 88% of customers use customer reviews to make purchasing decisions. Therefore, including social proof in your PPC campaigns can go a long way toward making them more trustworthy and compelling.
For best results, find natural places to plug client testimonials and press endorsements into your email communications with customers. Do this throughout the rest of your content as well. These tidbits of information can dramatically enhance the impact of your digital content starting right now.
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Use video content to make material more impactful.
According to Invisia, adding video to an email campaign can result in a 200-300% boost in click-through rate (CTR). With this in mind, start adding videos to your emails to improve your CTR and make the content you send out to your followers more memorable. When you do this, you improve brand recall and ensure that your company stands out in the minds of your customers for years to come.
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Be personal.
While being overly personal can drive leads away, addressing things as if you’re speaking to them (because, hey, you are) is a very good idea. With this in mind, write in conversational tones and populate the name sections of the emails with your clients’ names. To take it a step further, input your email into the “from” section of the email campaign.
Remember: in a world where so many of our daily interactions are automated, an email that looks and feels personal will perform better.
5 Ways to Maximize Results
To maximize your lead nurturing results and improve your PPC campaigns, follow these critical steps:
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Use PPC practices to establish a campaign.
Unbounce reports that effective lead nurturing comes down to using tools like the Google AdWords Keyword Planner to identify promising keywords, developing account structure that will allow for easy keyword implementation, and then rewriting copy to convey the primary benefits. By using these PPC practices to improve lead nurturing, you can enjoy enhanced results in the new year.
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Optimize landing pages for simple conversion.
The more optimized your landing pages are, the more likely customers are to convert. Make them simple to navigate, easy to read, and full of valuable information. Additionally, ensure that landing pages feature real customer testimonials, a clear and compelling call to action, and a current phone number connected to an analytics service – so you can measure your conversions. When you do this, your customers can’t help but convert, and you’ll enjoy a more lucrative landing page across the board.
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A/B test your pages.
Some pages will perform better than others, and A/B testing these things can give you a solid idea of which is which. For best results, use A/B testing on an ongoing basis to determine which of your pages are most valuable. When you identify the tactics and strategies that are working, implement them in other areas of your site, as well.
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Address your competition.
Acknowledging, tracking, and addressing your competition is a great way to make your lead nurturing efforts more successful and enjoy a higher ROI. By using campaign tracking tools to monitor the keywords and strategies your competition is using, you can stay on the cutting edge of your industry and ensure that you’re never left in the dark when your biggest competitor makes a move. This, in turn, allows you to enhance your lead generation tactics and keep building highly personalized relationships with your clients.
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Use P.S. lines in your email.
P.S. lines are an exciting little addition which provides readers with something extra. With this in mind, include a P.S. line in your email campaigns and make sure it’s a great one. Additional offers, insider information, or quotes from satisfied clients are all fair game. This year, don’t send a single email that doesn’t include a P.S. line.
Better Lead Nurturing Starts Here
To improve your lead nurturing this year, follow these simple tips. By building stronger relationships with clients and paying ample attention to how you’re connecting with the people interacting with your company, you can grow your brand and secure a solid ROI for the coming year.
Need a skilled company to help you improve your lead nurturing strategy? Contact Thrive Internet Marketing today!
