How to Nurture Leads Using Salesforce

Do you make purchases from a business when you encounter it for the first time? Most likely not. You do your research, get feedback from your social network, and learn more about its products and services. Your prospects take the same approach. If you go for the hard sell as soon as they enter Salesforce as a lead, you waste resources on a person not ready to make a decision. Fifty percent of qualified leads fall into this group as well, so don’t assume that the lead qualification process immediately takes them to the end of your sales funnel.

Lead nurturing builds a relationship with your prospects to guide their decision-making and educate them on relevant topics. Much of this process can be automated, allowing you to focus your efforts on prospects at the end of the sales funnel.

1. Prepare Nurturing Content for Sales Funnel Stages

You start this process by developing lead nurturing content. You can often source these assets from your marketing department or repurpose current pieces, reducing your need to create a lot of content from scratch. Match everything to specific sales funnel stages and other important qualifications to improve the effectiveness of your nurturing campaign. The upfront work required to assemble the content can be significant, but ongoing additions take much less of your time and effort once you get beyond the creation stage.

2. Personalize the Communication

You already have some information about your prospect in Salesforce, thanks to lead capture forms and other data sources. Before you start the lead nurturing campaign, personalize it based on the prospect’s industry sector, customer segment, pain points and other relevant information. You want to give the prospect the impression that you’re speaking directly to him, rather than just another lead in the database. This is another area where you may have to put in a lot of initial work via email templates and content customization, but you don’t have to worry about finding the time for this task on a regular basis.

3. Use Pardot’s Drip Campaigns

The Pardot tool is perfect for automating the lead nurturing process. You get to spend time working one on one with potential customers at the end of the sales funnel, while Pardot’s nurturing tracks automatically send the right emails and content for your intended audience. You configure the campaign settings to dynamically choose content for each prospect based on several criteria. This automated setup also reduces the time you spend on cold leads and those without any qualification.

4. Set Follow-Up Reminders

“The early bird catches the worm” may be an old saying, but it holds true in sales. Approximately 35 to 50 percent of buyers select the company that is most responsive to their inquiries. You have many responsibilities thrown your way on a day-to-day basis, so you can’t always remember who to follow up with. Salesforce Activity Reminders put all your follow-up information in one place and send notifications your way. You might forget to give the hottest account a call, but a timely nudge in the right direction keeps you at the top of your game.

Would you love to use these features but your company lacks the in-house resources to make it happen? A Salesforce Implementation Partner gives you access to the expertise you need to make this tool do everything your sales team needs it to do.