Stop cold-calling and start nurturing
January 21, 2016
Rather than cold-calling unqualified leads, marketing automation software takes a much more thoughtful approach. Based on collected data, it determines where each prospect sits in the sales funnel and markets to them accordingly. When a user clicks on one specific service, we continue to send them strategic communication for that service, track their activity across online assets, and work to convert them step-by-step to a customer.
This process is called lead nurturing, and it’s the bridge that connects marketing automation to closing new leads, as well as up-selling and cross-selling current customers. Buyers no longer want to be sold your product or service. They want information to make a decision, and that information usually answers several questions:
- Why should I care about this product or service?
- What problem will it solve?
- Who else like me has used it and had good results?
One of the best ways to answer these questions and gain the trust (and eventual business) from today’s buyer is with the timely delivery of hyper-relevant and personalized content.
Traditional sales and marketing techniques, such as cold-calling and email follow-ups, don’t fit this new buying model for a variety of reasons. They interrupt buyers rather than allowing them to interact on their time and terms, and the “brute force” nature of cold calls makes it difficult to offer any customized insight or value.
By nurturing prospects and customers, you build a relationship by increasing their knowledge base and making them more valuable to their company, from the C-suite down. This consequently raises their comfort level with you and portrays you as an expert partner versus a sales-y vendor.
