By Alistair Norman

Lead nurturing: how to woo your prospects in four steps

Find out how lead nurturing can increase your conversion rates in 4 simple steps with our quick and handy guide.

Building a strong relationship with your prospects is key to getting them to convert – here are four steps to treating them right and reaping the rewards.

1. Keep in touch

Everyone knows that any good relationship is built on communication, so don’t expect prospects to buy into your product after receiving their first sales email. They’re going to need a bit of encouragement, so ensure that you stay in regular contact with a lead nurturing program and remind them that you’re there to drive optimum engagement with your brand. Think drip marketing and keep your brand at the front of their mind with a steady stream of communications.

That said, email frequency and engagement are negatively correlated. So don’t be needy – 35.4% of consumers say frequency is the primary reason for unsubscribing from a brand’s emails, and 75% say they would resent a brand following an email deluge – and you’ll only end up being marked as spam while you’re at it. Absence makes the heart grow fonder, after all – unless you’re Barack Obama.

The charts don’t lie, so by all means, show you’re interested – but remember to play it cool.

2. Get up close and personal

Showing that you’re listening to your prospects is a surefire way to win them over, and there’s no better way to go about that than to tailor your approach to their needs and experiences. There are various ways of going about this:

Personalised emails – show them you know them by addressing them by their name and addressing their needs. If you need some inspiration, here are some great examples of personalised emails in action.
Triggered emails – if you let them make the first move, you know they’re looking to engage with you. The average clickthrough rate for triggered emails is more than double the rate for mass emails. So ensure your marketing automation software is set up to send automated responses triggered by actions from prospects.
Lead nurturing – build up a relationship with your leads by using lead nurturing to guide them down your sales funnel until they are ready to buy. Here are 5 best practices for lead nurturing emails to get you started.

3. Stand out from the crowd

It’s estimated that by 2016, t he number of business emails sent and received per day will total over 143 billion – so that means you’re going to have to work even harder to get your message read.

The key to keeping your prospects hot is to stand out in a crowded inbox – and first impressions count, so it’s worth making sure you’re armed with a killer subject line. Here are some email subject line strategies that will increase your open rates:

Be clear and specific. Honesty is the best policy, after all.
Tailor your subject line to your audience. What did we say about getting personal?
Customise the from field. ‘The name’s @yourcompany.com; sales @yourcompany.com’. That’s just not smooth.

4. Learn from your mistakes

The road to happily ever after is a long and winding one and, like we say, discovering a best practice approach is all about trial and error. You’re not going to get anywhere lead nurturing to someone new if you don’t try and understand what gets them going, and that’s why it’s worth doing your homework on how A/B split testing works so you can use it to better inform your long game. Split testing will let you find out important things such as:

When they most want to hear from you. Find out the best day of the week to make your move, and what time of day they’re most likely to read your emails.
What type of subject line works best. Hard sell? Soft sell? Long and descriptive or short and sweet?
Where your call to action should go. Where will it see the most click-throughs?

Remember:

1. Keep communication regular (but don’t be a spammer!).

2. Personalise your emails according to your prospect and their actions.

3. Come up with a catchy subject line to get your email read in a busy inbox.

4. Use A/B testing to hone your approach and get the best response.

The Author

Alistair Norman | Marketing Director

Alistair is responsible for the strategy, design and implementation of our Inbound and Content Marketing, with a focus on developing B2B and B2C markets.