Pull cold leads back into your sales funnel with a cohesive lead engagement strategy
How to nurture cold leads
Pull cold leads back into your sales funnel with a cohesive lead engagement strategy
What is cold lead re-engagement?
For any growing online business, most leads and prospects who enter the sales process won’t become customers overnight — it takes due diligence in the form of strategic lead nurturing to prime someone to buy from you.
Not all lead nurturing takes place immediately following initial opt-in. According to Marketo, on average, 50% of the leads in any system are not yet ready to buy. That means a good portion of leads who enter your sales funnel aren’t ready to commit to a purchase and may not be for some time. After expressing interest in your business by filling out a form on your website or opting in to your list through some other medium, a good portion of your leads will drop off in engagement over time, resulting in inactive leads.
While these leads are on your list, they no longer express interest in your business; they don’t visit your website or buy from you, and in the time it’s taken them to shop around, they’ve likely forgotten you even exist. This buyer purgatory leaves disengaged leads open to indifference toward your brand and, therefore, vulnerable to competitors.
Enter the cold-lead nurturing campaign. This powerful marketing/sales tool automatically identifies your cold leads and gradually re-engages them through a series of personalized, nurturing emails. Targeted to appropriate segments of your list, cold-lead nurturing ensures that you stay top-of-mind with your leads, pulling them back into your sales funnel with content marketing and other strategic calls to action until they’re ready to buy.
What is cold lead re-engagement?
For any growing online business, most leads and prospects who enter the sales process won’t become customers overnight — it takes due diligence in the form of strategic lead nurturing to prime someone to buy from you.
Not all lead nurturing takes place immediately following initial opt-in. According to Marketo, on average, 50% of the leads in any system are not yet ready to buy. That means a good portion of leads who enter your sales funnel aren’t ready to commit to a purchase and may not be for some time. After expressing interest in your business by filling out a form on your website or opting in to your list through some other medium, a good portion of your leads will drop off in engagement over time, resulting in inactive leads.
While these leads are on your list, they no longer express interest in your business; they don’t visit your website or buy from you, and in the time it’s taken them to shop around, they’ve likely forgotten you even exist. This buyer purgatory leaves disengaged leads open to indifference toward your brand and, therefore, vulnerable to competitors.
Enter the cold-lead nurturing campaign. This powerful marketing/sales tool automatically identifies your cold leads and gradually re-engages them through a series of personalized, nurturing emails. Targeted to appropriate segments of your list, cold-lead nurturing ensures that you stay top-of-mind with your leads, pulling them back into your sales funnel with content marketing and other strategic calls to action until they’re ready to buy.
Why do you need a cold lead engagement strategy?
The goal of a cold-lead nurturing campaign is very simple: to create a safety net, prohibiting cold leads from slipping through the cracks. Too often, lead nurturing falls by the wayside: Businesses are so preoccupied with generating new leads, that they neglect the ones they’ve already spent time and resources to attain. The cold-lead campaign picks up where many small businesses leave off, rendering it a pillar of any marketing campaign. This is because:
- It takes multiple touches before a buyer consciously decides to buy.
- Long buying cycles and higher ticket items can work against you if buyers forget you exist.
- In many niches, persistence is key in making a sale.
The preconceived notion that regular newsletters are sufficient in re-engaging lost leads is one that continues to cost businesses sales. The fact remains that lead nurturing is a delicate balancing act. To get the best results out of a cold-lead nurturing campaign, your marketing has to resonate with your audience by addressing their pain points. This starts with having your buyer personas dialed, being fully in tune with the length of your buying cycle and actively publishing a growing archive of niche content. Even if the aforementioned items are still a work in progress, putting a campaign in place will do wonders for your ROI.
Push cold leads back into your sales funnel
By adding a cold-lead nurture campaign to your online sales process, you’ll nudge your cold leads to the next step in the buying cycle while keeping a line of communication open with a series of targeted touch points.
Free up your marketing team resources
Delegating your cold-lead nurturing to an automated platform enables you to produce more high-quality sales leads with less manual effort — allowing you to focus your marketing efforts elsewhere for a greater ROI. Rather than handling busywork, you’re free to refine your offer, seek out alternate channels of revenue and up your overall creativity.
Push cold leads back into your sales funnel
By adding a cold-lead nurture campaign to your online sales process, you’ll nudge your cold leads to the next step in the buying cycle while keeping a line of communication open with a series of targeted touch points.
Free up your marketing team resources
Delegating your cold-lead nurturing to an automated platform enables you to produce more high-quality sales leads with less manual effort — allowing you to focus your marketing efforts elsewhere for a greater ROI. Rather than handling busywork, you’re free to refine your offer, seek out alternate channels of revenue and up your overall creativity.
Where does Ontraport fit with your cold lead engagement strategy?
Whether you’re a solopreneur or have a team, one thing is certain: Your time and resources are likely stretched thin. There’s no feasible way to thumb through your database of leads and make multiple follow-up calls or send each lead emails at variable moments in the nurturing cycle. You need a dependable automated system that tracks the activity of your leads, identifies cold/disengaged leads and sends cold leads a series of strategically timed lead nurture content.
With Ontraport, creating an automated lead nurture campaign is easy. Deploying a lead nurturing campaign using Ontraport ensures that you stay top-of-mind with your potential customers while also building a foundation of trust.
With Ontraport, creating an automated lead nurture campaign is easy. Deploying a lead nurturing campaign using Ontraport ensures that you stay top-of-mind with your potential customers while also building a foundation of trust.
“Lead generation is important — but it’s only one piece of the puzzle. The real magic happens when you nurture those leads. Don’t send people to your copy and cross your fingers, hoping for a sale. That strategy doesn’t work.”
- Neil Patel, Co-Founder
Examples of how to nurture cold leads using Ontraport
Free content
With cold-lead nurturing in Ontraport, you can use existing content like ebooks or templates to re-engage your list. When a lead is automatically subscribed to your cold-lead nurturing funnel, they'll receive a series of emails, each promoting a unique, free piece of relevant content that either sheds light on or solves a common problem. Each of these emails links to a content download page where they can claim your free offer. This happens over a 60-day period in efforts to coax your cold lead back into your sales funnel. Should they buy from you, they'll be instantly unsubscribed from your funnel.
Contests and giveaways
One tried and true method of increasing interaction with your brand and re-engaging leads who have long been inactive is launching a contest or giveaway. In order to do this, set up a promotional funnel in Ontraport to build hype around your contest/giveaway among your contacts. Once a lead is subscribed to your promotional funnel, they’ll receive a series of automated emails, each of which highlights the prize(s) entrants stand to win. This could be anything from a free product to a free six month subscription to your service - anything compelling and valuable that you’re willing to give away. The email series will also send leads to your contest entry landing page where your contest entry Ontraport form is hosted. Then whenever leads enter the contest, they’ll receive a thank you email and a subsequent email announcing the winner(s) of the contest/giveaway.
Discounts
Coupon/promo codes are a great incentive to re-engage and nudge leads towards a purchase. To do this with Ontraport, send them a series of automated emails with personalized coupon codes for your product or service. These emails, triggered once a lead is deemed inactive, can either repeat a single promotion or offer a progressively better discount over time using coupon codes that are unique to each contact and auto-generated by Ontraport. Should the lead become a customer, the emails will cease automatically.
Live webinars
Webinars are an engaging medium to communicate the value of your product to cold leads and reignite interest. With cold-lead nurturing in Ontraport, you're able to promote upcoming webinars surrounding your product or niche with ease. When cold/inactive leads are automatically added to your cold-lead nurturing campaign, they'll receive a series of emails, each promoting an upcoming free webinar. Within each email is a link to a webinar registration page. Leads who register will thereafter receive a webinar confirmation email along with access to your informative, free webinar.
Surveys
With cold-lead nurturing in Ontraport, you can re-engage your inactive contacts with surveys. Not only does this give you the opportunity to reconnect with your leads, it’s also a way of collecting helpful data to improve your business and products. To do this, you’ll build a survey funnel in Ontraport to promote your survey and highlight the reward for completing it. Once leads are subscribed to your survey funnel, they’ll receive a series of automated emails, each of which directs them to your survey Ontraport form. When leads complete the survey, they’ll receive a thank you email as well as the reward you promised to build further positive rapport with your brand and significantly up the odds of them buying from you in the near future.
Referrals
Offer cold leads a referral bonus to re-engage them and bring in even more leads. You can do this in Ontraport by automatically adding cold/inactive leads to a cold-lead referral campaign. On this campaign, they’ll receive a series of emails containing their unique affiliate link generated by Ontraport that keeps track of all their referrals. Should they refer a lead that ends up buying from you, the referrer can be compensated.
Ready to learn how to nurture cold leads into sales?
“I simply cannot believe how powerful Ontraport is … The ability to know each and every touchpoint that prospects have with my business is so important. We never read an email from a client or prospect without knowing their entire relationship with our business. We would be lost without Ontraport.”
— Matthew J. Watts, FreedomPreneur Business Academy
Ready to learn how to nurture cold leads into sales?
“I simply cannot believe how powerful Ontraport is … The ability to know each and every touchpoint that prospects have with my business is so important. We never read an email from a client or prospect without knowing their entire relationship with our business. We would be lost without Ontraport.”
— Matthew J. Watts, FreedomPreneur Business Academy
Frequently Asked Questions
What is marketing automation and why is it so important?
Marketing automation is technology that manages repetitive marketing tasks and complex campaigns so you don’t have to. This software allows you to automate your communication with leads and customers throughout the customer lifecycle, from their first touchpoint to post-purchase.
When paired with a CRM that collects data about your leads and customers, your marketing automation software can use that data to deliver engaging, effective experiences across multiple channels. Whether you use email marketing, SMS messages or a combination of the two, marketing automation tools will give you the power to turn more leads into customers — without managing the whole process manually.
When paired with a CRM that collects data about your leads and customers, your marketing automation software can use that data to deliver engaging, effective experiences across multiple channels. Whether you use email marketing, SMS messages or a combination of the two, marketing automation tools will give you the power to turn more leads into customers — without managing the whole process manually.
What is a digital marketing funnel?
Digital marketing funnels are like road maps that your prospects follow until they eventually convert into loyal customers. You can create all kinds of funnels depending on your business and strategy, however most center around the five customer lifecycle stages: Attract, Convert, Fulfill, Delight and Refer.
With marketing automation, your leads and customers will move from one stage to the next based on their interactions with your business. For example, your marketing platform can bump a contact to their next lifecycle stage automatically after they reach milestones like signing up for your newsletter or making a first purchase. The best part is, it all runs on autopilot after you set it up, which gives you the power to scale faster.
With marketing automation, your leads and customers will move from one stage to the next based on their interactions with your business. For example, your marketing platform can bump a contact to their next lifecycle stage automatically after they reach milestones like signing up for your newsletter or making a first purchase. The best part is, it all runs on autopilot after you set it up, which gives you the power to scale faster.
Is Ontraport a good choice for B2B marketing automation?
Yes — Ontraport is a great fit for attracting new prospects, nurturing leads, generating sales and more for your B2B business. We offer reliable tracking and attribution, highly personalized communication channels, and ready-to-launch marketing funnels that you can kick off in minutes. Plus, since Ontraport lets you gather and store more data than most marketing automation solutions, you’ll be able to reach more potential customers and get better results from your marketing efforts.
How do I know if Ontraport is the best marketing automation software for me?
When you’re shopping for a marketing platform for your business, you’ll want to take your entire business into account — not just the marketing side of things. Whether you choose Ontraport or not, we recommend making sure your automation platform includes the following features, at the very least:
- A website or landing page builder to share your business with the world online
- A system for capturing leads and sending marketing emails
- A contact management system (CRM) to keep track of clients and prospects
- A payment processing tool to collect orders and charge credit cards
Of course, you’ll probably need more sophisticated tools as your business continues to grow. With Ontraport, you’ll have everything you need now and in the future — all under one roof.
Take a look at our buyer’s guide for a complete checklist of all the CRM, marketing automation and sales features to keep in mind throughout your software search. It’ll help you find the perfect platform for your business (even if you don’t choose Ontraport).
Take a look at our buyer’s guide for a complete checklist of all the CRM, marketing automation and sales features to keep in mind throughout your software search. It’ll help you find the perfect platform for your business (even if you don’t choose Ontraport).
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