Often, agencies neglect to nurture their web design leads, not realizing that lead nurturing can easily generate more sales, reduce marketing costs, and improve ROI.

It is estimated that only 39% of agencies engage in marketing automation to nurture web design leads in the long term. The figures aren’t promising – current research shows that an average of 80% of leads never purchases at all.

This makes it necessary for agencies to create a viable lead scoring system and, subsequently, a lead nurturing program. While creating a lead nurturing system is thoroughly complex, you can get started on the right path by following new powerful new methods of nurturing web design leads.

Web Design Lead Nurturing Statistics

Before designing any lead nurturing effort, it’s best to understand first the various statistics surrounding leads.

1. 73% of leads are decidedly not ready to purchase the first time they sign up for something on any site. That brings prospective, warm leads to just 27% at most. This is a huge chunk of the total leads in your database.
2. There are general misalignments between marketing departments and sales departments that cost companies in the US at least one trillion dollars a year.
3. On average, nurtured leads produce sales that are 47% more in value than non-nurtured leads.
4. Up to 80% of all leads never produce a single sale.
5. Agencies that use lead nurturing tactics can produce 50% more revenue per year, reducing cost by 33% (at the minimum).
6. 3% of agencies who use lead nurturing tactics exceed sales quotas.

Based on our assessment, web design leads will produce more sales and profit for your agency if you begin nitrating them now.

The process of nurturing web design leads is continuous, and it occurs at every step of the marketing funnel.

You don’t just focus on those in the middle of the end of the marketing funnel. Through intelligent and automated lead segmentation, you can determine other patterns for improvement in the way you nurture web design leads.

Truly Powerful Methods for Nurturing Web Design Leads

Nurturing via Email

Certainly, nurturing web design leads through email is not new – but neither is it outdated or ineffective. 75% of marketers believe that email is still the top method for nurturing web design leads.

Reengagement campaigns make so much more sense when done through email, and the sequence of messages sent to specific segments per campaign is highly visible and customizable, too.

And it’s not just about the effectiveness of the messages sent through email. Brand engagement guru’s stats that email marketing tools are easy on the market budget and ease advertising costs. Earlier in this article, we talked about how lead nurturing can reduce marketing costs.

Well, here’s where the magic happens. Retargeting and reengagement reduce dependence on advertising. You can use tools like Drip, ActiveCampaign, Mailchimp, and even Hubspot to leverage email marketing specifically for nurturing your web design leads.

How many emails should you send?

TV personality Larry King was on point when he said, “it’s a communications business!” Lead nurturing won’t work if you don’t engage your leads regularly. One email every week is the minimum. Each email should contain the following:

• Highly relevant content that you are certain your leads will appreciate or be interested in.
• You can increase the volume of emails depending on the open and click rates. However, it is a good practice to rein in those emails until you have stable data on how your leads respond to the content.
• Think relevant and practical at the same time. The goal is for your leads to respond immediately to your emails or invite them to read.

Some nuggets of wisdom from experts in the lead generation and lead nurturing frontlines include:

• You want to keep your web design business at the top of everyone’s mind. Even if they don’t buy now, you want them to remember only your business when they need to buy, and they have an immediate need for your services.
• Send content that is always geared toward helping leads find solutions to identifiable problems. But before you can do this, you need to know your leads very well. Lead segmentation won’t even work if you don’t know the first thing about your leads.
• Explore different formats when emailing your clients. Instead of relying on pure text, try sending special videos, infographics, charts, and links to free downloads. One of the best ways to keep the conversation going is by always providing value to your web design leads no matter what.
• At the basic level, you can examine how your leads are reading and opening your emails. Quantify the interactions and devise new ways to communicate with your leads.

Retargeting

Since it is possible that more than 90% of first-time customers will not contact you or hire your agency for web design services and they’re not likely to remember to come to your site, you can make use of another brilliant strategy for nurturing leads – retargeting. Retargeting accomplishes what your site and other channels weren’t able to accomplish the first time, which is to convince potential customers to come back and seriously reconsider your agency or company. Retargeting efforts are tied to the different social channels that offer to advertise. Facebook ads and Google ads can help people recall previous campaigns, offers, and other important elements of your branding. If you are serious about reaching your audience, there should also be a budget specifically for advertising/retargeting. Businesses that invest more in retargeting benefit from the additional lead nurturing through increased sales, higher ROI, shorter sales cycles, and increased customer loyalty, too.

Why do customers leave without buying anything?

The statistics are often staggering. You’re not just in the double-digit range; you’re up there in the 90% range. The reason for this behavior is fairly simple. It takes time before customers warm up to new brands sufficiently to entrust something as important as web design or site design. They need time to make up their mind, and if the new brand is seen only in passing, you can be sure that it’s not going to make a deep mark immediately. This is just part of the established customer journey, and neither you nor the potential leads are at fault. The average number of times a new customer needs to hear or see your brand to warm up is about seven times. Retargeting allows you to accomplish this most efficiently and cost-effectively possible.

When is retargeting a good choice for a web design agency or company?

• If you want a long-term method of keeping your leads interested in your services and marketing campaigns, retargeting can help you. If your website is getting less than 100 visits per month, consider retargeting using Google ads.
• Use retargeting to bring your bestselling offers and services to the forefront. Since customers will repeatedly see your ads, you build on the merits and gains of previous campaigns, breaking down their resistance to hiring your web design agency.
• Retargeting can also be used to present new services, downloads, and offers from your business. Often, organic traffic is not enough to generate the kind of customer volume you need to convert. It’s time to catch potential customers’ eyes There is no point in waiting for months or years for customers to find your site accidentally. If you want higher traffic, better reach, and better results in a short period, retarget those ads.
• Brand awareness is an ongoing effort. You can’t stop with brand awareness campaigns even if you reach milestones that make it seem that your brand is in the green. With so much competition mushrooming daily, it’s no small wonder that you need to keep changing how you address your potential leads to inviting them to an ongoing marketing dialogue. If your potential customers don’t want to engage with you online, you won’t be able to build a strong customer baseline online.

Our remarketing and retargeting similar?

Yes, these systems or strategies are similar. There are three similarities to boot:

• Both help in building more long-lasting connections between the brand and its customers and leads.
• Both strategies make it easier to directly target and engage people who might be interested in making a purchase.
• Both are focused on surfacing your brand to people who have already seen your brand before because it takes time for people to naturally warm up to a new brand.

The main difference between these two methods is that remarketing focuses mainly on email automation methods and segmentation, while retargeting uses ads across platforms and ad networks, including ad networks that serve social channels like LinkedIn and Facebook. Email automation software like Mailchimp and Aweber can help convert mere customer visitors into active, paying customers. You can do a rinse and repeat this process whenever you feel that you know your lead segments better. Again, the goal is nurturing both the short-term and long-term relationships between your brand and leads.

The process of retargeting can be summed up into three very simple steps:

• A customer visits your website for the first time.
• After leaving, your customer starts seeing ads revolving around your brand and current offers.
• The repeated exposure builds momentum and allows your customer to warm up to your brand. Your customer comes back to your site to consult with you and eventually hire your web design agency.

What are the methods of retargeting?

• Social media – Due to the popularity of social media channels and the sheer number of people in front of Facebook and other social channels daily, many digital marketers believe that social media retargeting is the single most powerful method of bringing an ailing brand in front of its target audience. However, there is a caveat: the demographics of each channel matter, and if you don’t know where your target crowd is, you might end up speaking to a wall.
• Display ads – Serious marketers should consider using professional retargeting systems so they can create different lists for each type of offer. Different offers should also be crafted depending on each part of the customer’s journey.
• Personalization – Broadcasting ads that are too generic will backfire on you. Additionally, retargeting can be accomplished with other channels, not just through ad networks and social media networks. Try creating a flurry of content for your website, email marketing campaigns, and, if possible, through direct outreach.

One-on-One Dialogues with Customers

This may come as a surprise to many, but the one-on-one customer touchpoint is probably the most powerful of all the known methods of lead nurturing. Nothing comes close to the personal and reassuring touch of actual interaction with another human being.

No matter how powerful digital media is, nothing can compare with interaction or dialogue with another person. There are three methods to accomplish his quickly: meet with your lead (personally, if possible), communicate with your leads on social media through messaging, and finally, allow your sales team to communicate with old leads and new ones for the express purpose lead nurturing.

Content Marketing

Content marketing is an ongoing effort, too. The tricky part is how to make people interested in your site that they would willingly bookmark and visit your site often. The only way to accomplish this is by making your content so good that it isn’t just knowledgeable; it’s also shareable and presents such high value that people know that they are in good hands when reading content off your site.