Posted by: Kelly Hall, Account Manager

When you’re mobilizing to create an email campaign for lead nurturing there are two very important considerations to make. Number 1, timing.

We’ve all gotten them – the automatic email you receive, after registering for something from a company, thanking you for your interest. Great, right? Definitely. But what about when you get another email, pushing you to take action less than a day later? And they just keep coming, every day? All of a sudden you’re not quite as interested in what that company has to tell you. Instead, you may be tempted to unsubscribe, or worse, put them on your blacklist. We, as marketers, need to walk the fine line of staying top of mind for our prospects, and simultaneously not being annoying.

What’s the line? A thank you for your interest email immediately following an offer download is definitely appropriate. It solidifies that your company has fast follow up – a generally very important thing to consumers in all markets. After that first email though we need to exercise discretion and not overwhelm the prospect. When to communicate next really depends on their initial offer interest, which indicates where they are in the decision-making process.

Number 2 on the list to consider in your email campaign for lead nurturing is offer. We need to make sure we are not rushing people down the path to engage with us. Instead, based on what the prospect’s initial offer interest is we need to determine what is going to be the most likely next step for them. To do this, we use the sales cycle, and determine where our offers are located within it. When prospects are just starting to check your company out, you want to give them their space – let them come to you, and only reach out once a month or so, and maybe less for longer sales cycles.

When you do reach out to them in this very early stage, your email should remind the prospect that they have looked into your company and products, and then engage them with a slightly higher-involvement offer. Give them the chance to communicate with you what their level of interest is (i.e. where they sit in the sales cycle). Did they request the case study you offered? They may be closer to a purchase decision and researching what your company has done to help other prospects like them. Perhaps they are ready to be passed to sales at this point. Of course, the obvious sales-ready cue is when the prospect explicitly requests contact, which is why I always recommend having that offer incorporated into every email communication you send – there’s not a lot of second guessing when it comes to that.