Good leads are hard to obtain, and some might argue that they are even harder to manage. That’s why you should take extra steps to make sure that you maximize your lead nurturing results.
In most cases, only a small fraction of your leads are ready to buy and a relatively large percentage of the remaining ones expire. However, did you know that you could still recapture and recycle your lapsed leads?
Effectively re-engaging your lapsed leads is all dependent on the timing, personalization, and methodology of doing so, and in this article, we examine how you can harness old leads for new sales. Let’s find out how marketers should go about recycling or re-engaging their lapsed leads.
1. Learn from the Lessons of ABM
Take a step back and look at your leads, have you really given them the proper attention in the past?
A very important lesson that we can learn from account-based marketing is that prospects have different roles (and challenges) and without personalization, the same repetitive generic messaging might not resonate with a lot of them.
One of the most common reasons why leads lose interest is the issue of using the wrong content or approach with a particular group of individuals.
ABM is one of the most effective approaches to explicitly targeting a group of customers with particular tastes. It ensures that each type of buyer group is given personalized marketing materials.
When you fail to customize your approach, you end up with a scattered approach that wastes opportunities and is inefficient on both effort and resources.
Related: 4 Proven ABM Techniques to Maximize Lead Conversion
2. Create a Multi-Step Approach to Marketing and Follow up
One way of re-engaging your old leads is to keep them in the pipeline and automatically market to them after a specific period. By doing this, you will be able to follow up systematically and not miss out on potential prospects by forgetting to connect with them again.
A lot of marketers agree that one of the ways that you can lose a lead is by forgetting to follow up. The growth of automation technology means that there is no excuse for anyone to miss out on leads because of the lack of follow-up.
You must check this out! A guide that will follow up on your leads sequentially.
Furthermore, content should be created for each stage of your lead in the pipeline; this customizes the approach and slowly guides them through.
3. Stop Being a Salesperson – Offer Solutions
One of the best ways to get through to people that you are targeting is to stop being a salesperson and start offering solutions to their problems. Focus on your prospects’ pains and challenges and position your product as a viable solution to their problems.
How does this translate in a practical approach?
- Create content that aims to educate and inform and offer it to your old leads
- Hold free webinars on common issues and the ways to solve them
- Offer free tutorials and guides
- Stop selling and start consulting
Once you provide solutions to your prospects, you will be able to establish yourself as a thought leader, and that puts you in a position to sell to them.
Related: Consulting vs. Selling: Crafting a Winning Business Pitch
4. Retarget them on Facebook
One of the great things about advertising on Facebook is that they have an option for you to create custom audiences that you can target with ads. This means that if you have the email addresses of the people that you’ve already previously contacted, you can throw this list into Facebook and start remarketing to them through targeted ads.
Facebook ads are a great way to re-engage your old prospects. Regardless if they do not click on your ad, you will have one foot through the door because you have reexposed them to your offering.
You can also create another list of similar people using an option that they have called lookalike audiences. This means that you can take advantage of Facebook analyzing the personas of your current list and creating a new list of prospects to send your ads to.
5. Intentionally Reaching Out to Old Leads
There is nothing wrong with checking up on your old leads and reminding them that you still exist. You can do this by utilizing several methods, attach a quick article or a guide to a common problem in their industry, tell them about a new offer that you have, or you could just say ‘hi’.
Sometimes attaching an offer is good enough because it allows you to reach people who would have loved to buy in the past, but couldn’t do so due to limited funds at that particular period in time.
Re-engaging old leads should be commonplace in every marketing plan, and there should be automated measures in place to remarket should the timing be right.
Leads are expensive to procure, and marketing teams should try their best to make the most out of every lead that they have. It is through this consistent effort of lead nurturing that organizations can make the most out of the data that they have on possible prospects.
