I don’t know about you, but when I get a badly optimised, untargeted, oh-so obvious lead nurturing email, I just hit delete. Why should I bother with a company that isn’t interested in providing me with something that’s actually useful or interesting?
To help your emails escape the delete button, here are 5 factors to remember when planning and writing your emails.
1. What is the actual purpose of the email?
Do we want them to download the eBook? Are we trying to get them to renew their energy contract with us now? Or are we trying to get them to think about the types of contract available and the timing of these contracts?
If there are a couple of things that you want to try and do with one email, it is better to segment the send list and tailor emails to each segment, rather than trying to send everything to everyone.
Decide exactly what it is that you want someone to do after they receive this email and structure it accordingly. If you want them to download an eBook, then don’t confuse the matter by including an introduction to your company, details of a webinar recording that’s now available or a link to register for an event. Instead, keep your focus and keep it simple. Give your leads the right content for them.
Also, consider, does the subject line focus on the goal that you want to achieve from this email? If you’re not effectively indicating what the contents of the email are going to be, then you risk reducing your open rates.
2. Test when you send your emails
Most emails are sent during business hours. But recent open and CTR stats show that they are both higher outside of traditional business hours. Saturday has the highest CTR at over 9% (Sunday is second just under 9%). (HubSpot)
3. Choose the send from name and email carefully
Open and CTRs are typically higher when sending lead nurturing emails from an actual person, rather than a generic email address. On top of this, there’s the negative associations with ‘No-Reply’ email, as it suggestion you’re not looking for any type of engagement with the email recipient.
4. Using personalisation effectively in the email
This is more than just including someone’s first name. Think about including a recent interaction that someone has had with us (downloaded an eBook, attended an event etc.) or details that are specific to their company/industry and use this as part of the email copy. It makes it more relevant to the person receiving it and makes it more likely that they’ll engage with the content that you are sharing with them.
Also, using personalisation in the subject line can be an effective way to improve engagement with lead nurturing emails, such as “How to Improve Deeply Digital’s Lead Nurturing in 2015?”
5. Tailoring emails for mobile users
Mobile isn’t going to go away. 80.8% of users report reading email on mobile devices (HubSpot). Plus, more emails are now opened on mobile rather than desktop, so lead nurturing emails need to recognise this. Having a properly optimised email template for mobile is a must. Also, keep emails short. Typically, this means keeping them to a few sentences rather than a few paragraphs. It makes it much easier to read on mobile.