What happens to your warm leads who aren’t ready to buy from you yet? Can you grab them before they cool off?

If you’re selling HR services or HR tech, you’ll know of nurture campaigns; they help build a relationship with your potential client and move them down your sales funnel.

Nurture campaigns or workflows take time to set up but, once in place, keep the contact going with little input from you and can deliver excellent value.

A 2019 study by The Direct Marketing Association in the UK showed that email delivers an ROI of £42 for every £1 spent.

This article covers email nurture campaign best practices.

I’ve mapped out, written and implemented numerous nurture campaigns. Here are seven of my clients’ most frequently asked questions about using them for marketing to HR.

What email content do you need to move your lead to buy?

How do you begin plotting the lead nurturing stages? What should you offer first, second, to prompt a call, etc? So many questions!

Whether or not you have a sales team in place, take a look at how an average sales call, online chat or demo goes. What are the questions your leads typically ask, and at what point in the process do they ask them?

Once you have these questions listed, map out the content you have (or need to develop) that answers these. The move on. What typically comes up next?

You’ll be working up a sequence that addresses buyers’ most common concerns in the order they often ask, and you’ll move them closer to taking action. And if you can include real customers’ words and phrases, as quotes or in your writing, you’ll make your sequence even more powerful.

How often should you send lead nurturing emails?

Send emails too frequently, and you’re not nurturing, you’re pushing! Too long a gap and they’ll forget why they signed-up altogether.

Unfortunately, there is no magic, one-size-fits-all schedule. Think about how much content you plan to deliver. An expensive and highly technical product might need a series of white papers, case studies, eBooks or webinars to close. A cheaper or low-risk subscription may only need a couple of emails.

Then look at the average length of your sales cycle – 30, 90, 120 days? Divide your average sales cycle by the number of emails, and you’ve got your timeline.

What makes a great subject line?

Your email has to be opened before you can start lead nurturing. HubSpot found 64% of people choose to open an email because of the subject line. So, what does it take?

Character count is important. Shorter subject lines enjoy higher open rates, and at 80 characters, you’re likely to get cut off by most email packages.

Intrigue is useful for grabbing attention, but clever or vague lines will likely put readers off. Being clear and straightforward is your main goal.

Personalise as much as you can, based on what you know about your lead. And include action words that encourage your reader to imagine life having bought from you.

As we all know, we need to focus on the benefits they’ll enjoy, not the features. Speak to the problems HR professionals need to solve – and not to the product you have. “Onboard new hires faster” and “Reach your ideal candidate easily” are likely to grab attention because they speak to problems they need to solve.

How long should your nurture campaign emails be?

Several factors go into deciding the length of your emails:

• Where in the sales buying process are they? Someone early on is still trying to get to know you. They may be researching the topic or the solution, so are interested in more general content. Later on, and they want to know about the specifics of your offering.

• What questions do you need to answer? You will be able to brainstorm these from the questions you are asked.

• How big a commitment is it to buy from you? Your emails will need to work harder - and perhaps for longer - if your product and service requires a large investment. Signpost more in-depth content and case studies to demonstrate credibility.

A 2016 study by email productivity platform Boomerang showed that emails with 71-100 words have the highest response rate, at 51%, dropping to 44% for emails of 500 words. Keeping your message short and sweet is probably a good starting point.

Should you include images in your emails?

Research shows that after three days, the average person will remember just 10% of a piece of information they’ve heard. Add a picture to the delivery, and that increases to 65%.

Here are some best practices if you choose to use images to help your message to stick:

• Pictures of people, rather than objects, created a 95% higher conversion rate in one study by VWO.

• Images should be of real people doing relevant things, not stock fillers. Not always possible but bear it in mind.

• MailChimp and Constant Contact warn against your email essentially being a single image with text - add your content in a template and provide image alt-text.

• Images should be 600-800k and around 72DPI, according to Campaign Monitor.

• Lower-quality JPEGs might be OK but always use PNGs if your image contains text.

How to create a CTA that gets clicked

You’ve already determined what question or problem each email needs to answer for your lead. How will you deliver the matching content? Should they download an eBook, watch a YouTube video or go to your website?

Be clear on what action you want before you start to write your email and then focus everything on achieving that goal. Whether you include a button or hyperlinked text, make it easy and enticing to take the step. And include only one CTA in the email. Don’t be tempted to offer several things ‘just in case’.

Use ‘power words’, as Campaign Monitor describes them, for your CTA buttons, such as Read, Watch, See, and Get. And the underlined blue of linked words and remember that phrases like Download, Find out or Learn more will pop out in a plain text email if you choose not to use buttons.

What about the From name and email address. What are nurture campaign best practices?

How you decide on your ‘From’ name and address will depend on how big or small your company is. But there are two things to avoid at all costs. No-reply addresses suggest it’s all one way, rather than showing you’d love to engage. And free email addresses say, “I’m not that invested in my business myself.” I still talk with consultants in this market running a business with a gmail email address.

According to Campaign Monitor, trust is a crucial factor in whether your message gets opened or not. And, as with many aspects of marketing today, businesses are shifting to using human aliases to encourage that feeling of trust.

If it’s just you or you’re a small company, sending a nurture campaign from your own name and email address is straightforward. The consistency also means you’re unlikely to get dumped by spam filters.

But if you’re a larger company, you might not want to be tied to a single spokesperson. To maintain the personal touch, you could display a name like “Chris from xx” and send it using sales@xx.com. Switch Chris for Sam in some messages, and it’s still a human, but your brand isn’t invested in one name.

What content should you offer?

If your contacts are at the top of the funnel, then they are likely to still in the awareness raising section, still working out who you are and still getting to know you. At this time, you may want to offer content that is quick to access, demonstrates your credibility.

Further down and they may be looking for more detail and evidence of what you offer works and the benefits they can access.

Take time to map out the marketing assets you have be they videos, testimonials, podcasts, case studies, How to guides, white papers, media articles and work out the order in which you would want to present them to a prospect.

There may be gaps. And that then gives you a priority ordering for creating some new assets!

If you’re marketing to HR professionals, nurture campaigns are vital

Email nurture campaigns give you three things.

1. Keeps you in the Inbox of a prospect who may be still deciding next steps.

2. Lets you drip feed content to guide prospects through their decision making and answers real sales questions.

3. Offers an easily tweakable process. As you collect your lead nurturing statistics, you can adapt and personalise your strategy for maximum engagement.

Need help with your marketing?

Over the last 20 years, I’ve worked with start-ups, small and not-so-small businesses to write content that can be repurposed and to improve their HR marketing effectiveness.

My approach always involves a blend of strategic insight and practical implementation.

If you sell to HR decision makers and need fresh eyes, fast thinking and great quality content, then let’s get started.