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The early bird gets the worm. He who hesitates is lost. Strike while the iron is hot. These clichés may be just that, clichés, but it turns out that they also apply in the world of sales and marketing. In fact, a recent review of HubSpot customers’ lead nurturing statistics shows that open rates for nurturing emails drops off drastically over the course of three weeks.
A quick analysis of all customers using HubSpot’s lead nurturing shows a few outliers who have amazing late stage offers, but across the board, nearly 7% click through rates on Day 1, which are higher than industry averages, were almost triple that of an email sent three weeks after a lead converted on a customers’ website.
Why do later email sends have lower open rates?
- Urgency – right after a lead downloads something from your site or signs up for some sort of offer, your brand, product or service is not only top of mind, but they wanted something from you. Tapping into their personal sense of urgency is critical. So at this point, don’t waste that first day email with just a thank you. Welcome them to an ongoing program and offer them an immediate offer of additional value that keeps the urgency high.
- Recall – It only stands to reason that with so much on our minds, humans forget why we wanted something from you in the first place. Once your brand is no longer top of mind, we are less likely to open a note from you. So while staying in touch is still very relevant, your chances of converting further out are lower. Those that do re-convert further out may, however, be better qualified leads because they are persistently interested.
- Offer Relevance – Depending on how well targeted your campaign is, your offer relevance may decrease over time. The Day 1 offer in your nurturing campaign should be very closely tied to the first call to action to which your prospect responded. By the time you’ve gotten three weeks out, your prospect has consumed more data, learned new information or maybe even changed their perspective on the opportunity at hand. The challenge to you then, is to create the most targeted possible campaign which is likely to meet their interests at a later date and bring them further down the conversion path with your products and services.
Many B2B companies have a much longer sales cycle than this, but even with a long cycle, you do want to stay in touch immediately after the offer since your lead may be a reconversion or be further down their decision path. Lead nurturing can help your sales team evaluate the quality of a lead, understand their interests based on their clicks and other actions and ultimately let them be more efficient and effective in selling. So, start now, offer something great early in the cycle and try to be laser focused in later offers so you don’t lose your audience.
Why aren’t you nurturing your leads today?
A quick analysis of all customers using HubSpot’s lead nurturing shows a few outliers who have amazing late stage offers, but across the board, open rates on Day 1 were almost triple that of an email sent three weeks after a lead converted on a customers’ website.
Why do later email sends have lower open rates?
Urgency – right after a lead downloads something from your site or signs up for some sort of offer, your brand, product or service is not only top of mind, but they wanted something from you. Tapping into their personal sense of urgency is critical. So at this point, don’t waste that first day email with just a thank you. Welcome them to an ongoing program and offer them an immediate offer of additional value that keeps the urgency high.
Recall – It only stands to reason that with so much on our minds, humans forget why we wanted something from you in the first place. Once your brand is no longer top of mind, we are less likely to open a note from you. So while staying in touch is still very relevant, your chances of converting further out are lower. Those that do re-convert further out may, however, be better qualified leads because they are persistently interested.
Offer Relevance – Depending on how well targeted your campaign is, your offer relevance may decrease over time. The Day 1 offer in your nurturing campaign is probably very closely tied to the first call to action to which your prospect responded. By the time you’ve gotten three weeks out, your prospect has consumed more data, learned new information or maybe even changed their perspective on the opportunity at hand. The challenge to you then, is to create the most targeted possible campaign which is likely to meet their interests at a later date and bring them further down the conversion path with your products and services.
Many B2B companies have a much longer sales cycle than this, but even with a long cycle, you do want to stay in touch immediately after the offer since your lead may be a reconversion or be further down their decision path. Lead nurturing can help your sales team evaluate the quality of a lead, understand their interests based on their clicks and other actions and ultimately let them be more efficient and effective in selling. So, start now, offer something great early in the cycle and try to be laser focused in later offers so you don’t lose your audience.
Why aren’t you nurturing your leads today?