Movie posters introduce titles and characters, helping you get a feel for what the movie is about. Business websites explain products and services, establishing reputation and branding.
Properly executed graphic design means successfully sharing a message, so it’s no wonder design has a lot in common with successful lead nurturing.
When done correctly, lead nurturing helps you introduce key players in your business, pitch products and services, and give people an idea of what it would be like to hire you or buy from you. In different ways, each of those things may lead someone to become a customer.
Let’s dive into a few basic design principles and how they relate to successful lead nurturing.
Repetition matters
Think about visual assets you see regularly. Whether it’s a poster, website, or invitation, you probably notice common elements throughout. This often occurs through the use of colors and fonts. Such consistency helps tie elements together and makes a design feel cohesive.
As you work to build trust as you nurture leads, repetition matters too. Keep following through. Always reply to messages in a timely manner. Use an appropriate tone in every message you send. Build a reputation as someone who can always be counted on.
So if it takes 18 calls, you can imagine that it still takes a handful of texts to make an impact. Continual outreach matters, and once contact has been made, follow-up remains incredibly important as you work to consistently offer the same level and quality of service.
And it helps maintain branding
Repetition really comes into play when trying to keep messaging on brand. It doesn’t matter if the person designing something has a favorite color or favorite font. If it doesn’t reflect the brand and message they need to convey, their design shouldn’t utilize it.
Just like a franchise wants every customer experience to be of the same quality no matter the location, that should apply to their communication as well. Ensuring this, however, comes with significant challenges.
That means everyone who texts leads at a business should use certain language and a specified tone. If you have a team of people nurturing leads, for example, you need to clearly outline steps to ensure everyone’s message remain aligned with the brand and business goals.
Such guidelines may include:
- Language and tone specifications that help maintain the voice of the business, whether that be formal or casual
- Frequency limits so people get the right number of messages
- Time restrictions that ensure messages aren’t sent at odd times of the day
- Message templates that help start and continue conversations
In particular, providing example messages and templates for lead nurturing goes a long way. Doing so increases the chances that leads will receive important information about your business at key times. When you give your team messaging templates, they can fill edit them to suit their own style while still reflecting the brand.
Contrast keeps things fresh
As important as repetition is, nothing stands out without contrast. Thinking about simple color choices explains this well.
A black T-shirt with black writing makes a certain aesthetic statement, but it definitely doesn’t stand out. White lettering on a black shirt obviously has a different effect.
Or think about a black and white sign that suddenly includes red lettering. You pay attention to what’s written in red! When everything in a design looks the same, we glance over or ignore it.
Contrast helps you make a point, and there’s a few ways to exercise contrast when nurturing leads.
First, every message to every lead should not be the same. Sales professionals should do everything they can to customize and personalize messages. This means pulling in information from a CRM or keeping diligent notes about people’s requests and interests in the business.
Second, all the messages someone sends to a single lead shouldn’t sound like a robot wrote them. A real human person wrote them. Don’t let yourself or others rely too heavily on templates.
Yes, templates are great – and Skipio provides templated messaging campaigns to users – but use them as a starting point. A template helps your team start with the same tone or voice. Then, each of the people nurturing leads should personalize the template to work for them and the specific people they’re contacting.
Readability is all that really matters
Eye-catching designs are great! But only if they clearly communicate the intended information.
If people literally can’t look at a poster because it’s too busy, blurry, or confusing, it really doesn’t matter the reason someone created it. All of us have probably received an invitation to an event and wondered when and where it’s actually happening. When we obscure key information, we do others a disservice.
Similarly, it doesn’t matter how good your product is or the deal you’re offering someone if the message is too long, riddled with errors, irrelevant to the recipient, etc.
Make it clear from the very first text you send a lead who you are and why you’re texting them. Use clear and concise language no matter the stage of the process and you’ll more likely execute successful lead nurturing.
While this post alone won’t make you a design expert or a lead nurturing pro, hopefully you gained a new perspective on how to optimize your lead nurturing.