How to nurture interest instead of pushing a hard sell

One of the greatest struggles business owners face is selling without appearing too pushy. After all, no one wants to seem like an obnoxious salesperson that people avoid at networking events or even online.

When it comes to nurturing leads, you want to balance getting your point across and not pushing your prospect into a corner (or to your competitor). To do this successfully, you need to nurture your customer relationships through marketing tailored to what your customers want and need to know. 

Everything you do in between attracting a customer and closing a sale is nurturing. This includes writing blog posts, posting on Facebook, and sending out emails, and offering education content like ebooks. Done well, nurturing interest in your business can result in more sales without ever pushing a hard sell.

Marketing is sales

The goal of marketing is to make sales. How do you make sales if you don't ask your audience to buy or tell them they can?

This is where a sales funnel or sales cycle is important. Most definitions speak of the sales cycle as the time between making the first touchpoint and closing a deal. Your funnel encompasses marketing efforts to generate and maintain interest to engage and convert leads into customers. 

The sales funnel typically includes awareness, interest, desire, and action stages. Notice that the funnel doesn’t include direct selling.

Just as it is important to nurture leads, it’s just as important to avoid losing them. This means marketing with intent and not posting on social media just for the sake of it. One poorly thought out Facebook post could mean the difference between nurturing a lead and losing them to a competitor.

Promotion isn’t just about sales

Let’s say that again: Promotion is not just about sales. It’s also about building brand awareness, fostering engagement to build relationships, and demonstrating your expertise.

Your brand identity is your business' reputation through the conveyance of its values, purposes and missions. Everything you put out onto social media, your website and into your emails helps build the awareness of your brand and attract new customers and maintain loyal ones. 

Once someone is familiar with your brand, you want to foster that relationship by encouraging engagement and interactions, i.e., by writing relevant blog posts and sharing relevant social media content that will encourage people to engage with your business and also demonstrate your areas of expertise.

When thinking about content that promotes your business, remember to consider content for every stage of your leads’ journey. This means that you want to consider contacts at the beginning of your sales funnel and those who are either just about to make a purchase decision and even those who already have (and maybe thinking of purchasing again).

Not everyone is your ideal client

When promoting your business and working on your marketing strategy, it’s also important to remember that not everyone is your ideal client. Even some of your clients aren’t your ideal client (it happens).

Knowing who IS your ideal customer is important if you are going to create content that appeals to them. When it comes to creating content, ask yourself if you’re being clear about what you sell and who it's for? 

Define your product or service using your customer’s point of view. What can your service or product do for them? What problems do your products or services solve? What needs does it satisfy? How does it improve your customer’s life or business?

You should also work to narrow down your target customer's definition by defining their age, education, business, and other relevant characteristics. 

Lastly, what are the specific benefits your customer seeks by working with you or buying your product? What’s important to your ideal customer? Why should your target audience buy from you and not a competitor?

Working through these questions will give you a better idea of how you can produce content that will answer potential clients’ questions about your business and save you time and money.

Have patience

It takes time, commitment and consistency to build an engaged audience. Don't be discouraged if sales are slow in the beginning.

The point of a sales funnel is to build your audience and to nurture them to ensure they are your ideal client. If you do the work, market yourself consistently and produce relevant content that teaches people what your business can do for them, your sales will grow, and so will your business.