Engaging With Individuals Who Are Not Customers

A good approach to adopt when asking people for their information is to offer something in exchange. Offering an ethical bribe in exchange for their email is an opportunity to follow up with them and offer your product, service, or promotion. You have about 30 seconds before they decide to leave or stay. A strong lead magnet should make it a no brainer for them to leave their email with you because what they get in return will be of far higher value to them. If you were to present a way for them to do it quickly and easily without pain, it’s very likely that they would be interested in what you have to say. ‘Less is More’ is your mantra. They work best when you are launching something new, running a marketing campaign, or promoting a lead magnet, webinar, or social media campaign. Now that you have a lead and an email address, the next step is to keep up the communication at a consistent pace and manner. Thankfully, there’s technology to our rescue. Email autoresponder software enables us to set up messages to be sent out automatically after someone subscribes to your list. An email responder can also be set up to create several messages to go out in a cycle or on a schedule. The problem is that even when a contact subscribes to your list for a great lead magnet, usually, the most they do is read one of two pieces of content before their attention begins to taper off.

Nothing Can Be Done

They might have liked the lead magnet or promotion you offer, but at this point, you do not have a relationship with them. To fix this, start to build a relationship by sending them emails giving them valuable content. You can also use this opportunity to introduce one of your products or services and showcase how they have helped other people with similar problems. According to a Capterra report, every single dollar spent on email marketing resulted in about $44.25 of revenue. An autoresponder set up to effectively communicate with your subscribers not only saves time but can actually skyrocket your profits. Because the contact has subscribed to your list in exchange for a lead magnet, the first email in the cycle should be set up to deliver the lead magnet. This allows you to continue to build a relationship with them, going over the benefits and features of your product or service and how it can specifically solve their problem. In other words, email responders are the best tools to nurture your leads. Take some time now to research available autoresponder software programs. Lead nurturing is the process of engaging with individuals, who are not currently buyers but could turn into ideal customers in the future. The goal is to build a relationship that will make it easy for the prospect to choose your offering when they are ready to make a purchase.

It Hurts Others Too

Nobody can expect to get married by walking up to someone and immediately proposing marriage. A relationship needs to be built over time, by getting to know their name, their interests, their personality. A carefully nurtured relationship has a high probability of getting to marriage and staying married. In the same way, lead nurturing is rarely about pushing immediate sales. It’s about driving real engagement and aiming for a top of mind recall of your brand through recurring marketing cycles. The first step in lead nurturing is sending a welcome email. According to Entrepreneur magazine, a welcome email sent immediately after they sign up generates 320% more revenue than a promotional email and has an 86% upturn in unique open rate, along with a 196% upturn in unique click rate. Engaging a prospect immediately after signing up spikes interest but failing to do so also leads to a precipitous drop in engagement. If there was an offer of a lead magnet, it should be delivered along with the welcome mail. However, lead nurturing goes beyond the welcome email. Maybe your own story. Or maybe a story someone else shared with you.

Here Come Those Tears Again

You want to be able to pitch them to buy what you have to offer. This is a way to remind them about your offering and give them a chance to try it. Your next email could show what your offering is and showcase your differentiator from your competition. You could also show your prospects some testimonials, explain why other people found it useful, and how and why it will benefit them as well. You don’t want your newbies to forget why they are on your email list. A strategic series of emails at regular intervals can hold the interest of your prospect for a long time. A lot of people make the mistake of not following up after delivering the lead magnet and it can be a very expensive mistake. Take some time to craft a series of emails that will nurture your prospective ideal clients into a sale. I was a regular listener of the popular National Radio show, the Howard Stern Show, for the last 25 years. The show aired at 7am every day. As the host got older, he had to scale back his days on the show to only 3 days a week. Even though I enjoyed the show just as much, I stopped tuning in as much as I used to. The reason is simple, I would often forget the days his show aired. Even though I listened to his show for 25 years, I began to remember it as an afterthought because I was not following his rhythm. Then, if I happened to remember at the right time, I would go back to check if he was on. I missed most days because I fell out of sync with his frequency. This is the main reason why email frequency is important. Email frequency is a topic that is hotly debated between experts. Too little or too much? It is always a puzzle. Most people are afraid they are going to upset their new leads if they email them too often, leading them to quickly drop off the list. But people are really busy and are receiving an overwhelming amount of emails on a daily basis.