There are generally two ways to increase the number of customers you have.

  1. By pouring more money into advertising and capturing more leads.
  2. By increasing the rate at which you convert your existing leads into customers.

They’re both totally viable options, but the former requires additional expense, and the latter is all about improving on what you’re already doing.  You’ve already done the hard work of capturing their information, so why squander that effort with a suboptimal funnel.

In a perfect world leads would come to your website, see an offer and then opt-in. They’d get the offer delivered to them, they’d recognize the value you provide, and they they’d take the initiative to navigate back to your website and sign themselves up as customers.

But we don’t live in a perfect world. As much as we’d like it to, it rarely happens this way. Sometimes it takes a little more handholding. Sometimes they need some time to process, digest, or research.

That’s why it’s critical that you have a system in place that holds their hand, and nurtures them. Remember, you’ve already done the work of getting these people into your sales funnel, now we’re just talking about optimizing this experience.

Why aren’t you following up?

Now, I know most small businesses understand the value of follow-up, and I’m sure there are people reading this who are saying, “Get to the point…”. We’ve all heard the statistics that 80% of sales don’t happen til after the 5th touch point, but most companies only follow up once or twice.

So if everyone knows this, then why are so few people executing on it? Honestly, I’ve seen hundreds of nurture processes that were just plain lousy.

Care about your prospects before they buy

Not enough businesses focus on providing value. I mean it.  Not too long ago I heard a decision maker at a large company say something to the effect of “We will hit our sales goals, and we will blow away our customers expectations.”

Something about this stood out to me, and it took me a while to put my finger on it. She had positioned these two objectives as totally disconnected. How much better does it sound to say “We will hit our sales goals BECAUSE we blow away our customers expectations.”

Your #smallbiz should say, 'We will hit our sales goals BECAUSE we blow away customer expectations.' Click To Tweet

care

 

Too many businesses build their nurture funnel with their own objectives in mind. When the relationship is self-serving, the customer can feel that, and they’re going to grow defensive.

Honestly, one guy I worked with was sending a weekly email to his prospects that more or less said “Are you ready to buy yet?” And then the next week “Are you ready now?”

I was embarrassed for him. But, when you show up to genuinely make the customer’s life better, you’re not only establishing trust, you’re also positioning yourself as an expert. Customers love to buy from experts they trust (go figure, right?).

There are plenty of solutions out there that can help build a nurture process, Infusionsoft is the tool that I use and recommend. You should find a marketing automation tool that suits your business needs, and build a nurture process that converts customers at a higher rate without spending an additional dollar on advertising.

How do I start? Glad you asked. Here are eleven questions you can ask to help design the perfect nurture process. Or you can check out Monkeypod Marketing on your own.

Good luck!