B2B Web Strategy Blog – eMagine

Try using seed nurturing to reel in those anonymous prospects

March 9th, 2010 Posted by: Bill Gadless

Gotta admit it:  we hadn’t heard the term yet, either.  But as soon as we saw Jon Miller’s definition…

Seed nurturing is the process of building relationships with qualified prospects before you have their contact information.

…we knew exactly what he was talking about;  and chances are you do, too.

You see their trails in your analytics:  those visitors that swoop in and view maybe 5 or 6 pages – some of them pretty meaty – before riding off into the sunset without filling in a registration form or downloading a blessed thing.  You know what they’re doing:  educating themselves on your company and product set while remaining anonymous to you, so they can avoid premature influence by some slick-talking salesperson.  And you can be sure… if they’re doing it on your site, they’re also doing it via third-party resources, word-of-mouth recommendations and social media sites.

As Jon says, “Just because you can’t identify these individuals doesn’t mean they aren’t qualified prospects — and because of this, you must nurture them just as you would the known contacts in your database.”

How to do this?  In his recent post on the Modern B2B Marketing Blog, Jon provides a couple of best practices…

Personalize their interactions with your site.  OK, not as in, “Hello, John Smith”… but you can certainly put them in a small group with others who have searched on your company name, visited your site 3+ times, and viewed the “Convertible frammis” page;  and this group can get a different offer or promotion than groups on a different track.  By doing this over a number of different visit categories, you can in effect be running multiple tailored drip marketing campaigns, without knowing anyone’s email address.

Make valuable content freely available, on your site and via social media.  The silent, anonymous prospect is the strongest argument for scrapping that registration form (or making it optional).  Not everyone is willing to part with their contact info to get your white paper;  but everyone who reads your paper will probably be influenced by it.  (For additional rationale for this recommendation, see David Meerman Scott’s provocative post, “Say NO to squeezing your buyers.”)

Use social media to build credibility and trust.  Buyers act irrationally during the purchase cycle because of perceived risk.  Establishing a mantle of thought leadership – through social media and other means – increases prospects’ trust and correspondingly reduces that perception of risk.  So too does building a solid reputation among a base of cheerleading fans on the social networks;  it’s the next best thing to a personal referral.

It may be a departure from traditional lead nurturing, but these techniques will serve you well with those self-directed prospects who will engage only on their terms.

Entry Filed under: B2B Web Strategy