Marketing Digest

Multi-Channel Lead Nurturing: Going Beyond the Inbox

Marketing Digest Writing Team

Lead Nurturing Guide Part 4: Bringing the Power of Nurturing Through Different Channels

In the three previous installments, the basic elements of leading nurturing were covered, the factors that comprise a good lead nurturing plan were discussed, and the importance of a lead scoring system were emphasized. Now it’s time to take your lead nurturing program beyond email—and into the complex, multi-channel world of modern consumers.

In this installment, which was derived from the latest edition of Marketo’s The Definitive Guide to Lead Nurturing (@Marketo), you’ll learn substantial tactics you can implement in your lead nurturing program in order to successfully accommodate modern, channel-agnostic buyers.

Building a Cohesive Experience through Numerous Channels

Today, more than ever, it’s crucial for marketers to consider the different channels consumers use to communicate with their brand—there’s email, websites, and social media, for example.

Marketers who want to establish a long-term relationship with their prospects and clients often use email the most. But while email is undoubtedly an essential channel for marketers, it can sometimes fail to reach leads. This happens for various reasons, such as contact databases that expire quickly or smarter inboxes that regularly filter emails.

“As a marketer, you need to think across channels in your lead nurturing,” Marketo emphasized in the guide. It added that through advanced lead nurturing technology, marketers can easily “listen and react from a variety of channels.”

Email aside, listed below are other platforms and techniques marketers can incorporate into their multi-channel lead nurturing programs. Included are tips on how they can use these platforms and techniques to expand their multi-channel lead nurturing strategy.

Marketers should use personalization software to extend their lead nurturing program to the Web. Through this, they will be able to determine the relevant attributes of their leads, such as their intent, behavior, and profile. Marketers can use this information to customize their leads’ online experience and present content that is relevant to them.

Once the software identifies lead attributes, it then matches leads with a pre-set marketing campaign that fits their data segment, and launches it with customized text, banners, calls-to action, and images. Additionally, marketers can target both persona and account based marketing through personalization.

There are a number of ways marketers can fuse their advertising strategy with lead nurturing. One method is to add a retargeting pixel in the emails they distribute, which enables them to target specific display ads to prospects and customers. Another is by using retargeting, which allows marketers to focus their display ads on “different personas, organizations, verticals, and where [their] buyer is in his sales cycle.”

Social media, when done properly, can produce a more cohesive customer experience than any other channel. To maximize the power of social, marketers must remember to maintain a personalized approach. This can be done by constantly engaging with the social activities of their leads, or by using paid social media ads for channels like Twitter, Facebook, and LinkedIn.

By including direct mail, and/or personalized URLS (PURLs) to their lead nurturing programs, marketers can add a human touch to their communication processes.

Although direct mail is a great tool to nurture leads, nothing can beat the power of personal contact. “Cross-channel communication is great, but adding that human touch is a powerful way to accelerate the sales cycle. A call from your sales reps should be an integral part of every nurture campaign.” Being personally involved in the sales process can speed up the sales cycle.

Today’s buyers don’t only use multiple channels when they interact with brands; they also move from one device to another. Making sure that their nurture content—including landing pages, emails, etc.—is responsive is one way for marketers to create a seamless experience for prospects.

 

Stay tuned for the next installment of this series to learn about the power of harnessing content for lead nurturing.

 

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