Ten? Over one hundred? Feels like close to a thousand? No matter how many hours you’ve invested in lead generation, it’s just the beginning. A long road of lead nurturing is still waiting ahead.
Lucky for you, it’s more than worth it, as companies that excel at lead nurturing generate 50% more sales-ready leads at a 33% lower cost. The reason is very simple – lead nurturing increases the chances of prospects purchasing.
If you like those odds, you’ll also like what we’ve prepared for you next. Read on for the actionable practices to create high-converting emails (+ lead nurturing examples)!
What is Email Nurturing?
Email nurturing is a sequence of emails aimed at growing strong and meaningful relationships with your target audience over time. Good lead nurturing emails are helpful and exciting; they keep your prospects engaged, build trust, and gently guide them closer to becoming happy customers.
What is a Lead Nurturing Campaign?
Nurture email campaigns consist of carefully planned emails that gradually share valuable info, offers, and stories with your audience. Everything to keep them interested, build a deeper connection, and encourage them to make comfy choices like moving forward in the buyer’s journey.
How does Lead Nurturing Work?
There are 101 ways a potential customer might have interacted with your business. They may have signed up for a free trial. Or put an item in their cart. Or entered a promo code. Or left their contact for the sales team. Or or or…
Whatever the initial interaction, you need lead nurturing to ensure that the contact doesn’t end there but continues throughout the sales funnel. In other words, constant supply of discount codes or other soft nudges to buy like gift guides, style inspo, etc.
That said, you nurture a lead when you connect with your audience on a deeper level, with the end goal being a purchase.
The Benefits of Email Nurturing
To nurture lead or not to nurture lead? There’s no question, as the winning benefits speak for themselves:
1. You get more by investing less
Email nurturing allows you to build and maintain relationships with your prospects without requiring significant financial investments. By sending targeted and relevant content to your leads, you don’t need to spend so much on advertising and outreach methods, resulting in higher ROI (Return on Investment).
2. More prospects turned customers
Lead nurturing can increase a business’s sales opportunities by up to 20% compared to non-nurtured leads.
How come? Simple. With email nurturing, you constantly re-engage people with messages showcasing your value, leaving them little time and reason to forget you altogether. Instead, it leads them towards purchase.
3. See email response rise
Lead nurturing emails get 4-10 more responses than standalone email blasts. There’s no magic – people appreciate getting personalized content, in this case, customized according to their buyer’s journey.
Email Nurture Sequence
Each email in the lead nurturing email sequence is automatically triggered by a predetermined action taken by a lead. For instance, if a lead creates an account in your ecommerce shop but doesn’t buy anything in 2 days, a nurturing email from the sequence could include a first-purchase discount.
The sequence usually continues as long as the prospect hasn’t done your wanted action. It engages them, softly pushing towards your goal.
What kind of emails make a nurture email sequence? While there are no two identical ones, this is what an email nurture sequence for a new subscriber could look like:
Email #1 We’re happy you joined us!
A welcome email is a perfect start in connecting with your potential customers. It makes them feel valued, shows what to expect from you, and sets a good tone for your brand.
With email marketing software like Sender, you can forget tricky automated email setups. Its’ drag-and-drop workflow automation builder will have you running email marketing campaigns up and running in no time.
But that’s not all! Benefit from a rich set of email marketing features for up to 2,500 subscribers for free! No restrictions. No hidden fees.
Email #2 Unveiling our best sellers
This is where you introduce your most attention-worthy products to prospects who might not fully know what you offer yet. Here, you may also include 1-2 of the following:
- UGC (User Generated Content) showing the use of your product;
- Product reviews;
- Tips & tricks;
- As seen on, etc.
Email #3 Elevate your experience: our expert guide awaits
Here you can explain how to get the best out of your products, increasing their allure and value in the prospect’s eyes. Think educational and engaging.
Email #4 Exclusive offer just for you
It’s probably the biggest deal breaker from the sequence. Your subscribers already heard how awesome your products are from you and other customers, and now they get an exceptional opportunity to make sure of it themselves. And for less? Absolutely!
Email #5 We’ve got your back
At this step of the sequence, there might still be some unsure people. You can help them feel at ease by introducing your customer support team, explaining existing guarantees, or providing social proof.
How to Write a Lead Nurturing Email
To write a high-converting lead-nurturing email, you first must take a long look at your lead and understand the goal of your communication. This ensures your focus remains on delivering valuable content rather than overwhelming volume. That said, let’s get you started with a few tips:
- Decide why you’re writing. Give your communication one clear purpose – to make the lead feel engaged, tell about your star products, or nudge them to sign up for a trial. This single goal should be the base for your message.
- Make the greeting and subject line personal. Few things capture attention, like the surprise of stumbling upon our name. Incorporate it in the subject line and the greeting to entice your leads into your nurturing email.
- Talk about what’s bothering them. Tell your leads what your product can do and how it will help solve their pain points. Show them how their world can improve after they become your customer.
- Tell them what to do next. Once you’ve explained to your leads why they should do something, tell them to do it – present a compelling CTA to make that conversion happen.
- Check back later. Make a follow-up 1-2 days after you’ve sent your email. Check if the lead clicked on the CTA and continued interacting with your business. Or they didn’t do anything at all. These observations are instrumental in evaluating your email’s effectiveness and deciding what content to send next.
Lead Nurturing Email Best Practices
Like in life, like in marketing, building trust and consistency is demanding. However, now that you know that lead nurturing is all worth it, we’ve prepared you effective practices for starting on the right foot:
Share Useful Content With Expert Opinions
Ask yourself if you’d like to receive your email. Does it enhance your knowledge or experience? If yes, you’re on the right path. If not, coming from the industry, you have everything in your hands to make the email content valuable and awaited.
Imagine you sell exotic spices. The second nurturing email (after the Welcome email) could be “5 Unique Recipes to Wow Your Mouth”. As long as the leads find your content inspiring and original, they’ll want more from you.
Talk About One Important Thing in Each Email
Showing all your best features might be a good idea on the first date, but not when discussing nurturing emails. Not to overwhelm your prospects, refine one topic related to what got your leads interested in the first place. And don’t forget the CTA (Call-to-Action).
For instance, if you’ve stayed in the business of selling exotic spices and a lead clicked on a link about its’ origins, you may send a nurturing email covering how you produce your products.
Make it Brief
Your prospects won’t be able to see the value of your emails if you bury them among irrelevant text or images. It should be seen at the first glance at your email.
Be concise, be precise. Don’t add unrelated links or the same CTA twice.
Let the Emails Flow Naturally
How does your email sequence look regarding the content? Like a seamless flow? Or a jumble of topics?
When planning your emails look at how they all come together to create one well-rounded campaign that converts leads.
While this doesn’t mean that all emails should follow the same principle (e.g., be educational), the following email should echo the content of the previous one. For example, you may offer a free trial after an email showcasing your most customer-valued product features.
Test Your Emails and Check on the Important Numbers
Learn. Adapt. Overcome. This is the only way to ensure your nurture campaigns are and continue to be efficient.
Before sending emails, split test different content pieces (subject line, images, and content) to find the best combination.
After the email nurture campaign goes live, regularly track key metrics such as click-through (CTR) and unsubscribe rates. A healthy campaign will have an unsubscribe rate below 0.5%, so if a higher number pops up, refresh your content, rethink your subject line, or consider sending it out at different times.
Make the Emails Unique to Each Person
What’s the only thing that unites your leads? They’re all unique. So, to create a genuine connection with them, you should adjust your content accordingly.
Look beyond their demographics and pay attention to where they’re standing with your brand:
- Did they express the type of content they wanted to receive?
- How active is the subscriber regarding open and CTR rates?
- Which of your products have they looked into? Did they already make a purchase?
This and more should model the content of your email.
Keep it on Your Brand All the Time
What makes your brand… well, your brand? Things like images, voice, and visual identity should be noticeable in all your communication, as only this way can you increase your brand awareness and relate it to positive aspects.
Recognizing your brand in the nurture emails helps nourish trust, leading to stronger relationships, a higher conversion rate, and a growing number of loyal customers.
For instance, even if all mentions of “Nike” would be removed from this email, you’d still know it came from them:
Key Takeaways: Email Nurturing
Lead nurturing is widely recognized by marketers as one of the most effective strategies for converting prospects into paying customers. If this sounds like something that could benefit your business, here’s a concise overview of this impactful approach:
- Lead nurturing is a cost-effective and highly efficient method for converting leads into prospects. It involves a carefully crafted sequence of engaging emails containing valuable content, offers, and narratives that foster deeper connections and prompt customer progression;
- Before embarking on a lead nurturing campaign, define a clear goal you aim to achieve and use it as the base for your campaign development;
- To create genuine connections, tailor your content to each lead’s preferences and interactions with your brand. Personalize based on their interests, engagement rates, and product exploration, making the content resonate more effectively;
- Every nurturing email should be triggered by specific actions, such as account creation or abandoned carts. To fully ensure relevance and timeliness, you should invest in email marketing automation software.
Eager to expand your horizons? Don’t miss out — explore these captivating articles about lead nurturing:
- 6 Best Lead Nurturing Software in 2023
- What is Lead Scoring? A Guide to Models & Effective Scoring
- Email Marketing Lead Generation: Best Practices & Strategies
Author bio
Vesta Oldenburg is a content writer specializing in email marketing strategies. In her daily work creativity intertwines with a strategic mindset to create content that captivates its readers.
