Lifecycle Emails: What & Why

First a bit of background…

Majority is not “ready to buy” yet

Ready to Buy

Majority

Never Buy

Influencing Behavior for Conversion

(Opportunity - Concerns) +

Readiness +

Call to Action

Movement

Source: http://www.cmswire.com/cms/customer-experience/getting-from-good-to-great-digital-marketing-mktgnation-018411.php

Source: http://blog.apelletier.com/2009/09/lead-nurturing-step-1-review-your-current-lead-to-opportunity-to-customer-process/

What Are Lifecycle Emails?

Sending the right email, to the right person, at the right time.

(@patio11)

Send people emails based on what they do or don’t do (via customer.io)

WPEngine

Free Site Speed Test + 1 month Site Optimization Course Landing Page

Performance Tips

Scalability Tips

Security Tips

Sales Pitch

Relationship & Trust

Source: https://training.kalzumeus.com/lifecycle-emails

Citrix ($1.5 Million in 4 months)

Lead Sources (Webinars, Organic Search, Paid Search, Partnerships etc)

Source: http://www.marketingsherpa.com/article/case-study/antinewsletter-strategy-nurtures-15-million

Marketing Leads

Segmentation based on 11 personas & 6 products

1 auto email each week for 3 weeks about product benefits

Manual Segment Based Email

Harvest Sales Ready Leads Throughout the Cycle

Upsides of Lifecycle Emails

Average CTR of ads is 0.01%. Content specific to prospect’s needs

with good CTA can generate 20+% CTR.

Source: http://sherpablog.marketingsherpa.com/b2b-marketing/channel-marketing/lead-nurturing-with-relevant-content/

Appeal of Content in B2B

• 82% prefer content related to same industry

• 67% prefer content targeted to their job function

• 49% prefer content targeted to their company size

• 29% prefer content targeted to their geography

Source: http://docs.cdn.marketo.com/definitive-guide-to-lead-nurturing.pdf

Performance of Event-Triggered Emails

• SmartPak Equine has 40 event triggered, lifecycle emails

– Open Rate: 28% for automated, 17% manual

– CTR: 5-6% for automated, 2-3% manual

– Conversion Rate: 11% for automated, 6% for manual

– Revenue per email: $0.44 for automated, $0.16 for manual

Source: http://www.marketingsherpa.com/article/case-study/triggered-email-ecommerce

Objectives for Lifecycle Emails

0

10

20

30

40

50

60

70

80

90

% Marketers

(66%) Prospecting & Qualifying Leads

(78%) Nurturing & Developing Relations

(44%) Activation & Increasing Sales

(34%) Completing Post Sales Transactions

(42%) Retaining & Asking for Referrals

Source: http://sherpablog.marketingsherpa.com/email-marketing/presidential-campaign-email-tips/

Qualifying Leads for LMS Company

Source: http://www.marketingsherpa.com/article/case-study/auto-qualify-new-leads-without-lead-scoring

Qualifying Leads in Real Estate

Source: http://www.marketingsherpa.com/article/case-study/great-email-followups-to-qualify

10% of emails resulted in leads. A few folks directly called the agent.

Trial To Paying Customers

Shopping Cart Recovery Emails

19% in 2012 (14.3% in 2011)

Source: http://www.listrak.com/Whitepaper/sca2012study/3/

Trend is to send more emails

207% increase in 2012 among retailers sending 3 automated messages

Source: http://www.listrak.com/Whitepaper/sca2012study/3/

Sending the right email …

(with lifecycle emails, you are sending content that the recipient really cares about)

… to the right person …

(the recipient has self-qualified himself/herself through online behavior)

… at the right time.

(automatic email timings are aligned with the recipient’s timings)

Send people emails based on what they do or don’t do.

(And get them to do what you want them to do.)

Lead Nurturing with Drip Email Marketing:

How

Convert Marketing-Ready Leads into Sales-Ready Leads

Source: http://www.cmswire.com/cms/customer-experience/getting-from-good-to-great-digital-marketing-mktgnation-018411.php

Lead Nurturing

What is Drip Email Marketing

• A series of automated emails

– Spread over a period of time

– That

• Build Trust

• Sell Opportunity

• Familiarize with your product or service

• … any other important thing to make lead sales ready

WPEngine

Free Site Speed Test + 1 month Site Optimization Course Landing Page

Performance Tips

Scalability Tips

Security Tips

Sales Pitch

Relationship & Trust

Source: https://training.kalzumeus.com/lifecycle-emails

Citrix ($1.5 Million in 4 months)

Lead Sources (Webinars, Organic Search, Paid Search, Partnerships etc)

Source: http://www.marketingsherpa.com/article/case-study/antinewsletter-strategy-nurtures-15-million

Marketing Leads

Segmentation based on 11 personas & 6 products

1 auto email each week for 3 weeks about product benefits

Manual Segment Based Email

Harvest Sales Ready Leads Throughout the Cycle

TAB: Helps organizations manage print and digital documents

(How they got started with email drip

marketing)

Source: http://www.marketingsherpa.com/article/case-study/pilot-campaign-increases-conversion-326

Step #1: Segment the Audience

• Prospects interested in paper management solutions

• Prospects interested in hybrid management solutions

Historical data to the rescue

• Looked at the behavioral data to segment the audience. Qualifying Actions:

– Downloading a whitepaper, case study or toolkit

– Attending a related webinar

– Spending 15 seconds or more on a related TAB page

– Other related actions

Step #2: Outline a basic buying cycle

• Problem Recognition

• Education

• Brand Evaluation

• Objections

• Decision

Step #3: Match content to buying cycle

• Pulled up content from existing pool to aid potential buyers for each stage of buying cycle

• Articles, case studies, toolkits, whitepapers

• 5 landing pages and content groups targeted to each stage in buying cycle

Step #4: Create emails for each stage

• 1 email against each stage of buying cycle

• Used a consistent design for emails

• Each email sent in a gap of 10 days

• Each email brought potential buyers to corresponding landing page

Entering into the campaign

• Email campaigns were started for all potential buyers in the existing list

• First email started after 3 days for new potential buyers entering the list

– New potential buyers were the ones who expressed interest in their solution on their website

Step #5: Lead Scoring & Sales Handoff

• Track 3 parameters across 5 emails

– Clicking a link in the email

– Downloading a piece of content from landing page

– Spending more than 15 seconds on the landing page

• Sales takes up leads based on lead score

TAB Results

• 133% increase in open rate for emails

• 650% increase in click through rate for emails

• 32.6% increase in conversion rate (download content from landing page)

• Happier sales team with better qualified leads

Lumension offers IT security resources

(How they went about improving their

drip email marketing campaign)

Source: http://www.marketingsherpa.com/article/case-study/fewer-emails-yield-225-more

Step #1: Find & Analyze the Best Leads

• Figure out common traits of best leads

• Relied on the data from previous nurturing programs

• Factors considered: – Company vertical

– Lead source

– Offers taken

– Orders of the offers taken

– Time spent on the website

Step #2: Drawing upon previous success

• Team took forward assets from existing campaigns (12 drip marketing series based on lead’s industry & product of interest)

– Content

– Targeting & Segmenting

– Lead Management

Step #3: Tuned the campaigns

• Messaging & Approach – From field set to account manager instead of

marketing

– Less HTML focus

• Timing & Volume – Tested 4 approaches for faster sales-readiness

• 2 emails in 1 week, 3 emails in 3 weeks, 6 emails in 3 weeks, 4 emails in 8 weeks

• Content – Initial emails offered guides, later emails

offered sales oriented material (like trial, demo)

Lumension Results

• 225% increase in sales ready leads

• 376% more engagement per lead

• 489% increase in leads with multiple engagements

• 12.1% increase in leads with at least one engagement

• 27% opportunities generated like this became customers

Exercise: Design Your Own Drip Email Marketing Campaign

Step #3: Identify motivation factors

• What knowledge will motivate a marketing lead to become a sales lead? – Opportunity pitch

– Success stories

– Compliances

– Auditing

– …

• Example: By using Facebook Ads, company X increased their revenue by 238%

Step #4: Identify Concerns/Objections

• Refund Policy

• Social Proof

• Familiarity

• TCO

• Internal Selling

• …

• Example: 100% money back guarantee

Step #5: Create 1st campaign

• Pick one segment from step #1.

• Create outline of 3-5 emails that

– Offer them valuable content

– Motivate them to engage with you

– Address their concerns

• Keep initial emails should focus only on valuable content

• Later emails should shift towards sales talk

Repeat step #5 for all the segments

Step #6: Lead Scoring Formula

• Decide a basic formula to score your leads

– Email open / click through

– Downloads

– Time spent

– …

Step #7: Setup automatic campaigns

Possible tools: customer.io, pardot, eloqua, marketo

– customer.io is generally good enough to get your hands dirty

Step #8: Setup Analytics

• KISSmetrics / Mixpanel for funnel visualization

• intercom.io / Mixpanel for person specific data aggregation

Step #9: Integrate with CRM

• Gather all the customer activities into your CRM

• Have it handy for sales to know the history of interactions

Step #10: Execute, Test, Optimize & Repeat