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The long-awaited summer months have arrived, you've just activated your email's out-of-office reply, and you're beach-bound. You're a busy marketer, so this is a well-deserved vacation. Life is good. But...wait a minute. While you're relaxing on the beach sipping a refreshing cocktail, how are you still hitting your leads goals? Nope -- it's not magic. It's not sorcery. It's scheduling!
Marketing automation isn't always a bad idea. In fact, there are quite a few cases when it can really help move the needle. So next time you go MIA from work to bask in the summer sun, take these easy steps to ensure you're not sacrificing any of those precious leads.
How to Generate Leads on Vacation
The beauty of these automation tactics is that they're like a Ronco Rotisserie: you just set it and forget it!
1. Schedule Blog Posts: Just because you're on vacation, doesn't mean your readers are or that your blog has to be. Before you clock out for the week, go on a blogging bender. Stock your office kitchen with Red Bull and dedicate a full day or two solely to writing blog posts. The key is to come up with enough content to fill up the time you'll be away so your readers don't even know you're gone. Once you've got a backlog of content, schedule your blog posts (which should be optimized with calls-to-action for lead gen) to publish at the times you'd normally publish content if you weren't taking a vacay.
2. Schedule Tweets and Facebook Posts: Social media can be a powerful lead gen tool. As long as your Twitter feed and Facebook Page wall aren't just endless streams of links to content with no human interaction, don't be afraid to schedule tweets and Facebook posts to landing pages with lead generation conversion forms for such offers as ebooks, webinars, demos, etc. while you're away. Social media management platforms like CoTweet or HootSuite offer tools to enable you to schedule posts in advance -- take advantage of them!
3. Set Up Lead Nurturing Campaigns: Lead nurturing campaigns can yield a lot of great benefits, so if you're not yet taking advantage of them, what better excuse to start? Set up a few targeted lead nurturing campaigns before you head out of town. While you might argue that lead nurturing campaigns only nurture existing leads rather than generating new leads, we beg to differ. People forward emails, expanding your reach and attracting new potential customers to your business. Even if it's not a big lead gen tactic, lead nurturing is still a great way to "work" without actually working while you're on vacation.
What other steps can you take to ensure your lead gen efforts don't fall by the wayside while you're vacationing this summer?
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