Drip Email Messaging is a great tool in the marketers’ resource kit. Most modern Sales Lead Tracking and Management Software Systems include at least some sort of drip email marketing feature to be used as part of lead nurturing process. Advanced lead systems (such as Leadpro247) include a plethora of event triggers and action choices that can be leveraged to send a variety of automated drip email messages. In fact these drip marketing messages blur the difference between the transactional messages and marketing /informational messages. However, marketers have to be cautious and make sure that they are not substituting the drip messages for  personal email one-on-one email messages and follow-up phone calls.

Leading lead tracking systems such as LeadPro247 tightly integrate the drip marketing function with lead follow-up activities and feedback mechanisms such as online surveys. While these features can be leveraged to increase the prospect engagement, the same can never be considered as a replacement for old fashioned phone calls and direct email messages.

Reasons

There are several advantages of personal telephone calls and email messages, especially when the lead is in a warm ot hot stage. Here are some of the reasons:

• Low Delivery rates – Drip email delivery will be much lower than the personal / direct email delivery rate. Important follow-up messages should not be missed.
• Low Open rates – Even if the drip messages are delivered to their in boxes, the email open rates will be significantly less. Though right subject lines and other email header parameters could reduce this issue, a serious / hot prospect should not be left out for any reason.
• Minimal Personalization – Though the email messaging is greatly improved with automated personalization feature, it cannot be equate to the personally hand crafted email messages. A human being can respond much more personally depending on the nature of follow-up and the action which triggers the email.
• Missing Personal Touch – Personal telephone calls can produce significant results when the lead is in the advanced sales stage. By automating the follow-up messages, you miss out a chance for personal interaction and faster lead conversion.

If you are a small and medium business owner or online marketer looking to increase leads and sales, you must be either using a sales lead capture, tracking and management system already or evaluating the lead solutions available in the market. When deploying a lead tracking and marketing automation system, make sure that your websites are integrated with the same in order to capture leads automatically.

Websites as Lead Generation Sources

We all know that internet is becoming the primary source of sales lead generation and prospects land on one or more websites to seek your products or services. if you are driving a ton of traffic to your websites and the prospects are brought to the landing pages, converting the visitors into leads and following up with them is critical for success. It does not matter whether you are in B2B or B2C marketplace, automating the lead capture is an essential step to expedite the lead follow-up processes.

Automating Lead Capture from Landing Pages

I have come across many small business clients who use our LeadPro247 lead management software system, but are yet to integrate their websites where leads are generated. Majority of the customers still capture the lead information on basic forms and email the data to one or more inside sales / marketing team members. They take up their own time and then enter the leads into the lead distribution, tracking and management system.

It is critical to automate the lead capture process by integrating the landing pages (or signup forms or registration forms) with the lead management system. Many consider this integration process a tedious and complex one.

Lead Capture Methods

The leads captured on the websites can be emailed and then entered manually into the system as mentioned earlier. Precious time is wasted in this process delaying the follow-up activity. Any manual entry leads to errors and inaccuracies. And some leads might slip through the cracks and never get into the lead management system!

The simplest and easy method of lead capture by embedding a small code provided by your lead tracking and management system into the landing page. If you do not have the in-house capability to embed the code into the sign-up form, take help from the lead management service provider. Most providers do this for a small fee as it does not take much time. If you are using third party web developers or consultants, some tend to discourage this practice and push back. Don’t fall for their pressure! If they cannot incorporate your request or do not know how to do it with little efforts, then it may be time to look for an alternate service provider!

The industry term used for lead capture specifications is lead posting instructions. There are slight variations in this lead push process. Check with your lead tracking system provider; they would be more than happy to provide you the details.

If you have multiple landing pages or websites, you can pass on the “lead source” from each page to the lead system. The lead source information would be useful in the lead followup process. For example, you can plan different drip email messages to leads collected from each source.

Lead tracking systems will also support capturing leads generated through multiple pages (i.e. sign up form split into multiple pages). Most service providers would be able to help you with custom services in such cases.

If you are lead generation company capturing leads to resell the same to one or more lead buyers, automating the lead capture is first step. You may refer to our blog for more information on lead generation capture and distribution software solutions.

Leverage the lead capture features of your lead tracking system and convert more prospects to customers. Happy selling!

While this blog serves as a lead management resource center for small and medium sized businesses and marketing professionals, a dedicated blog has been launched by LeadPro247 lead distribution, tracking and management service providers to cater to the Insurance Lead management needs of Agents, Brokers and professionals. Insurance lead segment is one of the competitive areas in internet lead generation and agents have started using internet generated leads increasingly. The entire insurance lead generation and management domain has undergone a sea change in the past couple of years.

The blog is located at http://www.Insurance-Leads-Management.Com. The subjects covered in the resource center include Insurance lead generation, leveraging social media by agents, buying internet leads, evaluating third party lead companies and lead providers / vendors, assessing insurance lead quality, lead tracking best practices, lead delivery and tracking processes, drip emails (autoresponders) for lead nurturing and automatic follow-up, insurance lead tracking software tools, lead management tips, tricks and guidelines, automating routing of leads to insurance agents, and effective lead conversion methods.

The entire spectrum of the insurance industry is covered. Health, Life, Auto, Home, Commercial / Business, Annuities, Renters and other insurance lead management professionals can benefit from these resources. The insurance industry centric blog will be a great complementary tool in you are in the insurance service industry.

Lead Nurturing is the process of developing leads and converting them to customers using long term marketing, engagement and follow-up strategies. With the wide use of Internet by the consumers and businesses to locate, research and purchase goods and services, Lead Nurturing has gained a much wider and critical importance among marketing professionals.

While most of the time the prospects need immediate response from the sellers, it is also true that many prospective buyers look for information right at the early stages of buying process. Hence keeping those future customers engaged, educated, gaining their confidence and finally converting the leads to customers is a key part of today’s marketing process. Lead Nurturing Software helps to nurture the internet leads using automated software systems and processes.

Lead Nurturing Software Tools

Leads generated from Internet and online media such as social networking sites and web 2.0 tools, who are not looking for immediate purchase, can be nurtured using lead nurturing software programs with built-in Autoresponder Services, event triggered sequential drip email marketing automation programs, and lead tracking systems.

The nurturing process takes various cues depending on your nature of business. For example, if the telephone contact information of the prospect is available, it can also be put through a contact center (not focused on sales but nurturing). If the physical address is available, even a traditional snail mail can be sent in a suitable time interval. However, these traditional nurturing methods are loosing relevance, as there is remote possibility of having contact information other then email addresses. Over 80% of leads generated on the internet, especially using social networking media sites, will have only email address as the contact information.

Many integrated Lead Management Software solutions such as LeadPro247 marketing automation suite, come with relevant lead nurturing tools. These are generally web based systems and easy to use. Typically the following components can be used to develop and nurture the leads:

• Auto Responder Service: This tool is nothing but Email Marketing Automation service with built-in drip email marketing broadcast feature. Drip email messages are automatically triggered by the system by predefined events such as times lines, bahavioral actions, and online activities.
• News Letters: Electronic newsletters are great nurturing tools for educating and engaging the prospective customers. Email marketing service will be used to design, deliver and track email newsletters with marketing information.
• Online Surveys: The biggest benefit of using online survey software is that you can read the prospects’ minds. This will provide an insight into the thoughts of the prospect and your services can be tuned accordingly.
• Lead Tracking: When you are nurturing a lead online, tracking the behavior is the most important aspect. Unless you know how they are behaving and what they are responding to your marketing communications, you can not deliver meaningful messages or take corrective actions. Again, the integrated Lead Tracking software such as LeadPro247 could be leveraged to track the email message opens, clicks, site visits, survey responses, and whitepaper / document downloads.

Usage, Relevancy and Frequency

While there are several tools and systems available for internet generated leads, it is the the user who decides when and how to use the features available. As an online marketing professional, you must choose the right business rules, timing and frequency for delivering nurturing messages. Using a lead nurturing software tool itself is a not a panacea for all ills! It depends on how you use it.

For example, sending too many email messages might trigger the prospect to unsubscribe from your email list. Similarly, if you do not mail frequently enough, they prospect might forget about their research and your relevany product / service and might report your email message as a SPAM or Unsubscribe from the list.

The messages have to be relevant to the prospect’s needs and requirements. Use the segmentation features available in your email marketing or autoresponder service to deliver right messages to the right target audience.

Review the nurturing programs and business rules settings on a regular basis and tweak and improve the same on a continuous basis. What is right and relevant today may not be relevant tomorrow, especially in the online world. If you are dealing with B2B sales leads, you may also employ lead ranking or scoring techniques to improve the lead nurturing and follow-up process.