Someone Just Converted On Your Website. What Now?
You just received an email notification informing you that someone has filled out a form on your website. They've converted from an anonymous visitor into a qualified lead. All is right with the world and it's time to start popping champagne, right? Not so fast. How long should you wait before you begin emailing them? What kind of additional content should you send them? Is a phone call too aggressive? Follow these lead nurturing rules and you'll be just fine.
Is the prospect in the Awareness, Consideration or Decision stage of the buyer's journey? The type of content they converted on and how much information they were willing to part with should give you an idea. If they filled out a form to receive more information on pricing, and included a note that they need your services ASAP, you would of course want to call them immediately. If they simply subscribed to your blog, stick to occasional emails offering more content with additional conversion opportunities.
The term 'email marketing' has earned a bad wrap in recent years because companies began buying email lists and spamming strangers. But, when prospects GIVE you their email addresses (as they would in a website conversion situation), email marketing is a noble marketing form that's actually pretty effective. Ideally, you'll have email workflows pre-written and scheduled to be delivered to website prospects through a marketing automation program. If not, begin by sending an initial email a few days after conversion, and schedule a few more spread out over a couple weeks. The messages should 'build' with each email, and should tie in with the content on which they converted.
As the saying goes 'if it looks like a duck and quacks like a duck, it's probably a duck.' In this case, if a person fills out a website form on a blog post about business blogging, requesting to access an eBook titled "Blogging for Business," you can guess what kind of content that person might be interested in going forward. As HubSpot tells us, it's all about delivering the right content to the right person in the right place at the right time.
Monitoring a prospect's social media platforms is a great way to put yourself in the shoes of the prospect. Even without following, connecting, or friending, you can likely gain valuable information about a prospect such as hometown, alma mater, job title, and more – all great conversation starters. If you're lucky, the prospect will post something even more specific about the products or services they may be looking for, or even what their price range is.