Nurture Leads With Email Marketing

According to MarketingSherpa, 70% of your leads will end up buying something from you or one of your competitors, but they won‟t do it right away! Companies that build relationships with their leads over time have the greatest success in turning leads into customers by staying top-of-mind until the lead is ready to buy.

Lead nurturing is the process of developing that relationship with your potential customer by sending targeted, relevant, and valuable messages to them in a timely manner. The end goal is to get your leads to “raise their hand” and self-select into further engaging with your business. Forrester Research found that companies that excel at lead nurturing are able to generate 50% more sales-ready leads at 33% lower cost-per-lead.

Email Marketing Best Practices:


List-Building
Create opt-in opportunities. Make sure your lead forms allow your website visitors to enter their email address and opt-in to receive your messages.

Give people a reason to opt-in. Whether it‟s a landing page for an ebook or an email newsletter subscription form, make sure you give people a compelling reason to opt-in. What‟s so valuable about your ebook? What interesting and unique information will they receive in your email newsletter? Be explicit and phrase the benefit(s) in terms of your recipient.

Would I be upset if I didn‟t receive your message? Only send messages to people who have explicitly opted in. You can follow the extreme principle of Seth Godin‟s Permission Marketing: Would your recipient be upset if they didn‟t receive your message? If yes, you should go ahead and send your email.

Sending


Stay relevant. What was your lead interested in? Did they download your “5 Tips for Using QuickBooks to Manage Your Business” ebook? Or did they read your blog article on “How to Get Your Business Listed in Google Places”? Send them an email with more resources targeted to their interests.

Get personal. Use a name and email address in the “from” line of your email that your recipients will recognize. Personalize the message so the recipient remembers how and why they came to your website. For example, start with “You recently checked out our ebook…” or “Thanks for subscribing to our blog!”

WIIFM? At the end of the day, make sure that your message adds value. Get into the mind of your recipient and ask, “What‟s In It For Me?” (WIIFM) Are you emailing them just to tell them how great your product is? Or are you offering to help solve a problem they‟re facing? Make the value clear in both the email body and the subject line.

Don‟t rely on images. Many email clients don‟t load images automatically, so if your email is one large image, your recipient won‟t have any idea what it‟s about! Use images as supplementary (clickable) content in your email, and make sure you have enough text to communicate value.

Be consistent. You want your recipients to expect and look forward to your messages. Whether you send your messages daily, weekly, or monthly, pick a schedule and stick to it.

Don‟t let the law get you down. Brush up on CAN-SPAM regulations to make sure your email practices comply.

Lead nurturing is all about developing relationships with your leads, so keep in mind that this does not have to be limited to email communication. Think about how you can communicate with your leads via social media or another platform they use.