How to Get Your Lead Nurturing Prospects to “Talk” to You

How to Get Your Lead Nurturing Prospects to "Talk" to YouHave you ever wondered how to get your lead nurturing prospects to talk to you? B2B leads can tell you a lot about themselves through their responses – or lack thereof – to your marketing messages. They can reveal personality, interest, motivation, determination, and authority through their actions following a marketing contact. Successful lead nurturing starts with getting the information you need to make progressively more effective impressions.

But how do you get them to “talk” to you?

Direct response marketers have been doing this for years. DR companies care primarily about – what else – a response, so DR messages are often designed to initiate a specific instant reaction. Often, this means a one-off sale, but non-DR marketing can employ similar strategies in order to nurture leads towards a sales engagement.

In order to uncover vital information about your prospect during the lead nurturing process, response mechanisms should be included in each message that is sent. Here are a few ideas that can be used to provide insight into critical characteristics of your leads:

Act now! One of the mainstays of direct marketing reveals how motivated your lead is, what messages resonate enough to stimulate a response, and what buying authority the lead has.

Want to learn more? Providing teaser content, such as a brief product description, can be effective at collecting email addresses or other contact information, and may even lead to a customer-facing engagement with a sales agent.

Give us suggestions. By requesting opinions, thoughts or recommendations, a lead exposes his interest level, motivation, and buying indicators. This is an enhanced lead nurturing engagement; after all, he is interested enough to take the time to share his thoughts, so this lead may be worth pursuing.

Refer a friend. If a lead is impressed enough to share a message, product or company with friends, relatives or associates then the marketing impression has been effective. Although it’s difficult to determine lead qualities such as motivation, authority or determination, a lead that refers your information may likely be a good candidate for a brand ambassador.

Like us. Through social media, customers can express their support for your company. Social media “plugs” are good indicators of a lead’s personality. For example, sharing support for your product indicates she enjoys social networking and may possibly be influential.

Get prices instantly. If prices are not listed publicly, a lead can indicate motivation, determination, and personality by requesting pricing. A website widget that collects an email address and instantly delivers a price quote may reveal that the lead needs your solution and is ready to buy or is a price-driven decision maker.

A creative way to further conversations with your prospects is by using marketing automation techniques such as those found in Lead Liaison to reactive to link clicks in an email. For example, if a prospect clicks any link or a specific link as described above then add the prospect into a different nurturing “track” or send them another piece of content that’s relevant to the message they’re responding to.

There are many ways to generate valuable information about your leads. For more ideas to create a successful lead nurturing contact a Lead Liaison representative today.