Essentially, a workflow acts as a tool that guides your interactions with your contacts, helping you to navigate and maximise the engagement process. Workflows keep your prospects active and engaged while helping you to gather additional information about them. Ultimately they’re navigators that guide your efforts to the destination you're hoping to reach - more engaged, sales-worthy leads!
Making the most of your workflows relies heavily on ensuring you pay attention to their timing, and both the targeting and segmentation of your leads.
Getting your timing right means that you're engaging with your leads as quickly as possible after their initial contact with you, and appropriate targeting and segmentation will see that your leads are receiving the right content at the right time, and that the workflows in place are best suited for their specific stage in the buyer's journey.
That said, here are a few varieties of workflows you need to focus on to take your brand to the top and optimally nurture your leads.
1. Workflows Hardwired to Industry Specifics
We all love getting information and personalised content - it's a fact. It's just so much nicer to have relevant content delivered to your inbox than generic content. If you're in the know about your prospects' industry, this is a fact you should be capitalising on by using your workflows to send them industry-specific blogs, whitepapers, checklists, webinars, videos and eBooks.
2. Lead Nurturing Workflows
Naturally, the goal of your workflows is to convert leads into marketing qualified leads that you can pass onto sales with confidence, and having solid lead nurturing workflows in place goes a long way towards helping you achieve this goal.
Once your site visitor becomes a lead, you can engage them in a workflow that gradually and unobtrusively promotes your ToFu, MoFu and BoFu offers in the most enticing way possible while helping your new lead progress through the sales funnel at a pace comfortable to them and their needs.
3. Hot and Cold Lead Workflows
Leads are like stars. Sometimes they burn hot and bright - and other times they grow cold and dim. You can use your workflows to reach both these groups of leads based on their current attitude towards your business and brand.
If they're a hot lead, visiting your site often, sharing and actively engaging with your content and offers, you can use a workflow to engage them in emails that offer free services, BoFu offers and ultimately culminate in a prompt to receive a call from your sales team.
If your leads are cold, dwindling in engagement and you're wanting to re-engage them, you can set up a workflow that follows up on their previous engagement with your brand by asking questions, sending surveys and reminding them that you haven't forgotten about them.
4. Customer Workflows
Just because a lead becomes a customer it doesn't mean you should forget about them. It just means you need to step your game up and delight them in everyway possible - something you can do by implementing workflows that encourage them to continue interacting with your brand and remind them that both they and their needs are important to you.
5. Subscriber Workflows
As the name suggests, subscriber workflows are designed to keep blog and content subscribers in the loop and on their way to becoming fully-fledged leads. Normally this workflow consists of a welcome email that thanks them for subscribing and includes a subtle CTA encouraging them to find out more about your content.
Workflows are fantastic for automating the important processes that take a new Inbound Marketing lead from freshly gathered to ready for sales. If you've never considered using them before, now's the time!