Lead Nurturing Online - Pick them green and watch them ripen!

Consider your online business or website comparable to a fruit orchard. With the right precautions, weed prevention, fertilization, irrigation and care, you'll have a healthy bounty of fruit, albeit, when the time is right. To taste the rich flavor of ripe fruit, you've got to pick it at just the right time, before the birds get it! Then you've got to handle it with care, nourish it with ambient temperatures and conducive storage as you watch it ripen. Enjoy the ripe fruit -- a result of your hard work. But stay on guard and don't lose sight of the next crop!

That was some "food" for thought. But here's the logical explanation of the metaphor used. The right search engine marketing and internet advertising strategy will convert more inquiries into qualified leads and qualified leads into sales; i.e. Lead Nurturing. To make your website a fertile ground that will reap the best results, you need the right strategies and a plan for the right activities.

Take all the right steps to remove the weeds (unnecessary distractions) and rotting soil (broken links, underperforming keywords). Maintain a steady infusion of organic fertilizers (professionally written, search engine friendly content). Trim, prune and manage the online landscape to encourage positive reactions and call to action. Visitor satisfaction with every click on your site should build confidence until they reach the final click where they convert into a lead/customer. Then it is time for harvesting. Also, it is the time to watch for dangers of going bad or turning away. Leads, like fruit, are perishable!

Lead nurturing online can deliver some stunning results. Here's a real life example: A WSI customer has an opt-in email alert feature on his website for visitors to subscribe to his content and updates. Taking care to get their permission, he added all his green fruit, i.e., leads, into his online CRM (customer relationship management) database. Two days later, he sent out an email newsletter to his new leads. The email had a few links to his website, a button to download a free whitepaper and a coupon with an interesting offer for first time customers.

The morning after his email had been delivered, he called one of the recipients on the phone to say, "Hello Bob, I believe you just read my email and downloaded the whitepaper from my website an hour ago. I was hoping to get your comments or initial reactions. Is there anything I could help you with in your business today." Needless to say, Bob was stunned and they met for coffee soon after to discuss what is today, an ongoing and profitable business relationship.

Over the last year, the WSI Inside Edge newsletter has covered several Internet marketing fundamentals, trends, techniques and best practices such as Search Engine Optimization (SEO), Pay-per-Click (PPC), Email marketing, Web Analytics, and so on. To find out more about how you can leverage any or all of these Internet marketing methodologies by including them in your marketing plan, attend our upcoming Social Media Marketing Seminar on May 14th. This could be an important meeting for your business.