Drawing Parallels Between Lead Nurturing And Social Content Marketing

I’ve been frequently asked the question “why invest in social media and content marketing?” .

The question often asked to substantiate whether there is any clear ROI in engaging in creating compelling new content and distributing it through social media channels. Somehow, it often takes time for executives more comfortable with traditional marketing tactics to come to reason with why they should consider content and social media core to their marketing online. The prospect of how all the content you generate and all the relationships you build with people online through your blog, social networks, podcasts, articles, slideshare presentations work together to create an online “pull” which will drive your inbound marketing sounds good but it’s not a pack of “instant noodles”. It’s perhaps something PR professionals will appreciate more than marketers since they can relate to how personality, image and brand can be built through strategic communication over a period of time.

To convince many other marketing professionals, we may need something a little closer to home to help understand the need to have an active social media and content marketing strategy in play. Something more comparable like “Lead Nurturing”. Lead nurturing doesn’t result in instant conversions. It is however, a highly effective marketing strategy and we marketers love it!

It keeps a constant engagement with prospective customers in the form of emails, newsletters, updates and other content which could be of value to them. It keeps “you as an organization or business” fresh in their minds since they are reminded of you with each “contact” and when they are ready to “buy” or “act” they know who to go to.

Social content marketing works much the same way. It’s perhaps even less intrusive that typical lead nurturing which in itself is pull based. Here’s an example:

The other day someone asked me if I knew a good web design firm in the APAC region. I thought about for a good 3 seconds and said ” try getting in touch with Brightlabs!”.

Now I’ve never used Brightlabs personally for any web design or development work. I do however read their blog posts quite often, see updates from them on Twitter, read their articles which show on my Linkedin feed. Since I ended up following them on Facebook, I also often come across a wall update or hear about what they are up to on my Facebook account feed. Simply through all the outreach and content they publish, they come off as a firm that really knows what they are doing. In my view, they come across as real professionals who have an eye for detail and passion in the sites they design and build. I feel like I know them well through their online communication. Whenever I’m online on any of my social sites such as Linkedin, Facebook or Twitter, I see them there. So when a requirement came up, the first thing that came to my head when I head web design was “Brightlabs“.

Your content and interaction with people on social networks does what you would expect from lead nurturing campaigns.

- Touch base with them frequently

-Provide them information and content which is valuable

-Don’t sell (at least not directly through your content)

-Be everywhere, social networks, search engines, blogs

-Build relationships through what you publish and what you say online

-Become known for what you do

When the time is right and they have a requirement, they will come to you. Going back to the question “Why invest in social media and content marketing?”. The same reason you would invest in lead nurturing program. To keep your prospective customers in the loop so that when they  have a requirement, they know you are there.