What is an Email Nurture Series

What is an Email Nurture Series sq

Converting inbound leads into customers will often require effort. Most of those efforts should be focused on keeping the lead engaged and tuned in. While it is possible, leads don’t often turn into customers right away. To chip away at the customer’s initial reluctance, a marketing technique called lead nurturing is used.

Lead nurturing involves putting a focus on potential customers who haven’t converted by continually staying in contact and offering relevant information such as white papers, blog posts, discounts, or ebooks. The goal is to build a lasting relation between the lead and the business. The continuous flow of updates and information allow leads to learn about the business while building a level of trust with the brand. The lead is “nurtured” as they are slowly given the information that makes them feel like an educated consumer as opposed to being hurried along with sales messages. This builds trust and equity that can be rewarded down the line with purchases.

Communication between lead and business should be personalized for greater effect. Using merge fields to use the person’s first name for example, and offering information that is useful and full of quality resources.  As an example, information that is relevant and helpful about the industry, demographics, purchases, personal interests, etc. increases the chance that readers will not simply dismiss emails as spam, and it provides insights into potential avenues for further marketing efforts.

What is an Email Nurture Series?

An email nurture series (also known as drip marketing) is a series of lead nurturing emails sent using marketing automation or auto responders. As it is a “series”, there are a group of pre-written emails you setup that are queued and ready to be distributed. Information is delivered to those the list on a preset schedule you determine. Emails can be set to be sent to leads after triggers such as user actions (after a lead fills out a form or has made a purchase) or a timeline.

Nurture series emails work by developing a “rhythm” that coincides with the lead’s position in the buying process. An existing customer or a new lead would receive a unique sets of emails. Typical emails sent out to new leads would consist of a series of welcome emails exposing them to places on the blog or site where they can gain more familiarity with the business. Regular customers would likely receive an email about new products or an occasional “thank you” for their continued status as a customer.

There is a conversational aspect of email lead nurturing as it builds on the previous information and keeps drawing in and directing the lead. Because of their automated nature, emails don’t continue to run after a consumer moves on to another stage. This keeps them engaged while pushing them to the stage of becoming a buyer.

Have you implemented or considered email nurture campaigns for your business?  Combined with website lead capture tools a nurture campaign can be a 24/7/365 sales “person” for your company.  Need help with the strategy, the setup, of the tools to use for email nurture campaigns?  Let us know!

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