Lead nurturing using an automated email software is an essential component in the cultivation of sales from prospective clients who have an interest in your services, but may not be ready to buy. The goal is to keep your brand in the forefront of the prospect’s mind while maintaining a consistently positive impression. There is significant evidence to suggest that the buying cycles of nurtured customers are shorter than those of customers that were not nurtured with an ongoing email marketing campaign. Also, nurtured customers do not seem to require a discount. There are six basic steps your marketing plan should follow when acquiring leads to ensure you don't waste time.

1 - Analyze your buying cycle

Have your marketing and your sales teams meet to establish which promotional offers fit into what stage in the buying cycle. Review your company’s data to determine which provides most effectively move your leads down the buying scale.

2 - Determine your marketing plan goals

What do you want your marketing plan to accomplish? Are you trying to establish a rapport with prospects at the top of the buying cycle, or try to reinvigorate customers near the bottom of the funnel and are ready to make a decision? Once again, consult with your marketing team and review your data to decide which promotions work effectively for your purposes.

3 - Compose a brief but enticing email

Draft an email that customers want to read. If the email comes across as a sales pitch, it will not be opened. Begin with your subject line. Does it describe your objective clearly? Is the offer delineated in an inviting manner? Would you open this email or would it seem like spam? Ask yourself, would my prospects miss this email if it does not get sent.

Next, write the body of the email. Keep it brief, between 150 and 200 words, and illustrate the finer points of the deal concisely. Make sure you include your tracking URL so that you can measure the email’s success in converting the leads into interested clients.

4 - Double check your email before sending it out

Because it is often difficult to proofread your work, send the email out to people within your organization who will evaluate the wording, check for grammatical errors, and give you feedback. Ideally, everyone to whom you sent the email on the test run will be from a different department, and will offer different perspectives based on their areas of expertise.

5 - Track the results using analytics

Once you have sent out your promotional email, begin to measure all of the click-through rates, conversions and unsubscribe rates as soon as the data becomes available. Click-through rates are the percentages of people who clicked the link you sent. Conversion rates are the numbers of customers who followed through with a purchase, a request for a newsletter or another action that indicates concrete interest. The dreaded unsubscribe rate is the percentage of people who wanted off of the email list. You should aim for a 5-percent click-through rate, and a 1-percent unsubscribe rate.

6 - Make adjustments to your email campaign

Periodic data analysis should tell you how to adjust your email marketing plan for optimum effect. If your click through rate is high after the first wave of emails but low for the second wave, the answer might be a timing adjustment. Likewise, if an unsubscribe rate rises after the second batch of emails.

You will find that lead nurturing is an evolving, ever-changing endeavor because customer moods are also always changing and evolving. You want to convey the message that the potential client's business would be deeply valued, but you respect him enough to let him make his informed decision. After all, who wants to be hounded to the ends of the earth for a sale?

About Inbound Marketing

To learn more about lead nurturing, automated marketing and the inbound marketing philosophy, click on the button below and download our whitepaper. It explains the steps needed to develop an online marketing process that brings in customers without interruption or annoyance.