3 Things Your Prospects Hate About Your Lead Nurturing Emails

denver-email-marketingHow marketers communicate with leads that have opted in is a crucial part of nurturing. The tactics for communicating with potential customers and moving them down the sales funnel must be carefully considered. Lead nurturing emails can be extremely powerful when used properly; they can also be a marketer's downfall when they are misused. These emails provide marketers with an excellent opportunity to grow their relationships with their prospects and to help their decision-making; however, certain practices can have exactly the opposite result and drive prospects away rather than entice them. The worst mistakes include:

  1. Irrelevant Content

    Marketers should try to see this from their prospects' point of view: they get lots of emails every day. Consequently they may be reading with their mouse pointer hovering over the "delete" icon. If an email does not get to the point and stay with it, it will probably wind up in the trash. If your prospects are researching a purchase, they want specific information; when content rambles, it becomes spam and they will probably look elsewhere. This means that marketers who send lead nurturing emails full of irrelevant content are basically wasting the prospect's time and their own. The content should be tailored to their interests and their specific point in their decision-making process. It should educate about the items that the marketer is attempting to promote. It should not have sales pitches, padding or content that does not point the reader toward the ultimate goal.
  2. Emailing Too Often

    Sending too many emails guarantees that they will not be well-received. The problem many marketers face is that it is not always easy to define what is too little or too much. This varies depending on the leads and the product being promoted. Once a marketer starts sending out emails, they can make decisions about how often to send based on the response they get; this means that they will have to pay attention to metrics. Click-through rates and the rate of recipients who unsubscribe are two important factors that can help a marketer to fine-tune their email schedule.
  3. Impersonal Emails

    It is important to remember that the lead is a person, and that the email is intended to have an effect on people; the human touch should not be neglected. It is important that the lead not feel like the email is just another bulk message sent out to thousands of anonymous recipients. Instead of sending the same email to all recipients, a marketer should try to customize their emails. This does not mean that they have to write a different email for every person on their mailing list; however, it does mean that certain elements should be tailored to each individual. But be sure your database has enough accurate data to do this first  nobody likes to receive a "Dear [firstname]" email. Personal touches can help to distinguish a company from its competition and help a lead to make up their mind.

An effective lead nurturing email will be useful to the prospect. It will teach them something, provide proof of the seller's knowledge, and present them with information that they can use for their decision-making process.

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Topics: Email Marketing