"Nurturing" Prospects with an Email Conversion Series

When a prospect completes one of your web forms in response to an offer, what then?    Maybe you have an email autoresponder message set up to automatically thank the prospect for their request, and to perhaps deliver the offer -- access to the promised white paper, special report, podcast, webinar, or perhaps a special web page.   But do you stop there?   Are you assuming that everyone who visits your web site also learns what you want them to learn while they're there?    Realistically, few (if any) prospects read all the pages on your site that you'd like them to read.  By the next day, it's likely that prospects have forgotten what they read on your site the day before.   We all need to do more careful "nurturing" of prospects over time.

 

You've placed a lot of useful content on your site -- about the benefits of your products and services.  Perhaps you've also included case studies that illustrate how customers have benefited from your solutions.   Why not take that information and repurpose it in a series of "nurturing" emails to your customers?  

"We put them on our e-newsletter list . . ."  you say.   Is that the best "nurturing" approach?   I've been noticing which companies seem to be the best at nurturing their prospects.   The companies that seem to be the most successful include the email "letter" approach in their conversion series:

1.  If using an e-newsletter, have a letter portion at the top of the e-newsletter.  The letter personalizes the contact, and begins to build value and credibility in the letter "signer".   For example, if your email series comes from your sales manager or an individual sales rep, the letter could:

- suggest that you thought they might be interested in reading about how other customers in their industry have benefited from your product.  Why not use a "push" strategy with those great case studies you have on your web site?   Run one case (or a portion or summary of one)  in your e-newsletter, with a link to the rest of the case studies on your site.

Major caution here:  since the letter is at the top of the e-newsletter, it must be COMPELLING.  Draw the reader in immediately by recounting something a customer told you the other day about how they were using your product.  Don't waste this valuable real estate with empty copy -- create value with every sentence.

2.  Send frequent communications, many (if not al)  written as a simple text email, in a highly conversational style.  What's the best way to form a relationship with someone, to make them feel comfortable with you?   It's usually to have a friendly conversation with them.   Consider adding a series of simple text emails to your conversion series, each of which can go into more detail about one particular benefit of your product. Use simple, face-to-face words a sales rep would use in a personal email to someone they knew (rather than "marketing speak").   If you're not sure how to write this way -- sit and listen to what your best reps say over the phone when they talk with prospects -- and craft similar messages for your email series.

3.  Intersperse educational/informational emails with "Offer" emails, to try to move the prospect to the next stage in the sales process.  Send a few conversational text emails, followed by an email with an Offer to attend your next webinar. 

You can create this Conversion Series and have it sent automatically to each prospect on a predetermined schedule.  Consider crafting a more conversational email Conversion Series.  Now that we've got all of this great content on our web sites, maybe it's time to put it to use.

 

 

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