Rolling Out a Successful Lifecycle Marketing Campaign

Not too long ago, one of our clients was asking about the best way to roll out a lifecycle marketing campaign (LCM or drip). For those of you who are not aware of what an LCM campaign is – it is an email marketing technique for sending multiple messages to a group of subscribers in an automated fashion. This client’s goal was to increase qualified leads in order to boost sales.

Win the Attention of Undecided Prospects

Email marketing is still one of the most effective channels to nurture prospects due to its low cost, and the willingness of buyers to receive email from companies with whom they already have some kind of relationship. According to DemandGen Report, nurtured leads produce, on average, a 20% increase in sales opportunities versus non-nurtured leads. The following lead nurturing best practices will help you build relationships with your prospects:

  • Get their permission. Before sending marketing messages to your prospects, be sure to ask for their explicit permission, preferably via double opt-in, so they do not see it as unsolicited email or spam. This shows respect by giving your prospects a choice, which will set the tone for relationship building and partnership. The success of your email marketing campaign depends on this more than anything else.
  • Automate your lead nurture strategy. Implement automatically triggered campaigns (a series of automated emails called a “drip” campaign) that deliver consistent brand messages at specified time intervals and when leads reach certain milestones. Drip marketing is a strategy that will help you keep your company fresh in your recipients’ minds until they’re ready to buy. Over time, as prospects respond, you’ll learn more about their needs and interests.

Behavioral Marketing: Subscribers Demand More Personalized Content

Targeting tactics should be a key component of your marketing strategy

Behavioral targeting starts with understanding who your target audience is, what they’re interested in and what their needs are. Crafting your email with their needs in mind will help keep them engaged.

Identifying a target market’s pain points and recognizing differences between groups of customers, is at the heart of marketing. What you think is relevant and what a prospect or customer finds relevant may be two different things.

Drive Engagement: Automate Your Lead Nurture Strategy

When creating your lead nurturing campaign it’s important that you carefully plan the flow of your emails to ensure that your overall campaign guides your leads through the funnel. Implement automatically triggered campaigns (a series of automated emails called a “drip” campaign) that deliver consistent brand messages at specified time intervals and when leads reach certain milestones. In a long sales cycle, messages need to be more informative and not a sales pitch. Offer them something of value (webinars, eBooks, white papers, articles, free reports, blog posts, etc.).

Here are five essential elements of an effective lead nurturing campaign: