If you're looking to maximise your marketing budget, Email is one of the most valuable and cost effective digital lead nurturing stategies available to most businesses. The problem is many email marketing campaigns have failed before they've even been sent. Emails need to be relevant, well-timed and valuable, or they will remain unopened or unsubscribed. The best email marketing campaigns are personalised, well-targeted, and automated. In this blog, we’ll explore exactly how to achieve that.
TABLE OF CONTENTS
- a. The Power of Email Marketing in Building Customer Relationships
- b. Aligning Email Marketing with Lead Nurturing Objectives
- a. Segmenting Your Email List for Personalisation
- b. Creating Engaging Email Copy and Design
- a. Leveraging Automation for Timely and Relevant Emails
- b. Personalising Email Campaigns for Higher Engagement
- a. Tracking Key Metrics for Email Campaign Success
- b. Testing and Iterating for Continuous Improvement
Understanding the Role of Email Marketing in Lead Nurturing
The Power of Email Marketing in Building Customer Relationships
Not every prospective client is ready to buy the moment they discover your business. Lead nurturing allows you to build a relationship with potential clients and guide them through the various stages of their buying journey, so they are more likely to buy from you.
Email marketing is an excellent tool for nurturing customer relationships because it enables you to automate and personalise the process with minimum ongoing effort.
Aligning Email Marketing with Lead Nurturing Objectives
To understand why email is an effective method for nurturing and converting leads, consider the different ways in which your email marketing strategy can help with lead nurturing objectives:
- Increased conversion rates: Well-targeted and relevant emails increase the likelihood of clients purchasing.
- Shortened sales cycles: Timely, useful email content can help accelerate prospects through the sales process.
- Higher deal value: This can be achieved by showcasing premium offerings and providing upsell opportunities.
- Greater reputation and trust: Thoughtful content can position you as an industry leader and foster a sense of trust.
- Enhanced client loyalty: Staying in touch and providing valuable content creates a stronger emotional connection with clients.
Crafting Fascinating Email Content for Lead Nurturing
Segmenting Your Email List for Personalisation
One of the most common reasons people unsubscribe from an email list is that they get too many emails that aren’t relevant to them. Segmenting allows you to split your email list into groups, so you’ll only send information to the people who will benefit from it.
Segmenting can be done in a number of ways, and the best way will depend upon your type of business. You’ll want to identify segments that have different business or communication needs.
For B2B businesses, the type of business, recipient’s role, previous purchasing behaviour or business size are likely to be more relevant.
Once you have identified your segments, you can tailor your email marketing messages to suit them in a number of ways, including:
- Localised content: Region-specific information, such as local events, regulations, or news.
- Segment-specific promotions: Develop offers around solutions to a particular segment’s challenges.
- Educational content: Share industry insights, whitepapers, or webinars around topical news or challenges.
- Success stories: Share case studies and testimonials from similar businesses.
Creating Engaging Email Copy and Design
The average reader only takes around 3 to 5 seconds to decide whether something is relevant and worth reading, or if they’ll stop. It is crucial that emails grab the reader’s interest, make it easy to keep reading, and ultimately get them to take action.
Your emails should:
- Have a relevant, snappy subject line that includes any special offer or key point of interest.
- Contain content that addresses the recipient’s needs and pain points.
- Be concise and easy to read. Break up lengthy text with headings or include a ‘read more’ button.
- Use engaging visuals and formatting to enhance readability.
- Finish with a clear call to action, such as ‘schedule a demo’, or ‘download the free whitepaper’.
You can also ensure your emails are mobile-friendly by using:
- Responsive design that adapts to various devices.
- Single-column layout, which makes scrolling easier.
- Large fonts, buttons and links that are easy to tap.
- Minimal or small-sized image files that are quick to download.
- Ample white space to prevent accidental clicks and improve overall readability.
Automation and Personalisation in Email Marketing
Leveraging Automation for Timely and Relevant Emails
Even the most engaging, well-designed email can fall flat if its timing is not in sync with the client’s needs, or if it comes on the back of a flood of other emails. Marketing automation helps ensure that your carefully crafted email is received at the right time.
In the first instance, automation should be set up to send out emails at a frequency that matches their purpose. For a limited-time offer, that could be as often as once a day for a week. For emails designed to keep top-of-mind, the frequency will be less, but ongoing.
Automation should also be set to coincide with the different stages of the client’s journey, and the content should be tailored to reflect what they’re looking for at each stage:
- Awareness: Educate about problems and provide helpful resources.
- Consideration and decision: Help the client decide with comparisons, testimonials, demonstrations and special offers.
- Purchase: Thank-you emails, onboarding instructions and follow-up.
- Build loyalty: Continue to provide useful content, request reviews and encourage sharing.
Personalising Email Campaigns for Higher Engagement
In addition to list segmentation, taking a step further to personalise emails can substantially improve reader engagement.
Modern email marketing software allows for personalisation via dynamic content blocks that change based on recipient data. This allows for personalisation techniques that include:
- Subject lines and pre-headers that include the recipient’s name, company or role.
- Tailored recommendations based on client information.
- Automated follow-up based on behaviour triggers such as abandoned carts, downloads or enquiries.
- Providing relevant regional information using geolocation targeting.
- Lifecycle messaging that targets leads, prospects, current and past clients.
- Requesting feedback or offering follow-up based on recent interactions or purchases.
Analysing and Optimising Email Campaign Performance
Tracking Key Metrics for Email Campaign Success
It is not enough to simply send out emails and hope for the best. Campaign performance should be evaluated using a number of metrics, so that future emails can be optimised based on solid data.
Start by focusing on these 4 key metrics:
- Open rate: This reflects the effectiveness of your subject lines and content’s initial appeal.
- Click-through rate: The percentage of recipients who clicked on a link or call-to-action shows their level of engagement and interest in your content.
- Conversion rate: The percentage of recipients who took an end action that reflects your campaign goal, such as filling out a form or making a purchase.
- Unsubscribe rate: The number of recipients who opt out of receiving future emails, suggesting they do not find them relevant or valuable.
Other metrics to keep an eye on include the email bounce rate, share rate and comparative segment performance.
Testing and Iterating for Continuous Improvement
It’s not always easy to predict how well a certain subject line, content, or call to action will perform with your audience. A/B testing allows you to systematically compare different elements of your emails to identify which variations resonate best. By analysing these variations, you can identify what is working well, and optimise your campaigns for better performance.
A/B testing works by sending different content options to small groups within your email list. Relevant metrics, such as open rates, are then tracked, and a winning option is identified. That option can then be sent to further email subscribers.
A/B testing can be used to test the effectiveness of:
- Subject lines, to see which line results in a higher open rate.
- Content variations, including altering format and length of content displayed.
- Calls to action, such as ‘buy now’ vs ‘learn more’ to see which results in a greater click through or final action.
Start Your Email Marketing Lead Generation Journey Today
Email marketing can be a highly effective way to nurture leads and build trust, engagement and loyalty, as prospective clients are led through the buying process. A well-thought-out email marketing strategy will leverage segmentation, email personalisation and automation, to improve open rates, better encourage client actions, and ultimately increase return on investment.
Lead Express excels in maximising email marketing’s potential for Australian B2B businesses of all sizes, with a ‘100% results 0% risk’ lead guarantee. To cultivate lasting client relationships and drive more sales for your business via email marketing, contact Lead Express today.
