Here are a few tips for staying on the right side of your prospects:
Be sensitive to on-going behaviour
All those wannabe clients and customers currently in your nurture program are there for a reason – they consumed some content, responded to an email, or hit your website and gave up their details. But when you kick off the nurture stream, particularly through email, stay vigilant for on-going behaviour. If recipients never click on or open a thing, then they aren’t a true prospect and you can save the world from a few more unnecessary emails.
Keep reviewing your data
Most companies will have a fairly cleaned up database to work with, but the rules change slightly when you’re working with a specific segment defined by behaviour. The thing your nurture prospects have in common is that they all connected with you somehow, but that’s about all. Realistically, we’re probably not talking huge numbers for a B2B nurture program, so take the time to do your homework. Who is in your dataset that’s never going to buy from you? Who clearly doesn’t come to close to being your target buyer? The more you can refine your nurture data, the more accurately you can measure its success. Lose the contacts who will never convert and you have a more realistic and responsive set of contacts to focus on.
Is what you’re sending relevant?
Content marketing and demand generation go hand in hand, but ‘having content’ is not going to get you more leads. You know how it is when you need some content for the nurture program, but make sure you apply rule one of good content development – make sure it’s relevant to them. All too often, nurture program content is crated with less emphasis on the prospect and more on the products and services. Your nurture prospects did something to warrant receiving all this great new information – the least you can do is help them move through the buyer journey on their terms, not yours.
More isn’t always more
Spare a thought for those poor unfortunates who have made it into your demand generation program. You may have correctly assessed they aren’t yet ready to buy, but don’t overdo it in your enthusiasm to convince them otherwise. Frequent trigger emails are great from an automation perspective, but take care not to revert to the old skool, ‘spray and pray’ approach, particularly as these emails only tend to offer a cursory degree of personalisation.
To clarify, we’re 100% behind demand generation, but we like to do it properly. Tread carefully in your desire to hook more fish and be constantly mindful of the individuals you’re connecting with for best results.
