Lead Nurturing or Drip Email?

There is a big discussion in the sales and marketing community on lead nurturing. Most equate it to a fancy term for drip email campaigns. This analogy would mislead you into missing the value of lead nurturing for your prospects.

Lead nurturing is especially powerful when you are attempting to nurture aged leads back from the dead.

Drip Email Campaigns

The concept of drip email needs little explanation. Debt and mortgage businesses have been using this technique for several years. It is very productive, for the effort put forth.

Similar to direct mail it is a game of large numbers. You buy or acquire a large list of leads and hit them with a series of messages on a time-released schedule of emails.

Unfortunately, these emails are getting less productive and increasingly snagged in spam filters. That is why you need to change the game.

Lead Nurturing

Lead nurturing still relies heavily on email and time-release of marketing material; however, it is much more of a multi-disciplinary approach.

Lead nurturing is about engaging your leads in a variety of ways. This is particularly important when you are working aged leads because you may not be sure which is the best contact method—phone, address, or email.

Setting up your lead nurturing campaign has three dimensions:

1. Schedule of release - Similar to drip emails you want to establish a schedule for your marketing. What are you going to do on day 1, 5, 15, 30, 90, 120, or whatever time scale you think is most productive? Set your campaign horizon longer than you might think. Debt and mortgage customers often respond months after an initial inquiry based on changes in their situation or the market.

2. Method of contact – Mix it up. You are never certain what channel will bring a response. Debt prospects might avoid the phone, younger prospects may prefer email, older prospects might take action on traditional mail–use a variety of methods, yet make them coherently linked.

3. Response to action – This is where the real magic happens with lead nurturing. Be ready to take action and change course based on a prospects action or response. If you get them on the phone you don’t want to have an email come out the next day that says, “I am trying to reach you.” If they call you, reply to your email, or you get them on the phone you need to have a plan and process to change your flow of messaging.

Lead nurturing can significantly increase your lead conversion because it seems like a much more natural and personal sales approach to the customer. Give it a try and turn off that spam campaign.

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