Year-End Lead Nurturing: Setting the Stage for Success in the New Year

Jennie Wright [00:00:06]:

Hi. This is the Acquire podcast from the Odd Phonic Network, and I’m your host, Jenny Wright. This is the podcast that delves deep into the world of list building and online events, and it’s designed to empower entrepreneurs and marketers with the knowledge and strategies to master these essential business growth tactics. On this episode, I really wanna get into the nitty gritty about nurturing our leads. And, yeah, you’re right. I’m going to try and go beyond the, gee, thanks for signing up for your freebie, or thanks for being part of my community. I really want to take this to a different like, a different level. So we’re gonna talk about how to keep your leads warm, engaged, and eager for more through, let’s face it, a holiday season.

Jennie Wright [00:00:49]:

Because right now, It’s mid November, and most of the people in the US are getting ready to celebrate Thanksgiving. Everybody is gearing up for the inevitable onslaught of Black Friday, Cyber Monday and the holiday promo extravaganza. And before I get any deeper into this, if you’re into a full promo onslaught between now and the beginning of the new year. This may not be the episode for you. And I’m not judging you, not in the least, because some businesses do amazingly well this time of year, and it’s business as usual for them. Or maybe maybe it’s even more pumped up. It depends on the business. Right? So you know? And there’s even this argument that you should be full throttle right through the holidays, right into the new year that you should never take your foot off the gas.

Jennie Wright [00:01:37]:

And and what I’m saying in this episode is not to take your foot off the gas in terms of connection with your leads, but try a different tactic. So if this is you, have at it with all of your promo and things like that. I know from years of experience that this time of year for digital entrepreneurs can be a really big challenge because of the increased level of noise. Everybody is making noise. All of the noise can be really distracting, so you have to find a way to stand out. I’ve always had this alternative plan for me and my clients whose leads are not eager to be bombarded by yet another offer, a holiday special, BOGO, our Boxing Day Sale. And because all of this is very exhausting for your leads, they’re feeling incredibly overwhelmed. So I really want you to choose your plan wisely for this time of year, whatever fits for you.

Jennie Wright [00:02:29]:

So I’m gonna make some assumptions here right now in this next bit. And If this fits you perfectly, awesome. And it might feel like you a little bit, like, somewhat, and that’s okay too. Either way, I think you can get something out of this because I bet this year, you hustle. Right? And you put in the time, you put in the energy, the strategy into finding and engaging your ideal clients and customers by either being a speaker on summits or contributor to giveaways or maybe even on bundles. Those are all great tactics, by the way. And you might have even gone the whole shebang, hosted your own summit this year. And by the way, if you did, congrats.

Jennie Wright [00:03:05]:

That’s a massive accomplishment. It is no small feat to host 1 summit a year. It is a much bigger feat to host 2. And if you did anything like that, then you have my you have my applause. And you’ve also potentially kicked some butt with either being a guest speaker on podcasts, and if you have, awesome. Maybe you even have your own podcast. And then you’ve also probably put time and effort into whatever you’ve probably tried to launch this year and other email growth tactics and sales tactics. And even if you didn’t do it all perfectly, you know it doesn’t matter.

Jennie Wright [00:03:41]:

You know what matters is that you did what you could, and you learned something really valuable in the process. And you learned something really great about email growth, lead gen, and also just building out your business. But now as we get to this last part of the year, which is the most commercial and promo crazed time ever, I also think we need to dial it back a little bit and look at how we can connect with our leads more deeply, but also not annoying the crap out of them. Because nobody wants to be that brand that’s bombarding inboxes with daily deals or cringe worthy promotions So let’s talk about how we can do this And, by the way, this is a plan that I’m putting into action right now for myself. I always tell you what I’m doing for myself, for my clients, something that’s tried, tested, and successful. I’m always gonna promote my podcast that is never gonna stop, So I’m always promoting the podcast, which always comes out on Tuesdays, so I’m promoting that to my list. But I am not sharing anything other than value driven content for the rest of November and also in December. January, that’s gonna be a little bit different because I do have some commitments for other promotions that I have to do so that relaunches back in January.

Jennie Wright [00:04:52]:

The first thing I want you to consider looking at is creating what I call personal touch. So we’re gonna talk about that first. And you’ll know what it is because it creates that warm and fuzzy feeling, like when somebody remembers your name or your favorite coffee order. For me, I get that feeling every time I go to my favorite sushi restaurant for takeout, and I’ve been doing that for 20 years. Same place, same location. They even had a fire 1 year on my birthday, and I had to shut down for, like, 6 months while they redid the place from, like, top to bottom. They’re open again. I go there religiously.

Jennie Wright [00:05:25]:

They know who I am. They always use my first name when they greet me, and somehow, they always slip a couple extra sushi rolls where my sashimi order magically gets doubled, and I just keep going back. It’s great service, and I love the fact that they have taken that personal touch with me. And your leads are no different. In this era of automated everything, a personal touch stands out like a sore thumb, but in a really good way. And unless you’re the best at all things AI prompts, and I don’t think anybody has really perfected this yet, anything less than original content that we write ourselves is going to be pretty noticeable. You already know when you read something whether or not it’s been, like, AI touched. I’m sure you do.

Jennie Wright [00:06:09]:

Me, it’s so obvious, and it’s even more obvious when somebody actually keeps the rocketship emoji that naturally comes out of chat gpt. So let’s get back to writing our emails ourselves. My only caveat to that is if you struggle to figure out what to say, if you have sort of that blinking cursor on white page issue, and by all means use AI as a writing prompt I do sometimes, but then I make it my own So you go ahead and make it your own too and here’s a tip. Why not create and then send it a series of personalized thank you emails, maybe even a little virtual pat on the back for being awesome and being part of your community. Make sure you use people’s first names, which obviously you can really do well with your ESP. Make it incredibly memorable. I like to mention something specific that my leads have engaged with, which is a webinar or a download they want to something that they’ve engaged within my content. And if you’ve been using your ESP for Any sort of engagement, or creating any tagging and segmentation, that’s gonna be a hell of a lot easier to figure out, so make sure you use that.

Jennie Wright [00:07:19]:

I always like to invite people on my list to share a win, engage with me, tell me where they are right now, and I also invite them to keep on this journey with me as I grow, evolve, change tactics, invent new strategies, do new things, and find out more about my business and also myself. I also really love value driven content. So we’re gonna shift gears and talk about this for a little bit. When your leads are now drowning in promotions over the next few weeks, your content needs to be something completely different, an anchor for them that feels really, really good, something that keeps them from feeling overwhelmed. So the easiest thing is knowing how to solve people’s problems, obviously, providing insights, maybe sharing some stories if that’s your thing, and making your audience lives a bit better. So what would that look like for you? Some of my clients have done the no registration training, and they made sure not to pitch afterwards. And for me, almost every year, I share about, I don’t know, 15 to 30 spots on my calendar with a no sales pitch promise. I just talk to people, and I offer solutions to their marketing Looms.

Jennie Wright [00:08:27]:

I also connect with them with people if they need it, and I love it because I get to meet people without the tension of the impending pitch. It really takes the edge off and makes it a heck of a lot easier to talk People. I actually started doing this back in 2014. I was supposed to be going skiing over the holidays, and I came down with a really bad cold. It turned into bronchitis, and I got a fever. I definitely wasn’t gonna be going skiing, and I was not going anywhere. I was super bummed, and I was in my Facebook group. So the day I was supposed to go skiing, I was connecting with people in my Facebook group, and the feedback that I was getting from a couple people was they wanted some FaceTime with me, so I did it.

Jennie Wright [00:09:04]:

I actually sent out a big post, and I also did it in my email that was saying if anybody wanted to get on a call with me, I was gonna open up my calendar. I had the time. Let’s Do It. I immediately had 32 calls booked, by the way. It was really cool. And wonderful side note, without even intending it and without even wanting that to be End result. I actually had a 40% close rate on those calls because people would be like, hey. What’s it look like to work with you? And I said, well, I’m not pitching you.

Jennie Wright [00:09:32]:

And they said, yeah. Yeah. I know you’re not pitching me, but what would it look like for me to work with you? And it blew my mind the first time this happened, and it continues to happen year over year. So these are free calls, obviously. There’s 0 intent to sell, and I only give. So I meet people who wanna collaborate with me as well, which is fantastic, and I also get a lot of connections for other people that I know. For instance, if somebody needs some help launching a podcast, I know somebody who can do that. If somebody needs help writing their first first book, I I know somebody who can help with that as well, and I know some pretty cool people in the social media management space.

Jennie Wright [00:10:11]:

So I do a lot of connections over the holidays and that makes me feel really good. It might be something you wanna try. Another great tip is the surprise and delight strategy. With whatever you’re doing in this value driven content piece, What can you do that over delivers and gives your leads a welcome surprise, and what could you do to really blow their socks off? I’m contemplating doing a private podcast for my leads this year, and I’ve looked at the data for this particular podcast. And I’ve also talked to a few leads so far, and they said that it would be really, really valuable to them. So I’ll let you know if I do it, and I’ll let you know how it works. My tip for this piece is Figure out what resonates with your audience because it’s really gonna be different depending on what you do and who you are. This could be very valuable in terms of giving people some tips, insider knowledge, a funny story, maybe even do some behind the scenes of your own business, which is always cool.

Jennie Wright [00:11:05]:

It could also be a fun and interactive training or anything at all that your audience will just wanna devour knowing that you’re not gonna be waiting at the end of it to do a bait and switch into an offer. Again, it really takes the pressure off, and it makes an amazing amount of content where people just feel like they can consume and they don’t have to worry about a sales pitch. Another tactic that I use, and I think this is a really valuable one and I do use it throughout the year as well, I use all of these throughout the year, by the way, but these are really useful during the holidays, is interactive engagement. So think about what you can do between right now in the beginning of next year that creates a conversation with your leads. And when you think about email marketing, oftentimes, it is a one way conversation. You’re talking at people, not with them, and I always wanna encourage you to create a conversation with people. So what can you do right now to get people’s attention away from the doom scroll that always happens when we get overwhelmed and get their attention onto something that’s helpful or enjoyable or, like this part is about, engagement. I’m a fan of doing some kind of poll, a survey, or even a quirky or fun quiz.

Jennie Wright [00:12:16]:

Another really great strategy is an interactive workshop or live q and a session. Those always really go well. Last year, the host of a big bundle giveaway that I participated in one to get everybody who was on the bundle and also a contributor into a holiday themed virtual party. It was a lot of fun. People wore festive clothing, and they also put some really cute Zoom backgrounds, and we just had a really good time talking with each other. There was no ask. There was no sale. It was just connection based.

Jennie Wright [00:12:45]:

It was really awesome. I also shared my socials just like everybody else. That led to a bunch of DMs, and I was also able to make some really cool connections, and I also was able to have some coffee chats. Found out what people needed and booked podcast from it too for myself, which was great. It was really, really relaxing. It was a great way to talk to people and get to know them outside of the normal promo promo promo grind that we have pretty much for the rest of the year, so I really love that too. And something else that I also love is to invite my leads into my content and offer creation process. So you can do that in multitude of ways.

Jennie Wright [00:13:20]:

I like to do it with ideal client avatar calls and also just soliciting feedback. So I post this in my Facebook group and also to my email list, and I’m looking to talk to a bunch of people who are interested in whatever it is, x or y. I don’t know. We’ll figure it out. And I talked to, I talked to them, and I asked them what would make them want to either learn about that topic or buy it. So I end up booking a bunch of calls. I gather a ton of data. I love data on what is happening right now, the big problems they’re facing, what they anticipate their big problem to be in the near future.

Jennie Wright [00:13:55]:

And then I start to broaden my next steps, like, how would I use this data to change or inform me on my next strategy or my next course? Another huge opportunity right now is networking. I created a whole networking strategy for a client of mine whose book is launching right in the middle of the hubbub of the holidays. They didn’t choose it. Their publisher did. So it’s coming out right between the end of November and the beginning of December. So to get people to show up, we’re doing these interactive panels and networking as well after each panel. It’s a lot of fun, and I’ve used this strategy in the past because it creates a great amount of content, and it also builds up interactivity with your leads. In return, they also get to network and they get something out of it.

Jennie Wright [00:14:42]:

So they get to meet some really cool people. They can talk with the author. They get to get some information, and, you know, they just time. Involving your leads in your decision making, by the way, and asking for feedback and opinions and giving them more than what they could possibly expect is, again, a fabulous way to connect with people and engage. It’s gonna really help you create that two way conversation versus that one way conversation. And inevitably, we also have the holiday themed content. Right? So let’s just get into it. ‘Tis the season.

Jennie Wright [00:15:13]:

Getting into the festive spirit and creating some holiday themed content can really warm the cockles of your leads’ hearts. Yes. I said that. Share some heartwarming stories, fun traditions or even some behind the scenes look at your holiday preparations. Everybody loves a look see behind the curtain, and sometimes it’s a great way to spread a little joy. In my previous podcast, I did a special look back episode for the whole year. What worked? What didn’t? What was I grateful for? What would I change? And so on. It did pretty good with my audience.

Jennie Wright [00:15:46]:

We had a lot of downloads on that episode, so it became a theme each year while I had that podcast, and it was a really great way to do, like, a holiday season look back. Also consider doing a special holiday themed podcast episode or a festive blog, and a cheerful video message doesn’t hurt either. Your leads will often appreciate the holiday cheer, and it keeps your brand on their radar without the hard sell all the way through the holidays. I bet you haven’t thought about this idea, and that is the DIY gift guide. I’ve personally never tried this, but I was talking to a friend of mine about the content that I was gonna create for this episode, and she told me about this idea. You create this do it yourself guide that aligns with your brand and your values. It could highlight other brands as well if you wanna work with other people and get them to agree to offer thing. K.

Jennie Wright [00:16:35]:

That could be really, really cool. And share something in this guide. So you create basically a virtual PDF of really cool ideas, potentially either digital gifts or even real world gifts and, you know, probably not something that you’re selling. Most likely just something really, really cool that you Gong for free. Some people say, hey. I get really great resources on trainings on Canva. You can find them here totally free, you know, and you don’t include an affiliate link. That’s kind of the thing.

Jennie Wright [00:17:04]:

So that strategy is different. Again, I’ve never tried it, but I know somebody has. They said it works really, really well, and it’s a great way to create some engagement. What I have tried and what I’m doing this year for a particular client of mine is a community challenge. So my client actually saw this challenge being done, around thanksgiving and thought, oh, we could make this our own for the holidays. It’s pretty cool. She’s challenging her really extensive community because she has a very big reach in this fun and festive way. So we devised a holiday themed photo challenge that it’s gonna encourage participation, creativity, a sense of togetherness and also some charitable component.

Jennie Wright [00:17:47]:

So this festive photo challenge is happening for her, her audience, and also her staff, but you could easily do a daily activity challenge or a festive recipe challenge, something that builds that connection. And it’s also a great way to keep your leads engaged and spread some holiday cheer, and, also, quite honestly, it works really well for the algorithm if you get people to post it on social. With my client, we’re doing this charitable component. And everybody who participates in the photo challenge, she’s making a financial con contribution to a charity that’s really near and dear to her heart. And to add to it, all of her employees and contractors are participating. That ups the engagement and charitable donation level. I think she’s got about 30 employees. So all told, we’re gonna have a really engaged event.

Jennie Wright [00:18:33]:

I think it’s great. And what I love about creating, nurturing opportunities with leads is it just takes the pressure off, and it always comes from a space of giving. I love that. Feels really good, and your leads are gonna pick up on it too. So what are you gonna do this holiday season to connect at a deeper level with your leads? Leave me your thoughts either inside my Facebook group called Smart Marketing for Coaches, or you can leave a comment on my podcast, leaving a review, anything like that. I’d love to hear from you. And if you want a few other ideas on how you can boost your leads’ participation with whatever it is that you’re doing, You should check out episode 7 from this podcast. I go into a little bit more about, click throughs and open rates and how you can boost those, which in combination with the other techniques that I shared with you today can really, really help.

Jennie Wright [00:19:25]:

So it can boost those open rates, get lots of people clicking through and stuff, and add that boost of engagement to your email list. I hope you found this one enjoyable. I really enjoyed actually gathering everything for this particular episode, and so I just wanna say thank you for listening to it. I’m gonna have some more cool stuff coming up in the next couple weeks as we do end up on the, you know, the closing of the year, and so something for you to look forward to. The Acquire podcast is produced and edited by Jason Wheeler. If you found today’s episode valuable, don’t where I get to subscribe, wait, and leave a review wherever it is that you listen to podcasts. Thanks for being part of my growing community, and consider joining the Facebook group where I’ll keep you entertained, and I’m gonna keep delivering content that empowers entrepreneurs and marketers with list building, lead generation, and watches. The Acquire podcast is brought by the Odd Phonic Podcast Network.

Jennie Wright [00:20:19]:

Thanks again for listening.