How to Nurture Cold Leads with Email

It’s one of the most frustrating things for a business: you check out your contact database and see loads of leads, but a very small percentage are moving forward. Most of them have turned… cold. While this word incites fear in the hearts of business owners and marketers everywhere, it doesn’t need to mean game over for all these folks. In fact, the relationship between your cold leads and your company may just be a little seed right now that eventually can bloom - if handled properly. Here are some email lead nurturing tips that will help you convert customers, even when they seem to be completely dormant.

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Analyze your analytics

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When companies send emails to cold leads, they often take one of two approaches. It’s either “hey, we’ve missed you, want to talk to us soon?” or “look at all the awesome stuff we’re doing and selling!” Either way, the end result is likely that the recipient sighs or rolls their eyes and then deletes the email (if they’ve even opened it at all). These tactics are trite, and sometimes even annoying.

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Instead, look at your website data to find out the areas with which your leads are actually interacting and what content they’re downloading. If you discover that your recipe tutorial pages are where visitors end up the most, and spend the most time, use this in your next email. Include a great recipe, and offer your recipient a link to watch the tutorial. That’s it; no “we miss you,” no “come buy from us.” Just “here’s something we thought you’d like!” Then, rinse and repeat.

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Underscore usefulness

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Building off the previous point, take a look at the emails you send and think about the topics. Are you sharing information that can help your recipients do something better, think differently, be entertained or have an easier day? If not, your emails will fall flat. Make a point to look at each of your buyer personas and spend time brainstorming topics they might care about.

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For example, if a busy mom is one of your personas, you might curate two or three articles that provide quick tips about parenting or keeping young kids occupied. Sure, this email would not result in an immediate sale of your fitness membership, but your lead will probably find it very valuable and interesting. They’ll be more likely to open your next email, and also thankful to be given content they actually care about.

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You can also write about industry trends, factors that affect someone’s job, world events or advice/how-to do something. The point is to think about what they actually find value in, and then deliver that.

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Increase interactivity

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Next, take a look at your emails and try to be objective. Are they, frankly, boring? Many times, companies send a text-only note that’s either far too long or just not interesting and expect a response. You need to include different content formats to keep recipients’ interest. Consider ways to do this.

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Maybe your product is customizable, so you include a pricing calculator they can use to figure out costs instead of having to call you for a quote. Or perhaps you have a lot of self-care products to choose from, and customers often feel overwhelmed by the options. Create a quick quiz they can take to help them find out their “self-care personality” and see personalized recommendations on products afterward. Even including a link to - or snippet of - a fun video can increase engagement and break through someone’s noisy inbox.

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Maximize Multi-Channel

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All of these tips will improve your lead nurturing and help you convert customers, but email alone isn’t enough. In today’s digital world, you need to be everywhere (or at least almost everywhere). So, review all of your marketing tactics.Do you have a retargeting campaign set up, and/or banner ads?

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Do you have a social advertising strategy in place, and/or a creative direct mail campaign you’re working on? You need to make sure all of your tactics are rooted in a clear strategy and work together, or else you won’t get nearly as much traction from any one of them (including email).

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When you’re looking to warm up your cold leads, follow these tips. Need more help? We’d love to guide you in setting your digital marketing strategy for maximum impact. Give us a call!