The main purpose of your website, besides providing information, is to generate leads. Those leads are then nurtured, and if taken proper care of, become paying clients. The process of lead generation is a science in its own right. When we say lead generation we are referring to a series of activities for every element involving the approach and management of leads, in order to obtain and qualify them. It works on the principle of sharing value added content with a person that shows a level of interest in your company, as well as sustaining an interactive relationship with a person over a certain period of time, more often than not over the long term. It is a systematic process consisting of the following components:

-    lead capturing
-    lead nurturing
-    lead scoring
-    lead distribution
-    and lead recycling

In this article we will be covering lead capturing and nurturing.

Lead Capturing

The first step to lead generation is the effective capturing of leads. Call-to-actions and landing pages when combined and optimised capture leads. Having captured a lead, means that you have obtained an online visitor’s contact information. You have achieved this through prompting the visitor to make contact for any number of reasons. He has willingly filled in forms supplied on your landing pages, which shows that there is a level of commitment from the person’s side, even if it is the lowest of commitment levels. This person has effectively made himself available to receive information from you.

Lead Nurturing

Lead nurturing works on the principle of making multiple contacts with your qualified leads. On this principle solely, Joe Girard, an American car salesman, won himself a space in the Guinness Book of World Records for the best salesman in the world, for personally selling 13 000 cars in retail between 1966 and 1977. Joe sold an average of six cars per day. His secret: Making a concerted effort to keep in contact with his customers, as well as prospective customers, through sending each of them a personalised greeting card on a monthly basis. Lead nurturing today, although rooted in the same principle, has advanced to a level of becoming an exact science.

Lead nurturing refers to the way in which you approach a lead and how you manage that relationship.  Nurturing connotes “feeding” a person with relevant resources, and thereby encouraging a form of development in that person.

The purpose of lead nurturing revolves around your goals and objectives. Your goals should include the following in order of appearance:

1.    To Qualify your lead
2.    To branch out your lead profile
3.    To build up a level of trust with your lead
4.    To supply your lead with solutions to his demands.
5.    To promote yourself as being the best supplier of the solution.
6.    And to finally convert your lead into a customer.

A visitor browsing your web content will fall into a certain category of user. We should ask, “What is this visitor’s motive for consuming you content?” The visitor could be in what we call the ‘Awareness phase’. This means that the visitor has for the first time become aware of your company and that which you offer. Alternatively, the visitor could be in the ‘Research phase’, which means that he has previously become aware of your company or of the specific services or products that you offer and he is considering a purchase. He is now looking to gain knowledge on possible offerings. This is followed by the ‘Choosing phase’, in which the visitor has already obtained clarity of the product or service that he wants and is in the process of choosing the best suited supplier. The final phase would be the ‘Purchasing phase’, wherein the lead will buy something online, or make direct contact with you with the purpose of trading.

In most cases, your lead will be in the ‘Research phase’ when having supplied you with personal contact details. It is crucial to categorise every lead according to the phase they are currently in, to ensure the correct action is taken to nurture them.

Your Message

Your lead has made himself available to be contacted, and so the next step is to contact him. The best is to send an email. Any other form of written communication, such as text messaging or sending a letter can also be applied. In composing your message; you should greet by addressing your lead by name and you should supply the lead with the relevant information requested.

Remember: Your call-to actions and landing pages will be targeted towards something specific. Therefore you will be able to supply your lead with relevant information on first contact. For example: Answering a specific question or delivering an article or an eBook.

To conclude your message, you ask the lead a question or two regarding the reason for his initial display of interest. The purpose of this is to start building a lead profile and to invoke interaction. You’d also want to stimulate curiosity; we call this stimulant technique a cliffhanger. At the end of the message, leave the lead with a promise of further interaction, in other words, a second appointment of contact from yourself. With this message include a cliffhanger that builds up anticipation in your lead, and makes him look forward to the next stage of contact. For example: “You can expect to hear from us over the period of the following week, when we are launching our new eBook, or when we will announce our official annual sale, or when we unveil the latest innovation in printing technology . Till next time, Regards.”

Future Contacts

For future contacts, always consider the following:

• The information you supply should always be targeted and relevant to the specific lead.
• This information should always aim at promising an enriching experience for your lead.
• Continue to ask questions so that you could build a strong lead profile and encourage interaction.
• When your lead makes contact with you, respond immediately or as soon as possible.
• Don’t allow your lead the time to seek answers somewhere else by keeping him hanging for a long period of time before you respond.

When determining an appropriate time to make second contact, aim to find a perfect balance. An engagement frequency between you and your lead should be well thought through and semi-consistent. If you contact the lead too soon and too often, you would come across as being a pushy sales person and lose your highly frustrated lead.

If you leave it for too long before you make contact, chances are that the lead would have forgotten about you and would interpret your mail as spam. Use your discretion to know when to commit more input to the relationship, as well as when to pull back and give the lead some space. The best way of doing this is to put yourself in the shoes of the lead, and consider what kind of time frame of contact you would most appreciate.

Building Trust

With continual communication between you and your lead, you are building a relationship of trust. Continuing with engagement, you will eventually be able to tell in which phase your lead is and which phase will follow. This is important for your strategy. If your lead is in the ‘Research phase’, and is being supplied with valuable information offering solutions to his demands, you know that the ‘Choosing phase’ is the next step.

You can help your lead enter the next phase with the appropriate information, for in the ‘Choosing phase’, it is time to start making clear why your company is the best for the job, while maintaining a discrete tone. You also want to start preparing the lead for the ‘Purchasing phase’, provided you did a good job leading up to this point.

The entire process may seem incredibly intimidating, especially considering you want as many leads as possible, however with proper planning the entire process can be greatly simplified. Your lead nurturing strategy should be carefully planned out, with automated responses. All your follow up material should be pre-scripted. The content you plan to exchange should also be pre-created, such as articles, eBooks, catalogues etc. This is done so that as soon as your first lead is captured your follow up material is ready to be sent with the click of a button.

It may seem like a daunting task, but with proper planning the entire lead generation process can become incredibly simplified and even automated. Provided you establish strong call-to-actions and landing pages.

Sound Idea Digital is a full service digital agency | www.soundidea.co.za

Julian Karstel is a Digital Marketing Consultant for Sound Idea Digital | @JulianKarstel | Julian@soundidea.co.za

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