Are you looking to build up your customer and client base online?
Despite lead generation becoming an increasingly popular marketing strategy, did you know that 70% of marketers still say that converting leads is their top priority?
While lead gen can be a powerful tactic for businesses in numerous niches, failure to nurture those leads into sales will do nothing positive for your company's bottom line.
If you're seeing poor results for your lead generation campaigns, your lead nurturing may be the culprit.
Here are 10 reasons that your lead nurturing campaign can fail and how to fix it!
1. Your Content is Weak
Evaluating the content in your content marketing should be the first step in diagnosing lead nurturing campaign problems.
Lack of quality content or an abundance of poor content can be your worst enemy when it comes to converting leads.
In order to build trust with your leads and warming them up for a sale, make sure that all of your content resonates with them.
Be the business that answers their questions, solves their problems, and is the most valuable resource they have.
2. The Path
Isn't Customized
While marketing automation tools absolutely make lead generation a more systematized and seamless process, they can also cause issues in lead nurturing campaigns.
Once you have a strong understanding of your customer personas, customize the follow-up path to suit each.
For example, the nurturing messaging for a home buyer would be different than that of a commercial real estate investor.
3. Your Lead Nurturing Campaign Has No Personality
The issue with a lead nurturing campaign that has no personality is tied directly to your content.
Oftentimes, this problem will manifest with content that is overly sales-y, with bland copy and lacking any expertise or personal connection.
As mentioned earlier, in lead nurturing you want to build trust in your brand. Don't go for the immediate quick sale.
Write your content in an approachable, friendly voice and be prepared to actually answer inquiries by email personally.
4. Not Using Appropriate Call-To-Action
Some types of lead nurturing content fall flat simply because you're not giving the leads a path to purchase.
Having clear calls-to-action can alleviate this problem immediately, even in your first welcome email sequence.
For example, simply asking a lead to reply to your email is a great, simple call-to-action.
A passive type of call-to-action could be an email footer that sends leads to a variety of places such as a product page, social media profiles, or contact form on your website.
5. You're Not Targeting Lead Behaviors
With marketing automation systems becoming more advanced each day, personalizing your nurturing based on lead behavior is a reality and a huge benefit.
Spend some time determining what type of action on a lead's part elicits a specific response from your marketing team.
Targeting messaging based on behavior is just another way of making your content more personal and your brand more trustworthy.
6. Not Researching Customer Personas
Failing to do proper customer research will deflate even the most attractive lead gen campaign.
Before beginning the process of developing a lead magnet and putting your nurturing systems into place, you'll need to spend a considerable amount of time getting to know your ideal customer.
There are plenty of online tools to help accomplish this task. For example, if you're using paid traffic like Google Adwords or paid social, a keyword planner of Facebook's Audience Insights can be immensely helpful.
7. Not Qualifying Leads
While conventional wisdom might assume that lead qualification is the result of a lead nurturing campaign, it is actually a very important part of the process.
If your nurturing campaigns are just not producing an ROI, the leads you're generating may not be the right fit for your audience. This will bring you back to the customer research phase.
To help with qualifying leads, be sure to segment your lists and pay close attention to analytics.
From there, you can make educated decisions about which audiences you should continue to pursue and which you should leave behind.
8. Weak Follow-Up and Not Retargeting
While it's important not to overwhelm the inboxes of new leads with constant emails, your follow up email sequence is a must have.
If you expect leads to convert to sales after opting-in to a lead magnet two months ago with little to no follow-up, think again.
Speaking of paid social advertising, plan to set up custom audiences based on your list segments. This will allow you to run retargeting advertising campaigns on Facebook for additional nurturing.
9. You're Not Welcoming Leads In
Speaking of follow-up, it goes without saying that if you're not welcoming your leads into your funnel, there's a good chance they'll go cold.
Your welcome message should be the first step in your follow-up during lead nurturing email sequence, as mentioned above.
For example, a simple automated email after a lead opts in for your lead magnet can make all the difference to whether a person interacts with you later.
Timing is everything in sales and a lead nurturing campaign is no different. Don't be a lazy marketer. Make your welcome messages prompt.
10. Not Optimizing Your Lead Magnet
Last but certainly not least, remember that your lead magnet is at the very top of your sales funnel.
Think critically about whether your lead magnet is working as a catch-all to solve a BIG problem for your ideal customers.
If you optimize your lead magnet and make it as visible as you can, you'll see an influx of leads that are more likely to convert with less nurturing.
Turn Leads Into Customers!
Now that you've got an arsenal of lead nurturing ideas to patch the holes in your strategy, take time to determine the weak spots in your lead generation campaigns!
Have you covered all these points, but are still having problems with your campaign? Let us know in the comments!
If you're not sure where to start with a lead nurturing campaign, get in touch with us and we'll help you set up a solid strategy!