Mastering email nurture campaigns: A guide to boosting customer engagement

By Rhonda Bradley January 9, 2024

Are you searching for a ridiculously efficient technique to generate engagement and increase gross sales with out investing loads of time or cash? Electronic mail nurture campaigns are the reply!

Everyone knows it’s essential to maintain our e-mail subscribers engaged, ship them customized content material, and nurture them by the gross sales funnel. 

However when you’re working a small enterprise, that each one appears like an entire lot of labor.

That’s the place e-mail nurture campaigns step in. 

Utilizing easy automation instruments, an e-mail nurture marketing campaign pays consideration to how folks work together together with your model. Then it sends a related sequence of emails to domesticate their curiosity and information them towards making a purchase order or dedication to your service.

The most effective half? You possibly can put a number of nurture campaigns on autopilot and it most likely gained’t value you a penny greater than what you already pay on your e-mail advertising and marketing service. 

Large firms typically spend weeks or months writing e-mail campaigns, due to purple tape and multiple-approval processes. However as a small enterprise, you’ll be able to write, modify, and approve your individual campaigns in beneath a few hours. 

On this information, you’ll uncover how simple it’s to create automated e-mail campaigns that nurture leads by the gross sales funnel and enhance your engagement and gross sales — with little or no effort in your half.

What’s an e-mail nurture advertising and marketing marketing campaign?

An e-mail nurture marketing campaign is an automatic sequence of emails despatched in response to a selected person habits. Its objective is to have interaction readers and transfer them additional alongside the gross sales funnel. Nurture campaigns are a extremely efficient technique to information e-mail subscribers towards making a purchase order or dedication.

For instance, if somebody downloads a free useful resource in your web site or clicks on a hyperlink in your e-mail, it could set off a preset sequence of emails that encourages them to have interaction additional, join a free trial, or make a purchase order. 

Nurture campaigns are absolutely automated after the preliminary setup. It’s like hiring a workforce of gifted salespeople who want little or no coaching or supervision.

When an e-mail subscriber clicks on a hyperlink in an e-mail, reads a selected weblog put up, or abandons a buying cart with out making the acquisition — these are all “behavioral triggers” that may automate the launch of an e-mail nurture marketing campaign.

Why create e-mail nurture campaigns?

Electronic mail nurture campaigns are an efficient technique to interact with individuals who work together together with your model so you’ll be able to information them towards making a purchase order. They assist to maneuver folks alongside the gross sales funnel, encourage conversions, and deepen relationships together with your subscribers.

How do nurture emails work?

Electronic mail nurture campaigns work by offering useful, related e-mail content material based mostly on a person’s pursuits, habits, or stage within the advertising and marketing funnel.  

When subscribers work together together with your emails or web site, their habits provides you clues about the place they’re at within the advertising and marketing funnel and what kind of merchandise or content material they like. You should utilize these clues as behavioral triggers that activate an automatic sequence of related emails.

Listed below are some methods subscribers would possibly work together together with your model:

• Obtain a free useful resource or lead magnet out of your web site.
• Click on on a weblog hyperlink in a e-newsletter.
• Observe hyperlinks to a free session with out scheduling one.
• Add merchandise to their buying cart with out making the acquisition.
• End one among your programs.

An excellent e-mail advertising and marketing software program can monitor these sorts of interactions and use them as triggers to activate automated e-mail nurture campaigns. 

How lengthy ought to a nurture marketing campaign be?

Electronic mail nurture campaigns often include a sequence of three – 10 emails despatched at a frequency of 1-3 emails per week.

What’s the objective of an e-mail nurture marketing campaign?

Some e-mail nurture campaigns intention to maintain readers engaged, or re-engaged, together with your model.

Others give attention to closing gross sales or encouraging folks to join a free trial.

Each are efficient so long as you select just one aim per nurture sequence.

7 greatest practices for e-mail nurture campaigns

These e-mail nurture marketing campaign greatest practices will enable you create profitable, high-converting campaigns. You would possibly wish to bookmark this webpage so you may have a guidelines that will help you create efficient e-mail nurture campaigns sooner or later.

#1 – Develop a high-quality e-mail listing

Creating a high-quality e-mail listing helps increase your sender popularity, deliverability, and open charges. It additionally provides you a extra correct image of how effectively your nurture campaigns are working.

Observe these tricks to construct and keep a high-quality e-mail listing: 

• Intention for a listing of extremely engaged subscribers moderately than merely attempting to spice up the variety of folks in your listing
• Perceive the CAN-SPAM Act and thoroughly abide by its insurance policies
• Repeatedly clear your subscriber listing by eradicating inactive subscribers

How’s your e-mail listing? Eradicating inactive subscribers is a reasonably easy challenge. Most e-mail advertising and marketing platforms allow you to bulk seek for subscribers who haven’t been energetic shortly. This makes it simple to bulk choose and bulk delete them out of your mailing listing.

Do that: Add “listing upkeep” to your quarterly schedule and watch your deliverability and open charges enhance because the 12 months progresses!

#2 – Set one aim per marketing campaign

Every e-mail nurture marketing campaign ought to have one clear mission. 

Yours is likely to be to encourage free consultations, make a purchase order, or get began with a free trial. 

For instance, Skillshare makes use of customized nurture campaigns to encourage readers to re-enroll in its annual program.

Setting one clear aim for every nurture marketing campaign ensures that you simply focus all efforts on guiding readers towards one particular, related final result.

#3 – Ship useful, irresistible content material

Need to get your subscribers enthusiastic about opening your emails? Ship them solely the very best! 

Take into account sending unique content material that they gained’t discover anyplace else. Corresponding to probably the most useful ideas or the most important reductions. 

Or ship them extra of what you already know they love. 

For instance, anytime I take a look at the newest items on Artwork.com, I get follow-up emails about comparable merchandise. Since they take note of my looking habits and ship extremely related suggestions, I admire their emails and sometimes interact with them.

Take into account this: When was the final time you learn an e-mail that impressed you to “star” the sender since you didn’t wish to miss out on the subsequent one? How would possibly you create comparable FOMO (worry of lacking out) e-mail content material on your subscribers?

#4 – Preserve emails temporary

The common skilled receives about 120 e-mail messages per day. That leaves them little or no time to skim their emails and decide on what’s value studying.

To spice up your open charges and cut back unsubscribes, show your worth inside the first 5 seconds of every e-mail and hold the full phrase depend to 100 phrases or much less.

For instance, the MasterClass e-mail beneath makes use of only a few phrases to convey a particular low cost, product advantages, product highlights, and a call-to-action.

The most effective nurture campaigns include quick emails that ship massive worth to the reader whereas persistently guiding them in the direction of your marketing campaign aim.

Struggling to put in writing quick emails? Do that: drop your prolonged e-mail messages into Chat GPT and ask it to condense or summarize the message for you. 

#5 – Unlock the ability of copywriting psychology

Increase your open charges and conversions by leveraging confirmed copywriting methods when writing nurture e-mail topic headers and CTAs. 

• Write compelling headlines that don’t mislead the reader.
• Personalize emails (and typically the topic line) with the particular person’s identify.
• Make use of temporary tales, quotes, and lists to maintain the physique content material participating.
• Write in a transparent and easy fashion, at a Sixth-Seventh grade studying degree.
• Take into account incorporating a way of urgency in your CTA’s.
• When describing your services or products, be certain that to incorporate its advantages.

For instance, the Uber One e-mail beneath leads with a profit (“Seize your necessities the better approach”), adopted by product highlights (“devoted real-time consumers, real-time order monitoring, and 24/7 assist”) and one other profit (“order your must-haves with out stress”).

Do you typically neglect to spotlight the advantages of your services or products? 

Attempt the “promote me a pencil” copywriting train: Seize the closest object (or pencil) and make a listing of three issues it does to make your life higher. 

I’ve acquired a cup of espresso subsequent to me as I write this. It perks me up, makes me joyful, and connects me to all my coffee-loving buddies throughout the universe. 

Now apply this train to your product. Make a listing of the non-public advantages it delivers to your prospects, and use these advantages in your e-mail copywriting!

#6 – Conduct A/B testing in your e-mail nurture campaigns

Need to earn $48 for each $1 you spend on e-mail advertising and marketing? Firms that conduct A/B testing get a considerably higher-than-average return on their e-mail advertising and marketing funding.

You should utilize A/B testing (often included together with your e-mail advertising and marketing service), to check out variations of your nurture emails. Attempt experimenting with components reminiscent of topic strains, content material, layouts, and CTAs to find which variations are getting your emails opened and are only at participating readers.

Test it out! 

A/B testing appears like one thing “techy” however it’s truly fairly easy. Within the temporary video beneath, Brandon from AWeber reveals you ways simple it’s to conduct A/B testing.

#7 – Take a look at and Optimize the Outcomes of e-mail nurture campaigns

Utilizing information to refine your e-mail campaigns is among the only methods to speed up your e-mail advertising and marketing outcomes.

Take a look at your e-mail analytics often, paying particular consideration to open and click-through charges. This helps you uncover what kind of emails, topic strains, and CTAs get the very best outcomes over time. You should utilize that info to repeatedly replace and optimize your campaigns for rising success.

By implementing the very best practices above, your e-mail nurture campaigns can turn out to be a strong instrument for driving engagement and conversions.

When was the final time you analyzed the outcomes of your e-mail advertising and marketing? It’s simple to do and you’ll full a primary verify in beneath a minute per day. Attempt it now!

How you can arrange an e-mail nurture marketing campaign: a 5-step guidelines

Establishing an e-mail nurture sequence will be fast and simple. The 5-step guidelines beneath will enable you create organized, efficient nurture campaigns each time.

The 1st step: Outline one aim on your e-mail nurture marketing campaign

Every marketing campaign ought to give attention to one singular aim, to make sure that your efforts are channeled successfully. Most nurture campaigns give attention to both promoting a product/service or retaining prospects engaged with their model. 

What’s your one aim for this e-mail nurture sequence?

• Promote a services or products
• Upsell or cross-sell services and products
• Get readers to join a free trial, demo, or session
• Re-engage inactive prospects
• Preserve folks engaged together with your model
• Drive visitors to your web site or touchdown pages
• Nurture leads by guiding them to the subsequent step within the gross sales funnel
• Educate prospects about your services or products
• Promote an occasion, sale, or lead magnet

Select a singular mission on your nurture marketing campaign, then transfer on to creating the sequence within the subsequent step.

Step two: Develop your e-mail nurture marketing campaign

Creating a nurture marketing campaign requires making a number of choices about how you can personalize the sequence. 

Put all of it collectively: Mix your notes from steps one and two to immediately create your nurture marketing campaign technique.

Step three: Write and design your e-mail nurture marketing campaign

Writing e-mail campaigns is far simpler with the assistance of templates and AI-driven writing instruments.

Nurture marketing campaign templates

Templates may also help you shortly write efficient emails, and plenty of e-mail advertising and marketing platforms present them free to prospects. For instance, AWeber offers a number of e-mail templates and automatic marketing campaign template codes for customers.

Writing a nurture sequence for a lead magnet? Obtain this free template that will help you shortly write the whole e-mail sequence:

AI help for nurture campaigns

Should you’re new to nurture campaigns, think about using AI instruments and applications that will help you shortly develop efficient campaigns. AI can give you excellent enter when creating e-mail campaigns.

For instance, you’ll be able to share your marketing campaign technique and content material concepts with Chat GPT or Google’s Bard, then ask for its enter:

1. Ask AI to offer extra concepts or ideas for greater engagement charges. 
2. Ask AI to create a template on your e-mail sequence.
3. Drop in your accomplished emails and ask whether or not the development or writing could possibly be improved.

Remember the fact that loads of AI recommendations will not be related or acceptable on your model or product. Keep true to your tone of voice and target market, and solely take into account AI recommendations which might be match for each.

Step 4: Arrange your nurture marketing campaign

Once you’re able to create your e-mail nurture marketing campaign, head over to your e-mail advertising and marketing platform and observe their directions for automated campaigns.

That is typically a easy course of that will get simpler and faster with every marketing campaign you create. For instance, we present you how you can create an e-mail nurture marketing campaign for brand spanking new subscribers.

Step 5: Monitor and modify your marketing campaign outcomes over time

As soon as your marketing campaign is up and working, you’ll be able to frequently enhance its outcomes by monitoring key metrics reminiscent of open charges, click-through charges, conversion charges, and unsubscribe charges. 

You should utilize this information to make changes to your marketing campaign for higher efficiency.

Keep in mind, the effectiveness of a nurture marketing campaign largely will depend on how related and useful its content material is to your readers. Should you constantly refine and modify your technique based mostly on subscriber suggestions and habits, your campaigns will enhance over time.

Launching an e-mail nurture marketing campaign the simple approach

Electronic mail nurture campaigns are one of the crucial profitable methods to spice up gross sales, engagement, and conversions on your model. The most effective nurture campaigns include quick emails that ship massive worth to the reader whereas guiding them in the direction of a singular marketing campaign aim.

Creating nurture campaigns is faster and simpler with expertise that does the heavy lifting for you.

At AWeber, we offer all the things you’ll want to create automated nurture campaigns. Our super-friendly person interface helps you create beautiful, participating emails inside a drag-and-drop editor. 

You possibly can arrange your first e-mail nurture marketing campaign proper now by signing up for the free model of AWeber (no bank card required).