Directly approaching your passive prospects, sometimes even using a less formal approach, can help renew their interest in your offers.

It’s an inevitable part of the sales process and one that everyone hates — when a lead goes completely dormant. Nurturing leads is a fundamental part of any sales pipeline, but how can you bring some leads back to life in order to convert them at the end of the day?

Here are 6 useful tips to help you revive your B2B sales leads from the dead:

Find other people within the account

Sometimes leads go cold because the decision-maker you are engaging with changes roles, has taken on new responsibilities, or is working on a priority project that demands his/her full attention. By identifying other prospects within that same account that are also part of the decision-making process, you may be able to find another way in. It is important to leverage the first contact you have in order to grab the attention of the second (name dropping never hurt anyone!) and navigating within the account to find multiple contacts will increase your chances of moving things to the next level.

Use social selling

Creating a dedicated LinkedIn profile for the purpose of social selling will help you maximize your outreach efforts across channels. Sometimes people stop responding to emails, but they will write you back an InMail message if it’s highly tailored. Having an informal approach works best — asking the prospect for help, or casually asking him/her what’s new can be a good way to reinitiate the conversation. By liking and sharing the content that your prospect posts, you will also show that person that you are interested in what they are doing.

Leverage your content

By sending people relevant content on a regular basis, you can keep the lines of communication open and be in touch with prospects that have fallen off your radar. Individually emailing prospects personalized messages can work better than the one-size-fits-all email blast. Picking relevant pieces of content that match the job title or industry sector of your prospect can be a great way to grab their attention, especially if you have built a case study for a company similar to theirs.

Create an email marketing campaign

Having a newsletter that is emailed to your list of prospects on a monthly basis can help keep your brand visible for those that may have forgotten about you. Sometimes prospects are interested in a topic until something more urgent comes up, but when they have more time, it’s something they’ll go back to. By having a monthly newsletter, you can be sure that your prospects are reminded about your value proposition repeatedly over time.

Don’t give up

It’s easy to get discouraged when prospects don’t respond, but when the going gets tough, the tough get going! Educating and nurturing prospects takes time and energy, but it should pay off in the long term if you are patient. Sometimes a highly direct message to ask a prospect flat out if they are still interested or not will help get a response one way or the other. Don’t be afraid to be very direct when needed.

When all else fails, telesales

Picking up the phone to reach back out to a dormant lead can be a great way to revive it. Renewing one-on-one contact with a prospect under the guise of touching base can humanize the exchange ten-fold. You’ll be surprised at how many prospects you’ll get that will say they are happy you called.

Conclusion

Being able to nurture leads takes organization, thought, and time. The best way to revive leads comes from being patient and not giving up hope. Using current events as ‘hooks’ (a reason to get back in touch) is a great way to get the attention of your target audience. Be sure to customize each email and conversation according to the person on the other side of your communication.

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