When you gain new leads through your PPC campaigns, a strong strategy to optimize your spending is initiating communication with a lead nurturing campaign. Setting up a lead nurture email series within your marketing automation platform is straightforward, but determining the appropriate content for your lead nurturing emails can be tough. Begin with these four simple lead nurturing emails to familiarize your newly acquired leads with your business, encourage interaction, and ultimately persuade them to become customers.
Lead Nurturing Email #1: Establish Trust Through Testimonials
Social proof is crucial for establishing trust with your leads. As per research conducted by Zendesk, a significant 88 percent of consumers rely on online customer reviews when making purchase decisions.
Therefore, sending a testimonial email to your PPC leads effectively demonstrates how your business has positively impacted your customers.
Gathering reviews often presents the biggest challenge in crafting a testimonial email. However, if requesting customer reviews seems daunting, rest assured, it’s quite simple to collect online reviews. Just distribute a concise survey to your customers. When designing this survey, ensure it accommodates open-ended responses suitable for testimonials. Include a disclaimer or checkbox for obtaining consent to use these testimonials in your marketing efforts. Additionally, offering incentives such as a $10 gift card can significantly boost customer participation. If you haven’t had the opportunity to collect testimonials yet, an alternative is to extract compelling quotes from review platforms like Yelp, TripAdvisor, Angie’s List, G2Crowd, etc. You can then send an email featuring these quotes along with links to the complete reviews.
Lead Nurturing Email #2: Leverage the Power of Video: Show, Don’t Just Tell
Over 72 percent of consumers watch videos throughout their buying journey, and nearly half dedicate 30 minutes or more to watching video content. This makes incorporating video into your PPC lead nurturing campaign a no-brainer. Most of your PPC leads have converted because they seek solutions that your business offers. However, they might not be acquainted with your business, company culture, or specific solutions. A short video can effectively bridge this knowledge gap. As you leverage video in email, bear in mind that different email clients handle video content differently. Some handle HTML5 seamlessly, while others necessitate fallback options. A recommended practice is embedding a thumbnail of your video within the email body, linking it to the hosted video. This ensures accessibility for all your leads. Ideally, host the video on your website to immerse PPC leads in your brand experience and guide them further along the customer journey.
The video content itself offers immense creative freedom. Experiment with a video testimonial from a satisfied customer, utilize an explainer video to simplify complex concepts, or showcase your unique company culture. While numerous companies specialize in video creation, it can be costly. If outsourcing video production isn’t financially feasible, don’t hesitate to explore DIY solutions like Wistia. Creating cost-effective and impactful videos is achievable with readily available tools like your iPhone. You can set up a recording space to film yourself introducing your business or try something engaging like a Google Hangout with industry thought leaders. MORE: 6 ways to use video for conversion rate optimization
Lead Nurturing Email #3: Acknowledge the Competition
While you might prefer not to directly mention competitors, it’s essential to recognize that PPC leads are generally well-informed and likely to have encountered your competitors during their research. Compared to leads arriving from organic search, for instance, they are typically further along in the sales funnel. Therefore, when investing in PPC, a strong understanding of the competitive landscape is essential. A nurture email can effectively emphasize your unique selling propositions, highlighting what sets you apart and why a potential customer should choose you over competitors. This strategy can be further refined when targeting competitive keywords. You can address competitors directly based on the specific competitive ad or keyword that led the PPC lead to you. For example, if you were Taboola and targeting the competitive keyword “Outbrain,” you could send those leads a targeted email outlining the advantages of choosing Taboola over Outbrain.
Addressing competitors in your PPC nurture campaign can facilitate the decision-making process for potential customers. You achieve this by preemptively addressing common objections and showcasing your strengths. This proactive approach can lead to immediate conversions, as you’ve essentially done their competitive research for them.
Lead Nurturing Email #4: Add a Personal Touch with a Sales Introduction
Directly introducing your sales team within your lead nurturing campaign is an effective way to establish a personal connection with potentially cold PPC leads. This strategy helps humanize your company. This sales introduction email should prioritize personalization. Instead of a generic “sales@mycompany.com,” the “FROM” name in your email client should be the salesperson’s name. Incorporating a picture and/or signature at the email’s end further enhances personalization and distinguishes your brand within their inbox.
Lastly, as you develop and automate your PPC email nurture campaign, prioritize performance analysis and optimization. Each of the lead nurturing emails outlined here has the potential to be high-converting. Closely monitor which resonate most effectively with your leads, and adjust their placement within the nurture email campaign timeline to maximize lead conversion.