True lead nurturing requires a one to one relationship, whereby a tailored response is triggered by an individual prospect’s behaviour. On Twitter this means ‘listening’ to the conversation by monitoring for key words, hashtags and phrases, and joining in as appropriate.
Good conversation and quality content are key to cultivating enduring and profitable relationships. Being a good listener will ensure you are connecting with your audience in a timely and appropriate fashion and that you never miss a chance to engage.
Here are five important areas to consider as you embed Twitter into your lead nurturing process.
Creating leads
Twitter is all about relationship building. It’s important to spend time cultivating a community of people who are interested in your knowledge and expertise, and who will share your information with people outside your immediate network, extending your reach.
For Twitter to pay dividends you have to put time and effort into building up your follower base. You do this by proactively seeking out and engaging with people who are likely to be interested in your product or service.
Nurturing leads
Not even your most loyal followers on Twitter want to be bombarded with marketing messages. Twitter is about conversation and content. Try to forget about the sales process and think about the buying process from the point of view of your customer.
What is going to be useful or interesting to them through the key nurture stages of awareness, consideration, shortlisting and buying? Soliciting feedback will help you learn more about your prospects’ needs and interests, and help you recognise when a prospect is ready to move to a sales led conversation.
The role of content
Make your tweets interesting and informative by including lots of links to the type of content that will help people gain knowledge about your area of expertise.
It is fine to tweet about your latest press releases and case studies but don’t over do it. The number of conversational tweets, and tweets containing general info and industry news, should outweigh those containing marketing messages.
Technology
There is a wide range of tools available – some free, some paid for – that can help you manage, monitor and measure your Twitter activity. Which are right for you will depend on a number of factors including budget, ambition, objectives, the complexity of your Twitter strategy and whether you want to align it with other social channels.
Track all outbound links from your tweets, and monitor your web assets for Twitter referrals. Identify your key conversion goals and make sure you’re tracking against them to see where your Twitter activity is pushing prospects along your nurture path.
Twitter lead generation cards
Acquiring leads is the main objective for many businesses on Twitter. In recognition of this, Twitter added lead generation cards in 2013. Using them in your tweets makes it easy for people to express their interest in your business, product or service without having to leave Twitter or fill out a form.
Twitter lead generation cards are a great way of acquiring new leads particularly when combined with Twitter advertising. To qualify leads up front, use the ‘Interests and followers’ targeting options in Twitter Ads and target people who are most likely to be interested in your message.
Synchronise data from the lead gen cards with your marketing software to collect Twitter @usernames and email addresses. A downside for us B2B’ers is they are likely to be personal emails rather than business ones but having the Twitter user name will help move the conversation in the right direction.
Of course, you may decide to outsource elements of your Twitter activity including lead generation and advertising. If you find there are gaps you need to fill, there are some good agencies that can help you.
Robyn Pierce
Head of Social Media
www.thecroc.com
@crocbites