In a previous post, we suggested you should survey your audience quarterly to get to know them better. The obvious question that follows is: how do you use this valuable information in your email marketing campaign?
The answer is: once you have an idea of the issues that are most important to your audience, you can up-level your email marketing efforts by employing a series of emails designed to follow-up with your audience.
Known among online marketing coaches and consultants as a nurture campaign, the idea is to create a series of emails focused around the answers you received to your survey questions.
Doing this will enable you to more fully engage with your subscribers, build relationships, firmly establish your expertise, and encourage them to act in ways that will benefit them – and you.
Your nurture campaign should be focused on marketing and communicating with your subscribers, clearly showing them that you are listening to them, that you understand their needs and that you have solutions to their pain points.
Designing a Nurture Email Series
Begin by picking the TWO most common answers to the question, “What is the most burning question…”
In your follow-up email, ask them to choose ONE of the two and hit “Reply” to tell you.
Once you receive their answer, you have the perfect opportunity to send them the ANOTHER freebie you created for that particular issue or problem: “The Solution to [problem A/B] That Always Works”. Click here to download your free copy today! [insert link to download]
Uh-oh, I think we forget to mention the new giveaways you’ll want to create for your subscribers!
It’s Time to Create More Giveaways
Because the point of a nurture campaign is to encourage increased engagement with your subscribers, offering them more freebies as a call-to-action is the best way to get them to “click-through” to your website and grab your targeted giveaway.
It should go without saying that this approach will only work as a nurturing tool if the freebie has real value to individual subscribers. In other words, it must truly offer a solution to the “#1 most burning question” they identified when they responded to your survey.
Ultimately, your nurture campaign has three goals:
- Convert subscribers into leads
- Convert leads into buyers
- Generate referrals & more leads
Obviously, while your Big Goal (and hope) in following this email marketing strategy is to make a sale, if you accomplish any one of the three goals above, you can consider your nurture campaign a success.
*NOTE: By definition, a nurture campaign is NOT a blunt instrument. Instead of a “one-off” hard-sell pitch for them to buy, your series of emails should gently encourage them to take action and be focused on building a relationship with them. You will be sending them more emails after this first follow-up – usually a series of three to six in total. With each, you will want to offer them something of value, which can include: a free consultation or free estimate of a larger, in-person solution to their problem.
Ideally, you will set up your nurture campaign to run automatically, using an automated email marketing service like Infusionsoft (easily the best choice among many – and we are experts at Infusionsoft set up and implementation).
Putting together a series of emails to follow up on your survey is just the beginning of a nurture campaign. It is also a time-tested and effective email marketing strategy that, if implemented with regularity and sincerity, can bring you an excellent return on investment.
Looking for more online marketing tips and ideas? Get in touch with the YOMT Team today.
In a nutshell, it’s because access to your audience is shrinking, making the information you share with them ever more valuable. It was inevitable that corporations would finally discover the value of online marketing – and they have. They are now eating up more bandwidth than ever, leaving reduced access to online markets for smaller businesses and entrepreneurs.
Attracting new clients requires two basic steps: creating or enhancing your brand; identifying and appealing to your target audience. Being recognized as an expert in your niche, one who can offer solutions is critical to your success.
Whether you have a massive list or an itty bitty one doesn’t really matter. What does matter is that you need to be asking them a series of questions to get to know your audience better. And, because your email list is something of a captive audience, they’re a great resource for developing high-value marketing information.
