Greg Jenkins

Greg focuses on empowering entrepreneurs through educational events and online courses. Prior to starting Monkeypod Marketing, Greg worked at Infusionsoft as a curriculum developer and lead trainer for Infusionsoft University.

Expert session

Tactic that has had the biggest impact on Greg’s success

Using lead nurture campaign best practices to drive sales

Result if you follow the steps in Greg’s session

Nurture sequences that retain leads, remove objections, build trust, and bring leads closer to being customers

Full session with video, notes, audio and discussion inside EHQ Club. Learn more

Expert session snapshot

Transcript

So where it fits in the funnel is actually not as straightforward as it sounds. So the concept for today’s conversation, the nurture that I’m referring to most heavily is going to be between the lead capture and between the sale, right?

So most businesses have some sort of lead magnet. And if you’re an online business, that could be a series of free tips, it could be a white paper. If you’re an offline business, it could be a consultation or a quote or an estimate, right? Depending on what your business model looks like, you’re going to have one of those magnets that attracts people towards your business.

And then ideally, you have a funnel that guides people towards making a buying purchase. Well, at some point between the lead capture and the buying purchase, oftentimes, that’s where the people slip between cracks. And so, having a nurture funnel in place is the key component I feel that bridges that gap.

Now, the reason I said that this is only one aspect of nurture is, because I believe that you should be nurturing anyone with whom you have a relationship. So nurture can also show up for your existing customers, right?

If you have people who have already purchased, you can nurture them towards an upsell or you can nurture them towards a second or repurchase, right? There’s another end of the funnel over there.

And, you know, for example, I have a referral partner program, I have a network of affiliates who helped promote some of my courses. Well, I have a nurture process for them as well. Any type of relationship that you believe should be fortified or enhanced or any type of rapport you’re trying to build nurture will serve the supplement.

Aright, fantastic. I think this is where probably, yeah, a lot of people do struggle. So it’s good understanding like, how we can look after our, you know, our audience, these people that we’ve worked really hard, we probably paid maybe some money to or a lot of effort, sweat, tears to get that lead, we want to get them to the sale.

Like, make sure you look after them. Like that’s probably the easy thing, especially when you can automate it and set it up properly. So is there a specific sequence or some steps that you would recommend as best practice?

Yeah, so I’ve got a variety of questions that I recommend working through as you design your nurture process. But at the end of the day, it’s about providing value, right? If you show up and you say, “Hey, are you ready to buy yet? Are you ready to buy it”, and then a few weeks later, “are you ready to buy it?”. That’s not nurture. That’s just pestering them, right?

And so a lot of people approach nurture from the wrong aspect because they’re looking for something out of that relationship. And there’s nothing wrong with it. You’re driving sales, right? You’re running a business, it probably should drive sales, but you need to build it with the customer in mind, right?

What experience are you creating that’s for them? What type of value are you providing? And in my opinion, are you anticipating their needs?

Now, if you have a business and you have a product, you probably know the reasons that people don’t buy your product. It could be that they have a lot of competitors in the space, it could be that there’s misunderstandings or misconceptions about the product, or it could be a straight conflict with price.

Well, if you identify those types of objections, what you can do is build a nurture process that addresses them. So it’s alleviating concern for the customer. It’s providing value. It’s further establishing yourself as an expert.

And that way when they get to a point where they are at a buying decision or they’re ready to make a choice, well, you built the rapport with them, you need to ask for a sale and you’ve positioned yourself at the top of their mind. So you’re the brand that they think of.

All right. So for instance, we could look at our own business to say okay, these are frequently asked questions that we’re getting from interest support via email or over the phone, these are the most consistent questions that people are asking. Let’s put this into the nurture sequence.

So we answer a lot of those issues that are coming up most commonly. And what are we doing? Are we telling a story about a past customer or example of how this problem or solution can be overcome? And in the end, therefore, that is the value that we’re providing?

Yeah, so all of those things. Nurture shows up in a lot of different ways. And each business can do it very differently. But I think you should be a anticipating their needs, be addressing common objections and educating them and then see, helping create a shared experience, right?

Telling either testimonials or sharing case studies from people like them for whom this product has already succeeded, right? People want to validate their opinion. It’s sort of the reason that like, Yelp exists, right?

People want to know what other people think. And so one way that you can help leverage that is by showing up before they ask with the types of things you know they’re going to have questions about. Now nurture should also have a specific objective, right?

So in general, your nurture should have one call to action. What is it you’re nurturing them toward? is it you want them to register for something? Or is it you want them to make a purchase? Or is it you want them to become a partner, right?

There’s nurture for all of those different channels. And so start with whatever your objective is, and then work back to find the key milestones that should help guide them there.

I’ve got another rule. One of the common questions that people ask is how long should I nurture someone for and if you can tell your buying cycle right, the average time it takes from someone to go from opt in to purchase. My rule is your nurture funnel should be about one and a half times that.

So if you have a long buying cycle, and some industries do, that’s perfectly fine, you should build a nurture process that stays in touch with them for longer than you expect, you’ll need it too. And some industries are very transactional.

So you may have a short buying process, but no matter the length of your buying, how long that takes nurture exists, and it’s about acknowledging and identifying where it is so that you can create something intentional, rather than just letting whatever happens happen.