Don’t you love it when your inbox is full of emails to open? I certainly do!
There is nothing more exciting for a marketer than receiving hundreds of emails from prospects looking for information about your product or service.
If this sounds like nirvana to you, then read on. In this article, we will discuss five email techniques that will help you nurture your prospects into potential customers who want to buy from you.
What’s the purpose of nurturing your prospects?
Nurturing your prospects is the key to increasing customer loyalty, lifetime value, and profit margins. And, for most businesses, successful marketing campaigns are those that begin with nurturing their prospects.
So, the purpose of nurturing your prospects is to get them to a point where they are ready to buy from you.
You have already created awareness for your business, and now it’s time to turn that awareness into action. In order to get the prospect moving towards becoming a customer, you need to remind them of what you offer and why they should purchase from you.
You also need to drive traffic back to your website through follow-up emails and social media posts for them to take action.
One of the most effective ways to nurture prospects is by sending them relevant emails at opportune times. Using these five persuasive email strategies will help you target your audience and enhance your brand’s image.
1. Build rapport with readers
When writing an email, it’s easy to jump into the hard sell right away. After all, most marketers do so because they know readers are looking for information to help them make a decision.
But there is another way of doing things—one that will be much more effective in the long run.
The key to nurturing your prospects with content marketing is building rapport before you ever try to sell anything.
Take advantage of content marketing strategies that involve creating free content that attracts relevant people interested in what your company is selling.
Then, instead of trying to convince readers they should buy your product or service right away, use your blog posts and other content as a way to show them how you can help solve their problems.
Here are a few tips to put your best foot forward when aiming to build rapport with your prospects:
- Personalize: Email personalization is an excellent place to start when it comes to building rapport. So, personalize your emails by including potential customer names, company names, location, and other related information.
- Address their needs: Meeting your prospects’ needs and showing that your primary focus is solving their problems rather than another sale can result in a more positive response. It will enable you to build a more effective relationship.
- Relevancy: Research is needed to compose relevant emails. Review your potential prospects’ problems and vulnerabilities. Then create a relevant and exciting message for your potential customers.
- Value their time: Do not aim for more than four paragraphs of three to four lines. This will keep your emails from growing longer and show potential customers that you value their time, and build strong business rapport.
2. Leverage targeted content
Most companies are focused on creating more content. They are not paying enough attention to using targeted content to nurture their audience and move them further down the sales funnel.
Nurturing leads with differentiated content is vital if you want them to become paying customers down the road. Moreover, customers’ buying journey can be split into three different stages:
- Awareness
- Consideration
- Decision
During the awareness stage, use blogs and social media content to help them better comprehend their problem statement.
In the consideration stage, dive into whitepapers, infographics, webinars, and anything else that focuses on solving their problem and demonstrating your competence.
Finally, in the decision stage, the prospect would be prepared to make a thoughtful decision.
In addition, free trials, demos, and case studies can also be used. This will instill trust in your company and assist them in making sound decisions.
3. Explain the “why” clearly in email
Not everyone understands the importance of “why” in email marketing.
You have to explain your value proposition and how it can help them understand why they should subscribe to your list, visit your site, or purchase from you.
The “why” is vital because it gets prospective customers excited about what you have to offer. This will encourage them to take action and keep your customers engaged and interested in following through with a purchase from you.
If you want to nurture relationships with prospective customers by helping them solve problems or achieve goals, then focus on the “why part” of your email.
4. Use social proof
Social proof is a psychological term that refers to the presence of others in our decisions, be it positive or negative. It’s the reason why you do something simply because your friends are doing it, or why you avoid doing something if no one else is interested.
Moreover, Social proof is one of the most powerful persuasion techniques you can use when converting a lead into a customer.
It’s been used for thousands of years by salespeople, and it’s still just as effective today. It can be used in many different ways through your copy, but the main thing that social proof does is build trust with your prospect. They know that if they buy from you, they won’t be alone.
However, social proof works best when it comes from a third-party source outside of your own company. So you want to find sources that are credible and trustworthy for your audience but aren’t so popular that they overshadow you.
5. Use powerful CTAs
Another effective way to nurture leads is by adding CTAs (calls to action) in your emails that direct visitors to pages where they can learn about your offerings or provide information about themselves so you can follow up with relevant content.
Here are some simple tips on how to craft creative CTAs that will convert more users into buyers:
- Place the CTA in a prominent place. The idea is to make it as easy as possible for potential customers to find CTAs.
- Use well-designed CTA buttons. The more noticeable the CTA button, the easier it is for potential customers to see it.
- Pay attention to the CTA copy. This should drive potential customers to buy from you, contact you, or get more information.
Of course, there is no “one size fits all” approach to the best CTA, since it depends on what you want people to do and who they are.
In addition, you can also use the Shopify email marketing app for any email campaign you send. This allows you to create visually engaging CTAs that will encourage your audience to click on the CTA to learn more about what your brand is offering!
To wrap up things…
Email is by far the best way to nurture your prospects because it allows you to be on their radar without being intrusive.
However, we’ve discussed five persuasive techniques to help your nurture campaigns succeed by nurturing prospects to become customers.
We hope you’ve been able to learn from our insights and implement these techniques in your campaigns!
