LEAD NURTURING
Email marketing is an overused but under-utilized way of reaching new customers. The best way to use email marketing is for lead nurturing. Most of your prospects are interested in buying your products or services, but they might not be ready to buy right away. Too many companies lose out on sales by approaching potential customers once or twice and never communicating to them again if they don’t buy immediately. Since you are investing so much time and resources into lead generation, you should focus on how to nurture leads so they stay in your sales funnel and convert down the road. To do this, you must use email marketing software to segment your lead lists and send targeted, automated email campaigns to your leads. These emails are designed to strengthen your sales funnel by adding more personal touch points to each lead. To maximize lead nurturing, you need to provide the information that is keeping your leads from converting to customers. You must ask yourself, “What information do my customers value? And what value can I provide to convince them that my business is right for them?” If you can do this effectively, you can really transform your business with an influx of new sales!
THE OPPORTUNITY
50% of qualified leads are not ready to purchase immediately. If you call these leads up and push them into making a decision right away, you will likely lose them. Only 25% of leads are ready to go to a sales rep. Lead nurturing emails get 4-10 times the response rate of stand-alone email blasts. If performed right, lead nurturing can recycle old or cold leads and turn them into new customers. In essence, lead nurturing creates new sales opportunities without going after a new marketing channel.
INVESTMENT
There are wonderful yet inexpensive email software tools available for your lead nurturing campaign that can integrate with your website and CRM for automated campaigns. The investment is so small that you really have nothing to lose. We recommend a low-cost email tool to get started. If you find lead nurturing is boosting sales significantly, it might be worth looking into a more expensive, turnkey solution.
RISK
The financial risk is practically non-existent. However, there is somewhat of a branding risk if lead nurturing isn’t done right. If you clumsily execute your campaign by email blasting every lead you’ve ever had, you will be accused of spamming customers. If irritated customers post anything online that connects your business with spamming, your reputation will be tarnished. If that happens, your business will suffer, so be careful. Lead nurturing should be used for targeted lists and should contain personalized emails.
RETURN
The ROI is remarkable considering how little it costs to expand your sales funnel and add new sales opportunities over a longer period of time.
TRACKING
With the right email software, you can integrate Google Analytics and your CRM to track the KPIs for every email campaign. You can study the data to improve your email campaigns for better click-through rates and better conversion rates.