6 Ways to Modernize and Personalize The Way You Communicate With Leads

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Personalization has always been a cornerstone of effective marketing. And with so many different channels available now to reach your leads, why not make every interaction count? 

Your leads will remember you and respond better if they feel like you understand them as individuals, rather than treating them like impersonal numbers on a spreadsheet.

The future of lead-to-customer communication is more personalized for the individual based on their unique behavior, demographics, and preferences. In 2022, the average customer is looking for a response time of 5 minutes or less. 

There’s ample opportunity to outpace your competition by understanding how to implement modern and personalized strategies to increase lead conversions tenfold. 

Let’s take a closer look. 

1. Find an email marketing tool that tracks individual engagement

At this stage, you’re probably already using an email marketing tool that sends messages out to large groups of people at once. But good software will do a lot more than send your message — it’ll also help you track individual engagement with your message.

You’ll want to track things like opens, clicks, and bounces to see which prospects engaged with your message and which ones didn’t. You can then use this information to send personalized follow-up messages based on how the recipient performed.

For example, if someone opened your email but didn’t click on any links, try sending them another email with other helpful tips or maybe even something fun to catch their attention. 

If a prospect clicked through to one of your links but didn’t open the second email, you sent them, try picking up the phone and giving them a call. More on that later. 

2. Leverage insights to create personalized follow-up emails

Now that you are using an email marketing tool that tracks open and click-through rates, you can also collect data on which of your emails resonate most with a particular lead. 

For example, your company sends out ten different emails to a lead throughout a campaign. 

The data shows that they are consistently ignoring your messages about discounts, but they click through to every one of your emails sharing insights.

You can use that information to personalize an email in the future by pitching an article or report that could help their business instead of offering yet another 10% discount.

When modernizing the way you communicate with leads, leverage new tools or CRMs to gather insights. 

Gathering data is one thing, but staying organized and putting that data to work is a critical step in improving how you communicate with leads. 

3. Reach out via phone or video if a lead is getting cold

It’s 2022, and we use technology for everything. But if you get a hunch that your lead is getting cold, don’t be afraid to reach out via phone or video. 

InsideSales found that 80% of leads aren’t ready to buy when they fill out an online form. But they may be willing to hear more about your product or service via phone call or video conference. 

Additionally, research by HubSpot found that leads contacted within an hour of filling out an online form were 60x more likely to qualify than those reached 24 hours later. 

Using voice over makes your business seem less robotic and corporate and more friendly and approachable. This type of personalized communication goes a long way towards making the sale.

The personal touch of a phone call is underutilized across industries and is a critical factor for converting more leads. 

4. Use social media to establish a personal connection with leads

Social media is the perfect channel for you to establish a personal connection with leads. It allows you to:

• Build trust and rapport by sharing personal updates and events that show off your company culture
• Start a conversation by asking questions, gathering feedback, or providing advice
• Share valuable information that helps customers solve their problems or accomplish their goals
• Provide support to existing customers who have questions about your products and services

Social media is a great way to stay connected and engage with your leads.

5. Optimize your web pages to be mobile-friendly and responsive

Make sure your web pages are mobile-friendly and responsive. More than half of all internet traffic is on mobile devices. 

The first step is to make sure that you have a mobile-friendly website. Using a tool like Google’s Mobile-Friendly Test can help with this — enter the URL of your website or landing page to see if it’s considered mobile-friendly by Google. If not, take the necessary steps to ensure that browsers on several different devices will be able to view and navigate the site with ease.

The second step is to make sure that your site uses responsive design, which allows for sites to render differently depending on the screen size used to access them. 

Use CSS media queries that allow stylesheets to specify specific rules that only apply when certain features are present (such as screen size). 

A responsive design can help keep unnecessary elements from displaying on small screens and resize fonts and images for better viewing across various devices.

6. Take advantage of automation and AI to reduce lead time

Your business is only as strong as the relationships you forge with your customers, and that means you need to make sure every one of them has the potential to become a long-term customer. 

It’s essential to communicate with them in a consistent, meaningful, and productive way.

Source: HubSpot

Understanding the industry average response time can help your brand stand out from your competition. For example, the average response time in the healthcare industry is two hours and five minutes. This response time is almost two times slower than the average lead time recorded across sectors. 

Fast response times in the healthcare industry are critical for helping customers in need. A quick and easy solution is to offer on-call nurses via a live chat or phone hotline. 

Right from the start, you’re setting yourself apart by offering the fastest response time in the industry. 

According to the Harvard Business Review, a lead is 21x more likely to move forward with a business if they respond within 5 minutes. Live chat and other chatbots are easy ways to achieve this “internet speed” response time. 

Wrapping Up

Using these tactics helps provide a more personalized and consistent experience for the audiences you are trying to reach. The more tailored the interaction, the more likely it is that your leads will consume and retain information related to your business.

When you can modernize how you interact with your leads personally, it allows you to create trust with them more quickly than ever before. As a result, sales will come more efficiently, and overall consumer behavior will change for the better.