Marketing

Stop Losing Leads by Fixing These Two Things

Ellis Friedman

Updated: May 17, 2019 · 4 min read

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In the world of email marketing, you’re either adding value or taking up space. How is that, exactly? People are bombarded by emails, and if yours isn’t providing value, your recipient is either not going to open it, or he’s going ignore it. If that’s the case, you’re just taking up space.

Frank Kern, an expert in direct response email marketing, gives two reasons that you’re taking up space:

1. You’re emailing the wrong audience

2. You’re sending the wrong offer

We spoke with Nathan Folmar, a Keap sales associate, for some insights. He frequently talks to small businesses who deal with these issues all the time, and provided some tips to hang onto those precious leads.

You’re emailing the wrong audience

If people aren’t engaging with your emails, they just may not be the right audience for your message.  This could be an issue with the way you capture—or don’t capture—your leads.

You have to have more than just a Contact Us form or a special offer you put out to make a sale. It’s just not enough. The best way to get the right kind of leads is to have a lead magnet—something of value that your leads will give you their name and email address for. Then you know that the people signing up for your magnet are truly interested in what you have to offer.

That’s why a CRM is so crucial to your leads: Your email marketing comes down to how you engage with your audience, and having the proper tools to capture and renew interest means you can follow up with all of them. And with a CRM, you can prioritize who is ready to buy now and who needs a little bit of nurturing.

You’re sending the wrong offer

A common email marketing faux pas: selling way too early in the process. If you’re putting your sales offer in the first or second email of a nurture campaign, it’s like proposing on the first date—eventually, you’ll get a yes, but chances are, it’s not the yes you’ll want.

Many businesses get stuck focusing on the low-hanging fruit. Only about 2 percent of leads are those low-hanging fruit, so if you’re not taking the time to climb higher on the tree, you’ll miss out on a lot of opportunity. The leads that are higher hanging will take more time to nurture, but nurturing ensures you’re getting the right kind of lead, and getting the right kind of lead will serve you better in the long run by brining you more repeat business, more referrals, and lower churn.

There might be an issue with the way you’re presenting your offers, and the good news is there’s a really easy way to fix that. Nathan Folmar, one of our small business experts, finds a modified version of the 80/20 rule particularly useful and revealing.

His 80/20 rule works like this: 80 percent of people make buying decisions based off the desire to avoid having something happen to them—either for the first time, or again. For example, they’re in the market for an accountant: They either want to avoid having the stress of handling accounting, or they’ve been through the stress of trying to do accounting before and they’d really not like to do that again.

Twenty percent of people make decisions to move toward a vision. It’s the mindset of “I want more of this,” or “This item makes me feel good.”

And yet, most marketing strategies revolve around those 20 percent of people. Let’s take the accountant example. Here’s marketing toward a vision:

Grow your business with Smith Accounting

That’s all well and good, but if most people don’t respond to visionary marketing, it’s not the right offer. Here’s what that message could look like to help people avoid a pain:

No more frustration balancing the books

Don’t tell your audience what they can have; talk to them about what they can avoid. Tell them what pain you eliminate or risk you mitigate.

The beauty of having a lead magnet—or better, multiple lead magnets about different topics—is that then you know what people are interested in so you can provide them with the proper messaging.

It’s time to stop letting leads slip through the cracks by setting up the correct lead capture mechanism and creating a nurture campaign that targets exactly what your list is looking for. 

Are you looking for more leads?  Click the image below to watch a free webinar from Frank Kern and learn how to turn your leads into sales.

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