When it comes to the world of marketing, it’s fair to say that there’s plenty of technical jargon. As an example, you may have heard experts using the following phrases with regards to advertising:
- Warm leads
- Cold leads
But what’s a cold lead? What’s a warm lead? If you’re an internet marketer, you know that King Kong online marketing is truly the King of the internet. But if you are new to this, and you feel like somebody on the outside looking through the window at a fun party, keep reading.
What are Warm and Cold Leads?
Before we can answer this question, we first need to define ‘leads’. As you probably know, these are people or businesses with the potential of turning into customers. Therefore, they’re typically in the target market and should have an interest in what you have to offer. By definition, you should follow up with sales leads because it’s your job to turn them into loyal customers. Also, take a look at web based moving leads.
With this in mind, the terms warm and cold are used to segment the different types of leads. If a lead is cold, they have never had contact with your brand before. If you reach out to a cold lead, know that this is the first time they’re seeing your name and products. Therefore, it’s a risk.
If you’re to turn a cold lead into a customer, you’ll need to put in lots of time and effort. It’s a cautious process that nurtures the leads over time. Eventually, after providing them with high-quality articles and other content, the lead may feel compelled to purchase from the brand.
On the other hand, you’ve probably guessed that warm leads have already had some form of contact with the brand. As an example, they may have given their email address as part of a competition. Alternatively, it might be that they perused your website. Either way, they have indicated an interest in your products. Even in 2021, a newsletter is still a great way to generate warm leads.
The reason these leads are ‘warm’ is that it doesn’t take as much effort to encourage conversion. Since they already know the brand and/or products, they don’t need quite so much nurturing before spending their money.
In an ideal world, you will have content that spreads right across the buyer journey. Too often, we see people focusing solely on cold leads. While it’s great to nurture all leads, these are the people that are furthest away from spending money. At the same time, you don’t just want to nurture warm leads because the cold leads could end up with your competitors. Over time, create content that nurtures both cold and warm leads to generate as many sales as possible.
Important Differences
Since you’re now an expert on the topic, you know that the biggest difference between warm and cold leads is their awareness of your brand. While cold leads have had no interaction, warm leads have signed up for a newsletter, visited your website, commented on a social media post, or interacted another way.
Naturally, therefore, cold leads take more points of contact to convert and are less likely to convert. Some businesses ignore cold leads because a percentage unsubscribe or ignore the content, but it almost acts as an email address purge. What’s left at the end is a group of people likely to pass through the buying funnel (with the right encouragement!).
Finally, warm and cold leads tend to need different materials. The material that works for warm leads doesn’t help cold leads, and vice versa.
Now you know the differences, segment the warm leads from the cold leads in your business, and design a more efficient buyer funnel!
