Turning Around Your Freelance Business with Lead Nurturing
Posted March 7, 2010 in Managing Clients, Marketing 27 Comments »
Before I was a freelancer, I sold software for a living.
Unfortunately, my employer didn’t have much of a marketing team. So, it was up to me to find my own prospects.
That was a lot of work. But, it’s also what led me to eventually quit my sales job to become a successful freelance copywriter.
You see, by having to write my own marketing and sales materials, I learned a lot about what it takes to generate a steady stream of leads. For instance, I noticed that only about 10 percent of the leads I was generating were actually ready or willing to talk with me about my product.
That was no surprise. But, what shocked me was how many of the other 90 percent (the ones who weren’t ready when they first contacted me) bought from me 3, 6, or 12 months later—as long as I stayed in touch!
Lead Nurturing Works
In fact, at one point, one third of all my new business was coming from this group of “not ready yet” leads! By staying on their radar screen in a nonthreatening way, I was the first person they thought of when they were ready to buy project management software. As a result, the cost of my mailing efforts began to drop (I no longer needed to generate as many leads to make one sale). And I quickly rose to the top sales position in my division.
Since then, I’ve implemented this same “staying in touch” strategy in my freelance business. And I’ve found that much of the difference between just “getting by” and earning an executive-level income as a freelance professional lies in what you do with prospects who are not ready to hire you today.
You’re Leaving Opportunities on the Table!
According to Brian Carroll, author of the popular book Lead Generation for the Complex Sale, only about 5 to 15 percent of prospects for your services are either actively looking for or considering what you offer.
But Carroll notes that as many as half of the remaining 85 to 95 percent of leads will typically buy the services you provide—either from you or from one of your competitors—over the following 18 to 24 months.
There’s a good reason for this. When you market your services to a select list of prospects, you have a great deal of control over the companies and people you target.
What you have no control over, however, are the current needs of those organizations. If there’s currently not a project in the pipeline or even a budget for one, you’re not going to land a project that day.
But, your chances go up dramatically if you stay in touch in a very strategic yet sincere way.
Ideas for Lead Nurturing
I’ve landed a tremendous amount of work just by staying in touch with longer-term prospects. Some of these prospects became big clients years after my first contact. And it was my steady approach to staying on their radar screens that made all the difference.
Here are some ideas on how to do this well:
- Articles You’ve Written–If you write a newsletter and have a few articles lying around from previous issues, start sending them to your prospects via e-mail or postal mail. Relevant, insightful, and well-written self-authored articles make excellent nurturing material. They give you credibility, position you as an expert on the topic, and provide your leads with ideas and insights that could help them do their jobs better.
- Reports or White Papers–Have you written a report or white paper on a topic that would be of interest to your target audience? If so, this can be a powerful nurturing piece. Here again, reports and white papers give you credibility while offering value to readers. Don’t have a meaty report you can share? Not a problem! Try assembling one with previously published articles that touch on a common theme.
- Third-Party Content–The content you send doesn’t have to be completely self-authored. In fact, it’s better to have a good mix of self-authored content and third-party information. Assemble a good list of interesting and relevant third-party content in the way of articles, blog posts, reports, white papers, success stories, reference material, survey results and statistics.
- Success Stories–Also known as “case studies” in marketing-speak, success stories are short articles that describe how you’ve helped a client solve a specific challenge and your service. For obvious reasons, these make great “staying in touch” pieces.
- Press Releases–Have you recently written a press release on a big client win, a noteworthy success with an existing client, or a new service offering? Send it out to your prospects! But, don’t limit press releases to news about you and your business. Seek out interesting stories about new trends, statistics, events, and products that would be of interest to the people on your list.
- Monitor and Adjust–To be effective, make sure to adjust your frequency so that you’re not perceived as a pest. Also, try staying in touch for at least a year before giving up on a prospect. As mentioned earlier, some of these client wins will come 18 months after the first contact.
Finally, to diversify your efforts, rotate your media. Use a combination of email, postal mail and phone. And make sure to keep track when you sent what to whom.
Your Turn
What about you? What methods have you used to stay on your prospects’ radar screens?
Have you landed a client as a result of staying in touch for an extended period of time? How long did it take? Did the effort pay off?
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About the author: Ed Gandia is co-author of The Wealthy Freelancer: 12 Secrets to a Great Income and an Enviable Lifestyle (Penguin/Alpha). To grab 3 free chapters of the book and a complimentary copy of his Freelancer’s Income Expander Kit (which contains 4 reports worth $126), visit The Wealthy Freelancer.
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27 Comments
Tom | Build That List
March 7th, 2010 at 8:42 amThat is really good advice. You need to be building a list because as you say, everyone is not ready to buy now – but if you continue to nurture your list then they will buy from you when they are ready.
Ramona
March 7th, 2010 at 10:46 amThe problem in my case is that I hate with a passion ANY form of “useful” content I am flooded on a daily basis. I don’t subscribe to blogs, I visit them myself. I don’t let any site send me “updates” since this would mean having to wade through 100-300 useless email messages on a daily basis. I am currently starting to use a new email address since, with all the care in the world, my current one still gets a lot of useless junk I haven’t requested.
My clients are people with firms who need sites built. I don’t see how useful my content would be to them, since most have no idea what SEO is or Wordpress for instance.Why bother sending them emails with my articles, if my articles are for fellow web designers and not the Joe who has a cake store and needs a site? What seems useful to me, is junk to them.
I do nurture my leads by making sure they know from day one what I do. I leave my card, they have my email address and phone at their service. If they need anything, I am there for them. Sending them emails with my “updates” is not the best solution for me since I despise this and, if I hate something, I’m not gonna put my prospective clients through it.
Since most people I know have the info needed (phone / site / email), when they decide to call, I am there to work with them. I have relatives who refer work, I have my ex-clients who send me a constant flux of new clients, I get new ones with my portfolios etc.
Even if this is a good idea in principle, I’ll stick away from it. The web is as cluttered and filled with low quality sites because everyone wants to be “helpful”. :D
FJ Creative Design Studio
March 7th, 2010 at 11:15 amThanks for share!
Nicole Foster
March 7th, 2010 at 11:21 amI have never thought about this topic before. I usually do follow ups when I am contacting possible clients. Usually I will get a “we found someone else” response though :/
Paul Winslow
March 7th, 2010 at 12:00 pmThis is definitely some great, valid advice. In my experience, planning for a project with a client can get turned on its head when you start talking about money and making payments, and I find that letting them go away to take some breathing space, and just keeping a smile and staying in touch without pressing so hard to bag a contract can ease them into less of a “he’s after my money” frame of mind.
It’s like fishing. If you’re patient and take care, you’ll reel them in eventually.
Jordan Walker
March 7th, 2010 at 12:35 pmI think that is some sound advice. In the planning stage, developing a long list of potential clients is important.
Michael D Hart
March 7th, 2010 at 4:24 pmGreat list- I plan on starting some of these right away. Just curious… any recommendations on webapps/software to do this?
I build Drupal sites, and think I could tweak the Storm module set to do this… hmm.
Daree Allen
March 7th, 2010 at 11:10 pmGreat ideas. I get postcards and things like this from companies to keep them in mind. What periodicity do you suggest? Every 3 months?
David Silva
March 8th, 2010 at 3:28 amI think some of you guys might have missed the point, or I misunderstood you. Sorry if I did. But the point of nurturing a prospective client isn’t to email them to “follow up”. If you follow up and they say they have found someone else and you stop “nurturing” then yes, you will lose the prospect. However, even though they have already found someone else doesn’t mean you have lost. You can still contact them and offer yourself to “help”. Tell them you are glad they found someone to work with, but if they ever have any questions or concerns you would be glad to look over things for them, be a FRIEND. And when they do come back if its a simple question then answer it and if it actually requires more work then you charge them for it.
Also, although someone who runs a small shop wouldn’t care about CSS or SEO, you can still send them an email to simply say hello and then mention that you have had some success with an article. Be a friend and make little chit chat and show them so that they see you are an authority in the field. Not because they care about CSS, but because they might care that you rock as a designer and know what you are doing. That is the bigger point about showing them or sending them a few articles. Because they don’t want to mess with all of these code things, but they want to know that you are a wiz at it.
I have a handful of clients that I talk to every so often. Clients that I believe have good potential and they ask me for advise and send me things they are working on and I in return send them links and they eventually end up hiring me. I don’t follow up or bring up the topic of hiring me, I simply befriend them and stay around and they eventually call to hire me because they see that I am an authority.
One other point that Ed didn’t make is that when someone hires a freelancer instead of a large firm, they care about your personality and whether they can work with you or not. I hate working with large firms that don’t care who I am. So by staying in contact with prospects they get to know a little bit about me and get comfortable so that when they are finally ready to hire someone they feel very confident in calling me first rather than continuing the search because they already know me.
They key to all of this is to be honest and transparent.
Mike B
March 8th, 2010 at 4:50 amLead nurturing is really important in order to keep a steady flow of work coming in and to increase your business. I think this article makes some really good points and keeping in close contact with clients who “aren’t ready yet” could seem a waste of time, but really does pay dividends.
P.S. Jones
March 8th, 2010 at 12:01 pmYou’re right about clients hiring you later if they don’t do it right away. I think that I’m already doing a decent job at keeping in touch but not quite enough. I send a little mailer out for Christimas and around June, but I think that 6 months apart might be too long apart. Maybe I’ll make it every three months.
Ed Gandia
March 8th, 2010 at 11:38 pmRamona – I completely understand where you’re coming from. However, keep in mind that these “touches” should never be (or appear to be) mass-produced. These are carefully selected messages. If you hate email, try printing the article and sending via snail mail. No one sends a personalized letter anymore. We’ve gotten so bogged down with email that sending out a sincere and short handwritten letter (3 – 4 sentences) with an attached 1-page article can go a long way. It works extremely well. I’ve proved it over and over again. Also, keep in mind that your articles don’t have to be about SEO or Wordpress. In fact, it’s probably best if the articles are about the prospect’s business or industry. Let’s face it — that’s going to be more relevant to them, and it will be a clear indication that you truly care about their business.
Having said that, if you get nauseous at the thought of using this approach, I would stay away from it. Freelancers should only try the strategies that feel right to them.
Michael – The idea is NOT to automate this. You want these messages to be highly personalized and sincere. Automating them in any way will only backfire. At best, they’ll have zero effect.
Daree – As far as frequency, that’s up to you. If it’s truly a longer-term prospect (it’s going to be 6+ months before they’re ready to discuss a real project), I like to stay in touch about every 8 weeks. I may go to a 4-week cycle with some, especially if the timing for re-engaging is less than 6 months.
David – I couldn’t have said it better, my man! Agreed w/ everything you said. And you brought up a good point. I’m NOT talking here about following up on open quotes/proposals. This is about staying in touch with longer-term prospects in a more meaningful way. These are prospects who were a good fit but turned you down either because of bad timing or other circumstances. One “no” doesn’t mean “no” forever. Just meant “no” that one time. Again, if they’re a good fit for you (I don’t do this for prospects who are not well-aligned w/ my biz), they’re probably worth staying in touch with.
Allen
March 9th, 2010 at 9:11 amThis is a great article, and can definitely work for you. A recent client of mine didn’t contact me till a year later, and now I am taking over most of their marketing needs. It’s surprising who will keep your contact information, in this case a simple greeting email, and possibly work with you later down the road.
PCNS
April 6th, 2010 at 8:08 amThe Best Content Creation Services on the Internet:
http://www.pcns.info/
whether it’s informal blog posts or formal articles.
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