Great, you've got a list of contacts. Now what? Send them a generic promotional email and hope for the best? Good luck with that. In B2B marketing, the fact of the matter is, if you don't email your leads something suited to where they are at in the buyers cycle, specific to their business problems, they won't be interested. So how do you know where they are in the buyers cycle and what to say to them in order to generate some significant sales? I'm about to reveal!
It's not a set of e-mail blasts to bombard your potential customers and whoever else with your latest promotion. It is a strategic set of email communications targeting each stage of the buyers’ cycle, with the aim of moving the buyer along their journey to the point where they have their hand in their wallet!
A new contact does not want to be reading the same material as a sales ready lead. This means that if you are just emailing product centric emails and special offers, you will only capture the sales ready leads. Additionally, you will be passing a lot of bad leads over to sales, wasting a lot of time. You will lose your prospects to your competitors. In sum, you will make a heck of a lot less money! And here is the proof!
Cold leads who don't yet know you, e.g. a bought list or a new blog subscriber. The majority of your leads in your database will have just opted in for a one off reason, such as to download an e-book or you may have met them at an exhibition. Basically, you just have a long list of names and email address, and even if they have heard of your company, they haven’t necessarily shown a great deal of interest yet.
The goal of the email nurture is to remind them about the business problem that you solve, and provide them with educational information in order to gain trust. To do this you need to produce educational, non-salesy content that addresses their problems. An email that grabs their attention, educates them, provides useful information and shows them you understand and remind them of their specific issues at work. Great examples of this would be an educational eBook or some top tips to help them out at work. Providing tempting CTA's for your leads to click such as some more really useful educational information will help determine if the lead is more committed.
Remember: TOFU = Educate
A MOFU contact has a clear idea of their business problem, and knows that they need something to fix it. They don’t yet know what it is they need, but they need something.
The goal of your MOFU emails is therefore to demonstrate to the prospects that your solution is different to other solutions. Provide useful information detailing how to decide what the best option is for their business? Should I be looking at X or Y?
Remember: MOFU = Demonstrate and differentiate
Now we are down to the bottom of the funnel, left with much more qualified leads than before! These leads have engaged, interacted and are almost ‘sales ready’. BOFU leads are often determined by clicking CTA’s such as product demonstrations, free trials or request a call back. These leads are almost ready to be passed to the sales team, however this nurture email can make the sales teams job even easier.
At this stage you should have a strong relationship with the lead and they are almost parting with their cash. Providing some final validation will speed this process up and make the lead feel more comfortable to make that final decision. Answer questions like: How much experience do they have? Is company x a legit business? How much experience do they have solving MY specific problem? How satisfied are past clients? How do I know they will be good at it?
Remember: BOFU = Validate
Learn more about how to create a smashing B2B Content Strategy with this White paper here
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