By Walter Elly
Senior Director of Internet Marketing

There are several ways to add more value to your Internet marketing ROI. You can create demand through services such as search engine marketing and social media marketing. You can also create more value from your existing traffic through services such as conversion rate optimization. And all of these services leave a data trail of gold—if you make the effort to mine it and if you nurture it properly. By mining your marketing database you can get even MORE value out of your current marketing through Lead Nurturing.

Lead Nurturing, defined by MarketingProfs.com as “a relationship-building approach utilizing multiple media to provide relevant information tailored to prospects while engaging in an ongoing dialog until qualified prospects are ’sales ready,’” is based on a simple principle: people who learn about your brand may not yet be ready to buy. Lead Nurturing is the process that keeps your value proposition readily accessible in the minds of your prospective customers. So, when they are ready to finally buy, you are still part of their decision, even if they first found you years ago.

Opportunities to perform Lead Nurturing are abundant, ranging from email marketing to direct mail to simply picking up the phone. Tracking Lead Nurturing activities is essential; and the tools to do so are just as abundant (HubSpot and Salesforce, to name two).

Moving forward, we will cover all this and more on an ongoing basis through this blog as part of a series. In the meantime, challenge us. Ask us questions. MicroArts offers a Facebook Application for Internet Marketing Q&A; where you can send in your question to our practice directors for further discussion. We’d love to hear from you!