Over the last couple of weeks, I’ve shared what I learned at Eloqua Experience 2013 about lead scoring and exploding content. Hopefully these posts have helped you create the perfect lead score model and generate a mountain of amazing content (or at least help you on your way). So, what’s next? You know those names sitting in your database that marketing and sales hasn’t touched in years? It’s time to defrost your frozen leads. All of them.
TCMPi’s marketing research analyst, Marimer Guevara, shared helpful tips during her session for working with frozen leads and cleaning up your database. Using a basic drip campaign, you can determine which contacts should be deleted and which should be nurtured.
First, gather all contacts from the beginning of time. Yes, that means rounding up the untouched or neglected contacts in your CRM; the site registrants who downloaded an asset once and never engaged with your site again; newsletter registrants who have not opened your emails in the past year or more; even the business cards from your sales reps (if they’ll let you touch them). Grab any and all contacts that you have access to who are not already engaged.
Next, create a simple drip campaign consisting of two emails.
Email 1 Goals
- Reintroduce your brand
- Identify hard bounces
- Uncover interested leads
If your list seems overwhelming (in the 10s or 100s of thousands), do multiple campaigns with small segments to keep analysis manageable. Marimer also recommends staying away from HTML for your first email; instead use a text version which is less flashy, more personal. Include a clear opt-out within the email – not just in your footer. This may not feel “right”, but it will help you accomplish one of your goals: uncover interested leads. Get rid of contacts who are no longer interested in your products or services; they’re costing you time and money.
Now that you’ve established which contacts are responsive and possibly interested, send your second email with a clear call to action.
Email 2 Goals
- Engage interested leads by providing tools
- Identify potential buyers
If you created a lead score model for these frozen leads, concentrate on engagement criteria. Once you’ve determined that you have a group of engaged contacts, move them into a nurture campaign and use a lead score model with profile criteria as well. In other words, don’t worry so much about WHO your frozen leads are as much as whether or not they’re interested in your products and services.
Marimer’s database clean-up campaign is so simple, yet so effective. Using this method, TCMPi deleted 37% of their frozen leads, re-engaged 41% of them and 6% converted into revenue!
How would you handle unresponsive contacts after this type of campaign? Would you put them through another campaign or toss them?
