07 Jul Top 5 Strategies for Lead Nurturing Emails

It’s often tempting for businesses to relax when they’ve successfully identified their prospects and established contact with them. You’ve crafted the perfect email marketing strategy, so you’re sure it’s time to sit and let clients come pouring in. It’s not enough to get them to convert by sending messages, cold calling, and targeting your marketing efforts at them. 

Most of the time, your prospects and leads need a lot of nurturing before they make a purchase. This is where lead nurturing emails come in. Lead nurturing emails can be compelling in helping businesses move their lead into the decision stage of the sales funnel. 

What are lead nurturing emails?

Lead nurturing emails are part of email marketing strategies used to convince prospects to make the final move. This could be locking in a purchase or confirming a meeting. These emails often use the appeal and emotional aspect of user-generated content and social currency to motivate your leads and prospects to take action. 

Lead nurturing emails target clients in the consideration stage, where they need a final push to make a decision. In a B2C setting, the business may offer its leads a discount or other incentives that entice them into buying.  

Why are they important?

Email marketing is one of the most effective ways of establishing contact with C-level executives. Your business may not employ the flashy and incentive-based techniques favored by B2C companies. But lead nurturing emails are just as effective in the B2B model. With the right strategies, emails are cost-efficient marketing for your business, can be easily automated, and lead to increased sales.

B2B sales cycles are often lengthy, which means it’ll involve a lot of communication between you and your lead. Sending frequent educational and awareness emails to your prospects will remind them of your business’s importance. While they may not be ready to commit and book a meeting immediately, you’ll remain top of their mind. When they learn more about your offer and how they can benefit from it, they’ll be more interested in meeting you.

How lead nurturing emails work

The key to making lead nurturing emails work is to target clients who have had some interaction with your business. An example is a lead that has visited your website and signed up for newsletters.

Other examples are leads who joined your mailing list or someone who has scheduled a meeting with you. When you have these clients’ contact information, your sales and marketing team can focus on crafting engaging emails. These emails should provide valuable resources to propel them toward making a decision. 

The lead nurturing process is all about developing a mutually beneficial relationship for both parties. The relationship will guide their interactions as they continue down the lead funnel toward taking action.

Best email marketing strategies

1. Use different kinds of content

You can nurture leads in many different ways. B2B businesses assume the only way to market to clients is with wordy emails, but this isn’t always the case. No particular content style will always work, so it’s good to try a mix of content types.  When you learn what their preferred content is, keep sending emails with such content. 

Focus on sharing content that offers valuable insights and doesn’t try to cram too much information into one email. Sometimes your audience will appreciate and respond to emails with visually appealing content like videos, GIFS, and pictures. A tip for visual emails is to utilize user-generated content so your clients get a feel of how your offer works. 

2. Send personalized emails 

Clients respond to personalized content much more than to generic content and emails. You should only send out emails to customers according to their lead type and what they need. Doing this will avoid sharing irrelevant content that could make them lose interest in your business. 

Use the information received from their interaction to tailor your emails to their needs and where they are in your funnel. Refrain from asking for too much personal information as it can make clients wary, resulting in you losing their business. Usually, their name, location, and email address are enough to create personalized nurturing emails that land the meeting.

3. Send follow-up emails immediately 

Some salespeople still underestimate the importance of timing in lead nurturing. You want to send emails to clients immediately. Contacting them soon after interaction while their interest is fresh is vital to ensure they don’t forget about your brand. Automation tools can help your business send emails quickly and to a large group of people at once. 

You have a much higher chance of converting a lead into a sales opportunity when their visit to your website is recent, and they’re still thinking about it. You already have some information about the client, what they’re interested in, and where they’ve interacted with your brand. Follow up immediately with a relevant offer that tops any cold-calling technique. 

4. Track your email metrics 

It wouldn’t do your business any good to send great emails without knowing whether they paid off. Analytics and insights from your metrics show how clients respond to your nurturing emails. They also indicate whether your current campaigns are achieving your business goals. 

Depending on your analytics, your sales and marketing teams can decide to test out other email strategies. Testing email types and tracking their success helps you tailor and improve your campaigns to what your clients want to see. Some of the most important metrics to note with emails are the percentage of clicks from your email (also known as click-through rates) and unsubscribe rates.

5. Segment your leads

Segmenting your target audience into specific lists makes targeting them easier. You can segment them according to interests, website activity, sign-up date, industry, and more. Tailor your marketing messages to each group, so you increase their chances of taking the next step in the sales funnel. 

Segmenting your leads is essential because it ensures you don’t send the same generic messages to all your contacts. You’ll address specific needs and show your leads how your business can solve their problems. Keep targeting them with new messages as they progress through the buying process until they take the final action.

If you’re interested in learning how to use lead nurturing emails to your business’s advantage, you’re in the right place. Linked Strategies is an expert lead generation and acquisition organization with experience crafting emails that help companies reach key
decision-makers. Contact us today to begin the process of bringing in quality leads.