Let’s demystify the craft of turning warm leads into customers using email — all you need is a strong lead nurturing strategy and a bit of creativity. Try to make your leads feel like they are special to you. Show users that you care by sending helpful, relevant, and professional content that can convince them to go from a lead to a paying customer.
Every audience is unique, but all leads have something in common. Pain points, hesitations, fears — savvy marketers can resolve all of this by using timely and engaging emails. What we have here is a handful of examples to get you inspired and help you kick off your first lead nurturing email campaign.
Content:
- Why do you need to use lead nurturing emails in the first place?
- The best lead nurturing email examples
- Welcome email
- Informational email
- Instructional email
- Recommendation email
- FAQ email
- Engagement email
- Webinar announcement email
- Promotional email
- Abandoned cart email
- Offer email
- Let SendPulse help you nurture leads
Why do you need to use lead nurturing emails in the first place?
So, you’ve done it. You’ve got people’s attention and converted them into leads. Now, it’s time to nurture these leads into opportunities — and only then, seal the deal.
Think of this new relationship as a friendship: you don’t start it by borrowing $1,000 or committing to climbing Everest together. You start slow and build trust step by step. With lead nurturing emails, it’s much of the same. Stay connected, be helpful, and every time you talk, share a little more than before.
But you might be asking: “Is it even worth all of the effort?” The short answer is yes, even for simple and low-margin products. First of all, you’ll help your leads better understand your product and make confident buying decisions. Also, you’ll win over those who are still in doubt. Last but not least, you’ll get more happy customers ready to purchase from you.
If you offer complex products and services, you have to educate your customers first and prove that your solution is the best they can find. And email marketing turns out to be the most effective lead nurturing tactic for 45% of mid-size companies.
The report below also reveals the top priorities for a typical lead nurturing strategy:
Let’s sum it up: lead nurturing helps you drive more leads through your sales funnel, re-engage passive leads, and get to know your existing leads better. This process is vital for a smooth marketing-to-sales lead handoff.
The best lead nurturing email examples
But enough theory. Let’s learn from the best lead nurturing email examples!
Welcome email
The first touchpoint is the most important one — it’s your chance to make a great first impression. If you don’t want to overwhelm your audience with a flurry of emails, you can make this first email your onboarding email too. In this email, you need to explain how your product or service will help and what value this email subscription will bring them. Be helpful and nurture your leads from the very beginning.
Here is a good example of a welcome email:
This lead nurturing email from Mouseflow is like a small library of knowledge and FAQs at the same time. It’s neither annoying nor confusing: the team gives users some space to get acquainted with the tool, yet they show that they put some effort into making the user experience smooth. This lead nurturing email proves that you don’t need a flashy design to look and sound professional.
Informational email
If you have a complex or high-end product, it takes longer to nurture and educate your leads about all the benefits of using it. So don’t jump on your leads immediately after their free trial is over; give them a few options and let them decide how to interact with your brand.
This email from Monday provides subtle guidance and respects the user’s desire to take more time before committing to anything. It also shows that the team really cares about customer satisfaction. The key is to empathize with your customers’ experience and focus on making an emotional connection before hoping for a conversion.
Instructional email
Sometimes it’s just enough to send a step-by-step guide to convince a lead that your product is straightforward to use. In fact, this type of lead nurturing email is the opposite of typical instructions. It can and should be informal, memorable, and interactive. You can also show off your brand personality in this email.
The lead nurturing email above shows that even mundane products can be fun to discover and use. If there are not enough exciting details, use funny illustrations and typography to make it engaging nonetheless.
Recommendation email
We talk a lot about providing value for leads, and recommendation emails are the best example of doing just that. They usually consist of recommendations and select content, products, or services that pair well with a user’s previous actions. Base the personalization in your email on your subscriber’s browser behavior, profile data, or purchase history.
Airbnb brings recommendation emails to the next level by creating an entertainment schedule for its users based on their itineraries and booked stays.
As you can see, it makes sense to create intuitive connections between different features and promote them gradually, guiding a user all the way through. But, to achieve that, you need to score your leads and know precisely which stage of the sales funnel they are in currently. Only then will you be able to suggest the most relevant options and increase your conversion rate.
FAQ email
Often, users are only one step away from making a decision but are still hesitating. You can give your leads a little push by addressing their fears and anxieties and answering frequently asked questions. Despite their decisive nature, FAQ emails need to be informal and emotional, otherwise, users won’t be able to relate to them.
Here is an example of such an email:
You can create a video or throw in some infographics to provide exhaustive answers, just as TrustedHousesitters did in this lead nurturing email. Don’t exclude an option to contact your experts directly: it’s the right time for face-to-face conversations.
Engagement email
Keeping your leads interested is a challenging task. You need to strike a balance between promoting your product and showing your expertise. What you can do is find a recent event to refer to and provide some relevant useful content as Asana does in the email below:
This lead nurturing email is a good example because what Asana suggests is not a generic article but well-crafted professional tips that business owners whose companies were affected by the global pandemic can implement in these specific circumstances.
Webinar announcement email
Webinars are great for making the shift from faceless interactions towards personal experiences and face-to-face conversations. Craft webinar emails to educate your audience on your event’s value and why it’s worth investing their time in it. Don’t forget to mention when and how they can get their hands on the recording of your event.
A typical webinar email looks like this:
This simple email from Socialinsider is effective for two reasons. First, it takes an informal approach and does not oblige the reader to participate. Also, their audience can still benefit from watching this Q&A session later, at a more convenient time.
Promotional email
After welcoming, onboarding, and educating new leads, you need to show them how easy it is to make a purchase, right? A promotional email always has a clear CTA and persuades recipients to take action, usually within a limited time frame.
This purely commercial email can still be nurturing — describe all the benefits, offer a glimpse into your features, and add a human touch to it.
A good rule of thumb is to keep your CTA clear and put it in the right context. Your leads will be much more inclined to buy if you show them how your product can change their everyday life for the better. Don’t be afraid to go into detail here; lead nurturing means making sure your contacts are aware of all the advantages you are offering.
Abandoned cart email
This type of email helps you recapture lost sales by sending automated reminders to users who have not finished an online transaction. Typically, the first abandoned cart email is sent about an hour after a customer abandons their cart, followed up by other emails. It’s an efficient way to get distracted shoppers back on track.
The best way to do it is to give a real incentive to return to your website.
To make it more tempting, reveal a new perk or a small bonus and win back the most hesitant leads. Your follow-up emails should get users back into the purchasing mood and make it easier for them to complete the process.
Offer email
This one is very similar to a promotional email but a bit more straightforward. Here, you need to clarify the steps a lead needs to take to start using your product. This is the best time for you to give a crystal-clear explanation of how it works. Include concise calls to action that prompt customers to buy your product.
And here is an example of an offer email for an expensive product:
This lead nurturing email works well because it provides reasoning, lists all the steps of the purchasing process, and includes a strong CTA. The product is complex, yet the email makes it less confusing for the subscriber to make a final decision.
Let SendPulse help you nurture leads
What we suggest is fully automating your lead nurturing email campaign. Yes, you got it right, Automation 360 will do all the routine work for you. Our tool helps online marketers, entrepreneurs, and strategists generate, nurture, and convert leads using savvy marketing tactics.
Unleash the power of lead nurturing emails through Automation 360:
- create and send welcome and onboarding emails;
- control the time and frequency of sending emails to a mailing list;
- send automated reminders to customers who abandoned their shopping carts;
- engage and re-engage leads using personalized content;
- set up milestone emails, personalized messages sent on specific dates;
- implement an omnichannel strategy;
- track your leads and follow up on those who got lost somewhere along the way.
You don’t need any special skills to get started! SendPulse is an intuitive and user-friendly platform that already helps many marketers around the globe to keep their brands growing.
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