LEAD NURTURING: The Art of Conversation Marketing
At any given time, only 3% of your market is buying. They are the companies calling for proposals, requesting demos, and engaging your sales staff. These active buyers are in the sales funnel and willing to commit within the next 90 days. But what about the rest? The remaining 97%?
The remaining 97% represent those people who maybe are not buying today, but will be buying shortly and if not from you, then your competitors. They start with the 7% who intend to change. They are passive buyers: not actively shopping, but a lucky cold call or piece of marketing collateral may trigger them to evaluate their options. Then there are the 30% who are irritated. They are not buying. They feel pain, but they have other priorities. These people are prospects and sometimes suspects that you could engage over the next 2 years. Of course, then there are the 30% who are content. They may have recently purchased another solution, they may be too small, or they may not be any feeling pain. Any sales or marketing message will fall on deaf ears with this group. And of course there are the 30% who are just not interested. They may never choose you. They are possibly customers you don't want, and companies that don't want you. Don't sweat it; just recognize that this dynamic occurs.
The "3% Rule" is like the "80-20 Rule". It's a rule of thumb to understand the customer buying cycle. The goal is to understand your customers' buying habits so as to appropriately position your brand when your customers first call when they're ready to buy. (Find out more about the 3% Rule)
This also explains why cold calling does not work. Remember that it takes 5-7 phone calls to get someone else at the other end of the line. When you consider that there is about a 1 in 10 chance that they would even be interested, you need to make about 50-70 calls to find a lead. But a strong inbound marketing and lead nurturing campaign has proven to deliver a lead in 10 phone calls.
How Do You Lure, Engage and Connect with the Remaining 97%?
Advertising focuses on that 3% of the market shopping for your product; you need to develop conversations that engage the 97% not shopping right now. By engaging that market in a conversation you can establish a relationship with then, develop a mind share, and ultimately be the first call when those customers are ready to buy.
With conversation marketing you need to know what to say, when to say it, who to converse with, where to talk, and how to listen.
This leads to the four components of conversation marketing:
- Audience Profile
Define your market, and consider the personalities and needs of the individuals. What is the age range, income level, education level, location, interests, etc. as it is relevant to your industry or business?
- Trigger Events
What symptoms, situations, or circumstances cause companies to consider your product or service? What motivates them to buy? Trigger events provide the topics and background material to produce content that is relevant to your audience.
- Point of View
What is your opinion of the trigger events? What is your opinion about how companies should improve their performance? Leverage your point of view to create interesting and opinionated content around the trigger events.
- Content Distribution
Produce content. Create content that is relevant to your audience, focused on trigger events and fits your point of view, and distribute it contentiously on a monthly basis. Consistency and volume of content distribution is essential.
After developing the four aspects of conversation marketing, you will have a great understanding of who your client personas are and what motivates them- but you still need to find them. You are not to likely to find a 40+ year old baby boomer executive playing on Foursquare, but you are also not likely to find a 20-something Generation Y attending trade shows. Finding your ideal clients is not that hard when you do your homework and know what technologies each demographic embraces. Consider the following:
- Baby Boomers, which make up about 30% of the population, spend over 900 billion a year. As they enter retirement age, many are startingsecond careers or starting their own business. Boomers are big on relationships and have only started experimenting with the power of the internet. Boomers can be found through email or online search.
- Generation-Xers, while not the largest group (17%), are becoming the greatest influencers. They have made it through bad 80's hair, crack, drugs and their parents getting divorced. These new executives have great imagination and creativity, and control over $125 billion in spending. They embrace new technology, using search, email, and limited social network.
- The seventy-six million members (28%) of Generation Y compose a tidal wave poised to redefine business. They are the inventors of social media. This generation will break down the monopolies of business, media, and politics that their parents built by building new businesses that match their own generational expectations. They are using social networking, SMS, blogging search and email.
Now that we know who they are and where to find them, that just leaves the question of how to approach them. In every industry, customers go through predictable buying behaviours. By understanding how your customers buy, and the trigger events that motivate their behaviour, you can fine-tune your marketing, sales, and product development programs. By leveraging lead nurturing and conversation marketing you not only stay top of mind for these customers, but you can do so more cost effectively.
Different generations have different personalities. What differences are you finding between the generations?