How to Nurture Leads For Your Agency Without Annoying Them
We are all “leads” for one business or another. So, annoying sales emails are very relatable. Being in marketing and having to nurture leads for your agency, it’s also relatable that email marketing lands clients, so it’s hard not to overdo it.
However, there are ways to nurture the leads you generate without them feeling like you’re constantly sending them a sales pitch. And your agency will land more clients by strategic lead nurturing.
I’ve been doing lead gen and nurturing for over a decade, so I can share what works for me when nurturing leads in this post and I promise you’ll love the results!
The Importance of Nurturing Leads
When implemented well, email marketing brings in $36 for every $1 spent, and a big piece of email marketing is nurturing the leads you generate. The number of agencies that don’t have a lead nurturing program in place blows my mind and inspired this post.
Nurturing your leads keeps your agency on the top of potential clients' minds. Perhaps someone wasn’t ready to convert when they downloaded your lead magnet, but a few months later, they may be ready for your agency’s services. Lead nurturing ensures that you are in front of the right people at the right time.
Finding the Right Email Marketing Platform For Your Agency
Lead nurturing runs on autopilot when you have the right email marketing platform. A platform also gives you a ton of insights pertaining to your leads and their behavior.
There are a ton of email marketing platforms out there. I don’t want you to go down a rabbit hole, so I have a few recommendations.
Budget-friendly option: I find Active Campaign affordable, and it works as both a strong CRM and email marketing platform.
Middle-of-the-road option: If you don’t have a huge budget, but you want a well functioning email marketing platform, I recommend Klaviyo as it’s super intuitive and has good data.
Option for agencies with large budgets: HubSpot is by far my favorite email marketing platform, but it’s a littel pricey. I think it’s worth the cost, though, because it’s very robust. So if you have the budget, give HubSpot a try.
When determining which email marketing platform is right for you, sign up for a free trial, as they all offer this option so you can test out a few.
Another thing to keep in mind is that in most email marketing platforms, the cost depends on how many contacts you have. So, to keep the cost down, regularly clean up your email lists.
Segmenting Your Leads
As you can imagine, not every lead is going to resonate with the same single message. Segmenting your leads allows you to personalize your nurturing emails.
In terms of how to segment, it’s different for every agency. Here are the “buckets” I see the most:
Segment by revenue
Segment by industry
Segment by Engagement
Segment by services your pitching
A good rule of thumb is to make sure you have at least 3 segmentations to nurture. Keep in mind that the gist of your emails can be the same for each list. You just need to change the verbiage for each list.
Try These 5 Ways to Nurture Your Leads
Now that I convinced you to implement a strong lead nurturing program, let’s go over what that looks like.
If you keep in mind that potential clients resonate with thought leadership, you’ve already got a strong start.
One thing I want you to keep in mind is that while I don’t advocate for sales-driven emails, each email in your nurturing sequence should have a CTA at the end. For example, if you send out a resource, end the email by saying “if you want to increase profitability at your brand, reply to this email,” or something to that effect.
Instead of sales pitches, try these 5 ways to nurture your leads instead.
Leverage Your Blog
By far, the most successful way to nurture leads for me has been by leveraging my blog. Instead of a weekly sales pitch, I send out my weekly blog posts. They convey thought leadership and expertise in the space. Blog posts help your leads learn more about your agency’s philosophy while establishing credibility.
Publish Your Own Data
Publishing your own data does wonders for thought leadership and credibility. And it’s not as hard as it sounds.
First, decide on the theme of the data you’re going to publish. A lot of times, this data pertains to either the services or industries that an agency caters to. Once you have a theme, survey 300 members of your target audience via a platform like PollFish so that your data has credibility.
Turn the data you gather from surveying into an email series highlighting all the key takeaways. If this approach sounds intriguing to you, I wrote a whole guide on it here.
Highlight Current Clients
Your target audience wants to see how your agency has helped brands like theirs, they crave social proof. So, give it to them in your nurturing emails.
Highlighting your current clients can be as simple as a testimonial or in-depth like a case study. And give your message some context into how exactly you got amazing results for a client.
It also doesn’t hurt to mention recognizable brands that your agency works with and any press you’ve gotten about a past campaign or two.
Exclusivity
Embrace the fact that people like to feel like they have an exclusive relationship with businesses.
Leverage exclusivity in your nurturing emails by offering things like special offers for brands on your email list or timely industry insights that they can’t get anywhere else.
A little bit goes a long way to make your leads feel like they are a part of your agency’s inner circle.
Embrace Industry Expertise
Data shows that brands are willing to pay more for a boutique agency with expertise in their industry than for a big, full-service agency. By embracing industry expertise in your nurturing emails, you can show these brands that you are indeed an expert in their industry.
Should I Ever Give Up on a Lead?
I get asked often when I think an agency should give up on a lead. Honestly, there is a delicate balance.
If a lead isn’t engaging or opening your emails, it can hurt the health of your list. On the other hand, I’ve nurtured leads for a year before they convert.
I vote the answer to this question falls somewhere in the middle. Clean up inactive leads, but don’t give up on the ones who are engaging with your emails, as one day they may convert.
Final Thoughts: I’m Ready to Do a Better Job Nurturing My Leads!
Now that I have just dumped all of my lead nurturing experience into this post, I’m sure you’re ready to implement a strong lead nurturing program.
Pick your platform, embrace thought leadership, ditch the sales pitch, and you’ll see amazing results in just a few weeks.
One thing I do want to acknowledge is that lead nurturing takes some time to do it right. Often, agency owners spend a ton of time doing awesome work for their clients and don’t have the time needed to treat their agency like a client. That’s where I come in, and if you want my help implementing a lead nurturing platform, you can contact me here.
Which email marketing platform do you use for lead nurturing? I’d love to read all about it in the comments below!
