How Automated Nurture Sequences work
Ever wonder how you can take customers down a sales journey and convert them more effectively? Staying at the top of mind of your prospects is far more difficult nowadays than it’s ever been. That’s not to say that it’s impossible, but the tactics in which we employ have changed slightly so that we carry out some marketing activities more often than others.
We firmly believe that email nurture sequences are a crucial part of staying top of mind of your prospects and increasing the rate at which you convert them. The right amount of continuous contact with your potential customers can get them to convert far more reliably and you can add more value through more direct touch points with your prospects and addressing anything they might currently be thinking about. The best part? It can all be automated.
What are Email Nurture Sequences?
Email nurture sequences are an automated set of email designed to be sent over a period of time after a prospect signs up to your newsletter, downloads an eBook or provides their email address in a way that allows you to set a trigger for the nurture sequence to start. Once triggered, the sequence will start sending your prospect emails over a set period of time and with set periods of time between each email.
How to build your own Email Nurture Sequence
Building your own Email Nurture Sequence doesn’t need to be difficult, in fact it can be done in only 4 steps! You’ll need a CRM platform that offers automation in order to be able to run a nurture sequence. If you aren’t already using one and don’t know where to start, check out our other blog on which CRM system is right for you.
Step 1: Decide on the length of your Email Nurture Sequence.
How many emails do you want to build your nurture sequence out of? We recommend at least 3 emails but we prefer to use 5 in our own nurture sequences. Of course, this all depends on your customer and how many emails it takes to get across what your message is. You might want to include a variety of content that helps guide your prospects down the customer journey that you want to take them down. Driving the right amount of awareness, engagement and conversion messages can help increase the rate at which you get conversions from prospects.
Step 2: Writing the first email
The first email in your sequence typically gets an open rate of around 50%, with each email in the sequence getting continually lower open rates. While this may seem a little discouraging, especially to those that are new to nurture sequences, the harsh truth of the matter is that, if someone unsubscribes or doesn’t open any of your emails past a certain one, they were probably never going to convert in the first place. This is why automating these emails effectively will save you so much time!
Anyway, writing the first email. This should usually be your welcome email and presents an opportunity to make a great first impression on your new prospect. This first email should be about raising awareness for your business, telling your prospect the most important things to note about your business. Chances are, if they like your first email, they’ll open the next email you send. So make it a good one!
Step 3: Determine the content of the rest of your Nurture Sequence
This next step seems pretty easy as it is essentially just deciding on content, but the order in which you send certain types of content can determine the successful conversion rate of your nurture sequence. You shouldn’t get too “salesy” too soon in your sequence. At the same time, you shouldn’t overload your prospects with material that builds awareness as you’ll miss out on the opportunity to get them to engage or buy from you, and you’ll start to repeat yourself.
We recommend that you build awareness with your first emails in the sequence then start to get your prospect to engage with you by call them to action. This could be to interact with something on your website or book a meeting with you. If a someone is unwilling to engage with you, chances are that they’re a cold lead and you’ll eventually see them drop off your radar. As you get to the end of your sequence, you can start to add messages that call your lead to convert into a customer. This completely depends, of course, on the sales approach that you usually take and the journey that you want your customers to take.
Pro tip: Schedule an email in your nurture sequence that pulls through your email signature and a message asking your prospect if they’d like to book a meeting to discuss anything. This way it feels personal for the customer, as if you’ve personally reached out to them but still saves you the time from having to write it yourself every time. We’ve seen great success from this tactic in our own nurture sequences, maybe you should try it too!
Step 4: Automate and Test your Nurture Sequence (thoroughly!)
So, now that you’ve decided the content, written the emails, and stored them inside the email marketing platform of your choice, it’s time to automate!
How you automate your nurture sequence will of course depend on the CRM system that you’re using. Most systems will use a visual workflow with a series of triggers and actions to build your automations. You first need to decide what action taken by a prospect will trigger your nurture sequence to start. This could be signing up for your newsletter or downloading an eBook, the only requirement is that they provide their email address so you can send them the sequence even if they’re not currently in your contact records.
It should be easy enough to build them but make sure you test them thoroughly! The last thing you want is for a customer to receive all of your nurture emails at once or for some not to reach them at all. This may take some time to do but the results you get in the end will be worth the time you spend!
If you’re still struggling to build nurture sequences by yourself, why not get in touch with us? As experts in the field of automation, we can help you increase the rate at which your leads convert through the power of automated nurture sequences. Book a free discovery call with us today!
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About Autus
Autus provide Revenue Growth Platforms, Marketing & Sales Automation and Digital Marketing services to help sales and marketing personnel and teams build efficient and effective sales and marketing best practices and automate their marketing and sales processes by leveraging personalised content, various digital marketing tactics, segmentation and behaviour of their prospects and customers.
Autus recommend various products for automation, such as Active Campaign, Hubspot, Mailchimp and SharpSpring…it will vary on your requirements and budget the best option for your business.
Find out more here.
Our founder, Tom Berry, also provides selective fractional CMO services and is a member of some client boards.
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If our team at Autus can help advise further, please don’t hesitate to get in touch with our founder, Tom Berry.
