Inbound Content Strategy: Ways to Qualify and Nurture Leads

How to Keep Your Lead’s Interest and Convert to a Sale

– The fundamentals of Content Marketing revolve around the four Es; ?Educate, Engage, Encourage, and Embrace. If you’ve managed to attract a Prospect to your site and capture his or her information, it is time to now focus on how to gauge interest and encourage a purchase. Here are some ways to qualify your leads and obtain a sale via an Inbound Content Strategy:

Inbound Content Strategy: Qualify the Lead

If you’ve managed to capture the visitor’s information, they most likely filled out a form on your website in exchange for information or a downloadable. Most commonly, these are in the form of newsletter signups, diagram and white paper downloads, or contest entries. It is important to understand, among your business and products, how to categorize and score the lead based on what he or she downloaded.

In addition to form submits, an additional qualifying action can be the overall number of forms a Lead fills out. If a lead downloaded several eBooks, he or she is clearly in the hunt for information about your products. This may further qualify and enhance the status of this lead.

Inbound Content Strategy: Nurturing the Lead

Depending on your business, it may or may not be time to converse directly with the Lead. In most cases, if the lead is simply researching and seeking additional information about your products – it might not be the right time for a call – yet. Instead, consider a personalized email offering assistance or offering even more information only available through the email. A good way to gauge whether this email is successful is by including links to specific web pages that are only accessible in the email. If the lead clicks on the link, this further pushes the lead down the sales funnel and can pinpoint where they are in the buying cycle.

Another type of email you can utilize is offer-oriented emails. If you can detect a pattern in the lead’s behavior that provides insight into specific products, a good way to nurture them further is to send emails with the specific products they want. An excellent way to target products is by triggering emails from abandoned shopping carts.

Inbound Content Strategy: Customer Service–Not Just In Store

At the end of the day, one of the most reliable ways to encourage a sale is through great customer service. Even if your leads aren’t ready to pull-the-trigger on a purchase, it is important to remember his or her time is valuable. Don’t convert leads into SQL until you know the lead is truly qualified. Also, it’s best to stay away from too frequent communications too early on. If a lead subscribes to your newsletter, don’t send one-off emails three times a day pestering the lead.

Your lead’s time is valuable and so is yours. Keep in mind, pestering leads not only wastes their time but also yours. Make sure you have a system in place to qualify and encourage the RIGHT leads, and your sales pipeline will be full in no time.

For more information on Inbound Marketing and how your website can fill your pipeline:

Marketing Matters Inbound?is an inbound marketing firm specializing in online conversions, content?strategy, call-to-action mapping and traditional media placement. Our experience in?B2B digital?marketing?and?traditional media?allows us to deliver results through a strategic media mix. We believe in?aligning and merging marketing and sales/operations for optimal return on your marketing investment.