Search Engine Optimisation (SEO) Marketing, Wellington, NZ - Globe

Delivering eager clients,
ready to buy,
right to your digital doorstep

Nurturing Potential Clients

Many firms are constantly on the lookout for new clients be it to replace those that disappear, or to grow their business. This can be hard work. However, your website can be turned into a lead-generating machine with just a few tweaks, and what's more, it's at work, without complaint twenty-four hours a day, seven days a week.

Website Visitors

When people visit your website they fall into three basic categories. There are those website visitors who are:

  1. Essentially just looking to find out what you have on offer.
  2. Interested in what you have to offer but are not yet ready to buy from you.
  3. Ready to buy from you 'now'.

Clearly you are most interested in categories two and three. Those who are ready to buy you services will undoubtedly contact you and so your sales team will then be able to swing into action. But what about category two visitors who are interested in your products and services 'but not now, thank you'? There are likely to be far more of these people, than there are immediate buyers. How do you market to them? How do you nurture these people until they are ready to buy?

Marketing to Prospects

There are two steps required to nurture and market to these people. You need to:

  1. Capture their contact details, and
  2. Retain their interest in your services and products over time.

Free Gift. People who visit your website but are not ready to buy just yet are often referred to as potential clients or prospects. Having gained their attention you need some mechanism to encourage them to give you their contact details and permission to remain in contact with them. Supplying them with your contact details (phone number, email address etc.) is one avenue, although it's most unlikely that this will be attractive to those not ready to buy. No, you need to do more than that. Supplying a 'contact us' form for prospects to fill-in is a step in the right direction. But again, why would they bother? What's in it for them? You need to do better than that... For the prospect to voluntarily give you their contact details you must provide an incentive for them to do so. So if you were to combine the contact us form with, for example, a free item of value to the prospect then you're in with a chance. Prospects will often supply you with their contact details in exchange for a white paper, a free e-newsletter/e-zine, a thirty-day no obligation trial, an e-book, a podcast or the like.

Developing a Relationship. Having captured the prospect's contact details you need to follow this up immediately by contacting them, before they forget about you. You are looking to build a relationship so the follow-up process may well continue for months maybe indefinitely. Follow-ups should occur at least quarterly, although business-to-business firms do often do this monthly. Unfortunately, there is no ready-made formula for the frequency of follow-ups as it all depends on your business and the market you are operating in. Remember, the average person needs to hear your message seven times before they respond.

The important thing is not to let your prospect forget you. That way, when they are ready to buy, your firm is 'top of mind' because you have developed and maintained a beneficial/useful relationship with them.