[social_warfare]
The reality is, most of your sales will come from someone who has multiple touchpoints with your brand.
But not everyone strategizes for this!
Let’s say, approximately 1-3% of your leads convert to a sale post-webinar (the actual conversion depends on lots of variables, including live v evergreen webinar, B2B v B2C marketing, etc.).
Well, what happens to the other 97 percent?
If you’re anything like the “average” entrepreneur, NOTHING happens. Those leads sit on your list. Maybe they receive your weekly value email, maybe not.
But you don’t want to be average.
Instead, my company uses intentional + strategic nurture campaigns to BUILD TRUST with the people who don’t buy.
Because eventually they’ll be ready – and we’ll be top of mind.
In this episode, I’ll walk you through our signature 90-day nurture sequence, plus…
- How to use retargeting ads with strategic content
- Why this long-game strategy is entirely worth it
- And 2 questions to ask yourself before you get started…
Thoughts about this episode? Hop over to Instagram (@emilyhirsh) to share your questions + comments inside our latest post!
If you’re ready to work with us, head to HelpMyStrategy.com to apply!
Key Points:
[3:26] Don’t lose sight of the low-hanging fruit
[5:42] Your goal is to build trust
[6:21] Here’s a few examples of our automated nurture sequence
[10:52] Then we have strategic retargeting ads that build touchpoints
[12:17] Pay attention to the audience that hasn’t yet taken action
[13:53] TAKE ACTION: 2 questions to ask yourself…
[social_warfare]
Episode Transcripts:
Hello everybody. Welcome back to the podcast. I hope you’re doing amazing, and [you] crush that first month of 2020. I know we did. I’m feeling good. Going into February will be a big month for us, because I’m having a baby, and each one of my kids has been a big uplevel in my business, a direct correlation to that. Because having a kid, if you’ve had one, having a baby, it just really forces you to look at what’s important, to manage your time better, because you have such limited time when a little human needs you, and just recheck everything. [This was true with] both my kids. My first kid was the start of my business, and my second was the start of me growing my team, so we’ll see what the third will lead to! I’m sure I’ll have lots of thoughts for you guys.
Today, I wanted to talk about nurturing in your marketing, because this is something that’s been really huge for our clients and really huge for us, actually, in our marketing, at Hirsh Marketing, for getting clients and for getting sales to IGNITE. And that’s just the importance of having nurturing and what that looks like. I have a few thoughts on that. But most importantly, I want to point out that it’s so common and interesting for me, when I look at our own data and our clients’ data of this, how many sales often come from somebody who’s had multiple touch points with your brand… but yet, how often people forget this in their strategy. And they only look at that initial… [well] not only, but their main focus consistently remains that initial touch point and first interaction that somebody has with their brand in a funnel, and then [they] kind of let the other pieces drop, let the nurturing drop.
And so, we restarted up funnels in the last 90 days and rebuilt them, and then turned ads on to them, and we’ve had ads on since. And it’s really interesting for me to see the data of contacts who’ve been following me for a year and people who have been in contact with our brand in the past, and then their business has grown, and now it’s time for them to buy. And I think so often we lose sight of that potential and that low-hanging fruit and the people [who are] like… you already convinced them that you’re awesome, with your content, in some way, whether they signed up for a webinar or they somehow got on your list, they listened to your podcast, they watched one of your videos. They already believe that you’re awesome. And so when the time is right, you want to remain top of mind so that they can, and they will, purchase from you, when the time is right.
I want to talk about what nurturing could look like for you and should look like, and all the different angles. And I think the reason that people kind of let it slide or they don’t put emphasis on it is, it’s a lot of work to build out a lot of these strategies. But also it’s a lot more exciting to focus on that front-end and that initial revenue and that instant gratification of that sale, which, obviously you need those to sustain your funnel. If you have a webinar funnel, you need people to be buying right off the webinar for it to make sense. But you are also going to have a lot of people who don’t buy right off the webinar, and so how do you capitalize on those people? How do you maximize your funnel?
And this is where, too, having that focus [that I talked about in episode 147, “Very few entrepreneurs are able to do this,”] really [comes in with] your marketing. It’s so important, because just getting an initial offer and an initial webinar up, where you then make an offer, and maybe you have some sales emails attached to it, and then it ends there… It’s not even close to enough. There’s still so much more that you can do to optimize that, to build that out, and to really create a full, completed customer journey.
For us, the biggest ways we constantly encourage clients and ourselves to nurture their audience is through retargeting ads and through email marketing. Those are the two main ways. Of course, social media, you can do it, too, your organic social media. But with emails and with retargeted ads, you have a lot of control over the audiences and exactly what that will look like, and how you can segment them.
I want you to think about your nurturing. Think about if you even have it in place – and if you don’t, what that would look like. And really look at it from the perspective that your main goal with nurturing is to build trust. That is your goal. You are building trust with your brand, maybe with your product, with the problem that you solve. All you’re doing is instilling that trust in this potential lead, and so everything you do around nurturing should do that. And then you should sprinkle in some opportunities for them to buy again, very strategically.
Here’s a couple examples of what we do. One, in every funnel I have, there’s a nurture sequence attached. If someone signs up for one of our organic funnels on my website that we don’t even run traffic to. We have the Hirsh Marketing Report and we have a case study funnel. There’s a nurture email sequence attached to that funnel, because I don’t think they’re going to come sign up for the Hirsh Marketing Report and buy from me. In no way would I expect that. Instead, I’ve attached a very intentional nurture sequence where I’m able to tell them more information about our company, the results that we’ve gotten, give them ways that they can learn more through the podcast or… I don’t remember exactly what we do. And then, of course, I send them where I want them to go, which is to book a call with our team, book a call to be a potential client with the agency. And so, I am doing that intentionally through that nurture sequence.
Then I’ve got a webinar funnel. So we have our IGNITE webinar funnel, and someone can sign up for the webinar, and then they either watch the webinar or they don’t watch the webinar. And then they go through a sales sequence depending on their action, and then they’re pitched our IGNITE program. Then, what happens if they don’t buy that program? That’s like about a week of time right there, that they kind of are going through that initial funnel and that initial reaction. And that’s where we, of course, want sales, and we get sales, and we have a sales goal there.
But then what happens to all those hundreds of leads who are not going to buy? Because let’s say 1-3 percent of your leads actually convert into an initial purchase. Well, they’re either going to just sit on your list, maybe get some regular weekly emails from you if you do that, or nothing’s going to happen. And so for us, what we do is we build in a 90-day nurture sequence [I talk more about that in episode 37, “How to get 15-25% more sales from your webinars,”]. It has intentional weekly content that’s purpose is to build trust in me, my brand, my expertise, and my program IGNITE, subtly. That is the only goal of it. And so it’s a lot more intentional than just like, “Oh, throw them in my newsletter list, and we’ll send them some emails.” I’ve picked out those emails specifically to nurture, build trust, build a relationship, and gain that trust with that person.
And then we have a couple of flash sales, so we actually re-offer IGNITE within that series. And it’s 90 days [long], that’s the long game. One, it’s a lot of emails to set up, so a lot of people don’t do it. It’s a lot of work. But two, once you’re done, once you set it up, it’s done, and then it’s there forever, and you have it there forever. Getting that set up might be a lot of work, and then waiting for people to get through it… We’ve been running this funnel for six weeks, and we haven’t had anybody get to the flash sale yet, so I don’t know how it’s working yet. I know this strategy works, because I’ve done it many times in the past, but it takes time and patience for you to let people go through the funnel, let people read your emails, read your information, build that trust with you, and then hopefully buy from you in the future.
That’s one way that we do it is, that automated nurture. And so whatever somebody is signing up for, there is something intentional attached to what they signed up for, that if they don’t take the action I want them to take, I’m nurturing them, I’m building trust with them, I’m having those touch points with my brand so they constantly hear about Hirsh Marketing, how awesome we are, the results that we get, what we can do for them. Remember, it’s all about them. They don’t care about anything that you do, except for how you can help them. That’s what your audience cares about. And so remember that with what you create.
Then we’ve also got retargeting ads. You can really pair your retargeting ads with your email nurturing. But obviously, anybody who’s had a touch point with your brand in some way, you can retarget them, and you can show them an ad, a specific ad. And again, this is where you can be very specific with the content. Here’s another example. We have a funnel where someone goes and watches our microwebinar. It’s a free webinar, you don’t even have to sign up for it. It’s 20 minutes. They go watch it, and then we want them to apply, that’s our goal. But not everybody’s going to be like, “Yeah, I’m willing to fill out this lengthy application after watching a quick video of her, and she seems good, but I’m not sure.” That’s a lot of the people.
We have a ton of really intentional retargeting that, it goes a little bit deeper. It’s not just like, “Hey, you forgot to fill out your application. Go back and fill it out.” Which is great. We do have a video for that, but we also do content. And so we put long posts of podcasts, and just trying to engage them, and stop that [scroll with] like, “Wait a second, this is actually really good content. I’m going to pay more attention to this.” Maybe they go listen to a podcast episode, whatever it is that they do, but we are intentionally just having those touch points.
And so, in everything that you do, pay attention to the audience you’re building who hasn’t taken the action that you want them to take yet, and ask yourself, how can I strategically build trust with those people? How can I build relationships with those people… online… not one-on-one relationships… Sometimes when I say that to people, they’re like, “You’re not actually building relationships.” But I am. I’m building relationships with my brand.
And what this also does is, let’s say I have a promotion down the line like, we’re going to launch our book, we’re going to launch something new in the future. I have this audience of people who has constantly built trust with me and built trust with our brand and what we represent and our material, that it makes those promotions so much easier, and becomes that snowball effect.
In order to have success with your marketing, you have to prioritize nurturing. That’s the blanket statement here. You have to prioritize nurturing, you have to be strategic with nurturing, and you have to have nurturing. Because you will have such small results just from that initial, immediate purchase or immediate reactions that people take, because such a small percentage of people will actually do that.
I have people who have been on my list for a year, and then they bought my course… or even more than a year, two years they’ve been following me, and then they sign up [as] a client. And that’s just part of playing the long game, because you don’t know when somebody is going to actually be ready for what you offer, but you want to be the first one that comes to mind when they are. That comes from being consistent and strategic with your nurturing.
The two things I really want you to look at is… look at everything that somebody comes across as a journey. If they’re signing up for a PDF, if they’re signing up for a free training, if they’re going into a challenge, if they’re going into a Facebook group, if they’re visiting your website… what does that journey look like that you have intentionally created for them? And how can you build in more trust, more touch points with your brand that really give value and make people think about you and your content, and care about it and remember it? And so that’s the question you have to ask yourself.
And that’s why I love marketing is because, I look at it as a journey for somebody to go through. I look at it as, they land on my website, they see this opt-in page, they sign up for this thing. They’re then seeing this ‘thank you’ page, and then they get these emails, and it’s just a journey that I’m taking them on, and building trust with them, and of course, asking them to take action on a few things in different cases, but I don’t just ask them one time and then hope that enough people do it. I’m asking multiple times in a strategic way, if that makes sense.
If you want support with this, this is something we’re constantly kind of working on with our clients. And even my team, it’s funny, I’ll get on with my ads team who runs my ads, and they’re like, “Well, how about we add in this nurture ad,” or they are making suggestions to how we could improve our email sequence, because my ads team is treating me like a client, and so that’s what we do with our clients. And if you would like support with that, you can go to HelpMyStrategy.com to apply to work with us.
This is crucial. If you’re not ready to work with us, if that’s not what you feel like is the right fit for you right now, still look at this in your business, and focus in on this, create monthly goals around this, build this out. It might take time, but it will make the world of difference in your success.