6 Tips for Successfully Nurturing Leads
It’s great when your leads end in closure on the first contact, but not even the best salesman can close the first contact every time. You need a place for leads to be stored, evaluated, and periodically revisited – either to follow up or to disqualify.
Think of those leads as seeds that need care and attention to grow and blossom into a future sale. How do you ensure that promising but dormant leads don’t die out before they can reach a final sale? We offer six tips to help you maintain your “garden of leads.”
1. Have a Useful Tracking System
You can’t properly track the progress of your leads if you don’t have a proper system in place. It doesn’t have to be a complex or elegant system – it just needs to be an effective one. An automated system is no more effective than a classic notebook or paper filing system if it’s not user-friendly or is prone to glitches. LeadPoint does provide buyers with a lead management system at no cost.
2. Prioritize the Possibilities
Your tracking system should allow you to rank your sales leads in order to set your follow-up schedule and allocate resources wisely. Even older leads should be ranked in some fashion and not just tossed into a bin of unlikely leads. Regular evaluation gives you the best chance at collective success.
3. Follow-Up Wisely
Nobody likes a pushy salesman, but nobody remembers a missing one. Stay in periodic contact and attempt to set regular contact times to follow up. Establish yourself as a person who can help a client in subtle ways through expertise in the field, and clients will be more likely to contact you when they are ready to move on to an actual purchase.
4. Make Contact Easy
You are motivated to stay in contact with leads, but on the flip side, they have little motivation to stay in contact with you. How can you make it easy for potential clients to remember you – and find you if they do remember you – when they are finally ready to proceed?
Social media is a simple and relatively unobtrusive way to stay in touch. Have an advertising presence that will keep you visible. Maintain a social media presence on multiple platforms to make it easy for people to reach you. This is not a substitute for follow-up communication, just an extra channel to keep communications open.
5. Keep Them Interested
You want people to remember you, but to do so in a positive fashion – not as the one who overwhelms them with unwanted contacts or useless information. A periodic newsletter or social media post that provides interesting and useful industry information can be a great way to stay in contact without appearing pushy.
6. “Weed the Garden”
Sales leads that still show no signs of growth after plenty of attention are drawing nutrients (aka time and resources) away from more promising leads. Take the time to “weed the garden” and allow developing sales leads room to grow in your system.
Growth Will Follow
How is your “green thumb” with respect to sales? Use the above tips to develop your lead nurturing skills and watch your lead conversion rate – and your business – grow as a result.
