Let’s say you just poured a ton of effort into an ad campaign. You selected a relevant audience. You chose the right lead magnet. And as a result, you got thousands of people to sign up for your email list.
But then you sent a series of sales emails and . . . only a handful of people converted.
Now what?
It might feel like all that effort was wasted. It only resulted in a few sales–not enough to justify the work you put into the campaign. But here’s the thing: those leads aren’t going anywhere. And they still have value, even if that value doesn’t immediately result in ROI.
Here are three reasons why these leads are still valuable (and why you should even want more of them).
1. Building a relevant audience is always useful
Whether they converted or not, these people are all interested in what you do and what you have to say (that’s why they downloaded your lead magnet). That means they’re probably interested in more of your content.
You’ve already learned that for whatever reason, they weren’t ready to convert from your sales email. But if you have blog posts, videos, webinars, courses, or other content that’s related to the lead magnet they signed up for—or even just designed for the same target audience—you now have a direct channel to communicate with thousands of people who would be interested in it.
Having a relevant email list helps you get more from every piece of content, because sending traffic to your content can help it rank in search engines, and it increases the number of likes, shares, and comments—all of which can help expose your content to more of the right people.
These people may not have been ready to buy your product or use your service. But they did feel ready to start a relationship with your brand, and your content (the lead magnet) is what got them there. If you keep your leads happy and engaged with content, it can easily lead to other, more compelling benefits—and perhaps even lead them to become customers down the road.
2. Leads that don’t convert may bring you leads that will
Some of your leads who didn’t convert have connections to people who will. They may even be in positions of influence with your target audience. If you impress them, they’re a lot more likely to tell their friends, family members, and colleagues about you.
That’s why it’s so important to continue demonstrating your expertise and authority by sharing content that’s relevant to your industry. Your leads that didn’t convert may share this content with their relevant connections, and even if they don’t, it will keep you top of mind–so when your industry, product category, or the topics your content is about come up in conversation, they’ll bring you up.
As long as you don’t burn out your email list by inundating them with sales pitches, they may even forward the occasional sales email to people they know–because sharing a good deal on a good product makes them look good.
3. They may convert down the road
You don’t know why these leads didn’t convert. It’s certainly possible that your offer wasn’t relevant to them, but there are plenty of other reasons why someone simply wasn’t ready to buy.
Maybe they didn’t know enough about you yet, and they needed to do more research. Or they didn’t have room in the budget. Or they wanted to purchase, but they weren’t the only key decision maker. Or their organization simply wasn’t ready.
Your offer isn’t going to change these factors. But time can. If you keep your leads warm, some of them may find themselves in a position to purchase later.
Nurture your leads
When your ad campaign comes to an end, your work isn’t done. Your leads have just begun a relationship with your brand, and you shouldn’t assume that if they don’t convert right away, they have no value.
With a relevant nurture campaign (also known as a drip campaign), you’ll get a lot more out of every lead-gen campaign you create, because the leads that don’t convert right away will stay engaged and have more opportunities (and time) to become valuable to you.
