Tag Archives: lead nurturing

How to Convert Email Subscribers to Customers

How to Convert Email Subscribers to Customers
Getting people to sign up for your email list is a critical early step in your sales funnel. This step can be difficult. You have to determine the perfect lead magnet for your customers to turn them into email subscribers. But, email subscribers don’t pay the bills.

So how do you convert those email subscribers into paying customers?

The next step is lead nurturing.

It’s the process of nurturing your leads in order to turn them into customers via your email newsletter and your content marketing. So if you’ve been focusing on growing your email list, and want to make money from it, here are a few tips.

1. Understand what your subscribers want from you.

Even if you’re sending out awesome newsletters every week, if you’re not sending information that’s useful to your subscribers, they’re not going to move any further down the sales funnel. Instead, you need to understand exactly what they want from you and give it to them.

If you’re unsure what you should be sending out, try creating a reader survey. Send it to your email list to see what are the most requested topics for you to cover.

2. Perfect your welcome email.

You should be sending an automated welcome email to each new subscriber. If you created a lead magnet, it should be sent immediately, along with a well-crafted welcome email.

A welcome email will introduce your product or service to your email list. It will let the new subscriber know what to expect. It will also include an easy way for them to move further down the sales funnel: either a discount code for a purchase or a small-dollar item that they can buy for just a few bucks.

To make your welcome offer even more enticing, create a nurture series rather than a single email. Craft an automated email series that sends a different email every 2-3 days reminding new subscribers of your welcome offer. Finish off the series email by letting the subscriber know it’s their last chance. This creates a sense of urgency, and brand new subscribers are the most likely to convert.

3. Create multiple sales funnels.

Not every new subscriber is going to quickly turn into a paying customer. This is why it’s important to create multiple sales funnels for subscribers.

Segment your list based on different categories. Entice people who have been on your list for awhile with a loyalty offer. Create a sales funnel for people who click-through to your website more often. Try to reel in subscribers who haven’t opened your email in awhile with a really fantastic email subject.

4. Include a call to action in every email.

Not every email needs to be a sales or promotional email. In fact, a majority of your emails should be used only to educate. Users won’t want to stay subscribed if you’re constantly bombarding them with sales and offers. However, you should still include a call to action in each email you send, so your subscribers still have the option to buy.

The very first step is to get email subscribers. You need a form, and not just any form will do. You need a form that grabs attention and gets people to fill it out!

Pop-up email subscription forms get up to 70% more subscriptions than a sidebar form. How can you keep from annoying your visitors? Have the form pop up only when people move their cursor up to exit the website, popup on exit intent.

I find that on my own site pop up and slide in forms are my #1 subscription source, with a form embedded at the bottom of my blog post coming in #2.

Waftio is the perfect solution. Nicely formatted forms that draw the eye without being overbearing or unreadable. With Waftio you can add a form to the bottom of your blog post and add a slide in or popup on exit intent to the site also. The form loads a millisecond after your site, so there is no drag on your site load time. Your site stays lightening fast, just the way Google likes it.

Have questions about Waftio? Leave them in the comments below. I’ll answer them right away.

5 Ways to Improve Your Email Nurture Campaign

5 Ways to Improve Your Email Nurture Campaign

Leads are the life source for any business and nurturing them is vital to convert them to sales. These 5, easy to follow steps, will show you how to improve your email nurture campaigns.

1. Audience

Know your audience.

Your email marketing lists should be segmented in a strategic way that keeps in mind what your company needs to achieve and the messages you need to send. There is no point talking to a customer who’s just purchased your product, about the features the item. You wouldn’t want to bother a customer on the west coast about a service only available on the east coast.

These might be extreme examples, but they make the point. If you don’t plan your messages according to what readers want to see you risk losing that lead altogether.  This is called segmentation.  When someone purchases, move them off a prospect list to a upsell or nurture list with content relevant to them.

2. Plan

Timing is everything when it comes to talking to prospective customers. You need to know where the lead came from, why, and where they are in the buying cycle. Don’t try to close a sale if someone is still looking for answers and advice. Plan the message carefully depending on who you’re talking to, what they need, and how close they are to a buying decision.

It takes on average 7 points of contact for someone to trust your business enough to be ready to purchase.  So your email campaigns should not sell in round 1, but nurture and build trust a number of emails before a “buy offer” is made.

3. Automate

If you are a very small business, it might, and I emphasize the word “might” be possible to manually nurture your leads. If you have a large database of leads, however, it’s almost impossible to manually stay on top of which email went to which list, what various members of that list did (or did not do) after reading the email, and what you should do next. MailChimp is one of the many companies that offer the ability to create an email automation series to help nurture your lead.  Setup the sequence of emails once, then let it run on auto-pilot.

4. Help, Don’t Sell

The quickest way to lose a potential customer is to try and sell them something they don’t want. Instead, offer education and advice. They’re on your email list because they’re looking for a solution to a problem. When someone is looking for a plumber, what they need is to stop a leaky faucet from dripping all the time. The plumber is just the solution provider. Show them how you have helped other customers, point out how your product or service can help solve their problem, and become a valuable resource. Ask what they need and point them in the right direction.  Pushing someone to buy nowadays turns them off pretty quickly.

5. Analyze and improve

Look at email open rates, click thru rates, opt-outs, etc. to determine what is happening and how emails compare to each other.  As well, experiment with layout design, colors, images vs. text, calls to action, etc. Whatever you do always take some time to scrutinize the results and adjust any future campaigns accordingly.  Not reviewing performance is a key misstep to avoid!

The worst thing you can do is…nothing. A list of potential clients, if nurtured correctly via email, is a tremendous way to grow sales.

Want to create an email nurture series campaign but don’t know where to start? Feel free to contact our team. We’ll go over the strategy and your topic. We’ll even write your nurture series if you’d like.