Email nurture series: What it is, Why you need it, How to make it

You know I'm big on inbound marketing around here. It shouldn't be a surprise 😅 But let's get into the most important base component of your overall strategy - the email nurture series.

If you haven't heard of one before, don't worry. It's not hard to understand at all, I promise (and you can always email me for clarification).

Let me just start out by saying this: Your email nurture series is a VERY important part of your overall inbound marketing strategy.

It will make it easy to make more and more funnels without creating more and more content.

It is also one of the key points where CONVERSION takes place.

Let's get right into it with some information you can use NOW.

What is an email nurture series?
Why do you need one?
How do you set one up?

What is an email nurture series?

Generally speaking, an nurture series is the first set of emails you send to your leads. It introduces them to your company, your products and services, but it also makes a connection with them by sending helpful information they can use.

Your nurture series is different from your sales and promotional emails. Those are just one-off emails or sets of emails you send during a special time or season to let people know about amazing deals and new offers. Everyone gets THOSE emails at the same time.

Your nurture series is different from your newsletter. Not all companies send a newsletter out to their mailing list, but if you do, your nurture series is different. Where your newsletters focus on updating people about that's been happening in your company, your nurture series is more about introductions, assistance, and moving leads closer to conversion.

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PRO TIP - If you send out a newsletter try to set it up so that it doesn't send out to the people who are still receiving your nurture series. It can be a bit overwhelming to get all those emails at the same time. Use your newsletter to update people who've already made their way THROUGH your nurture series.

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Why do you need an email nurture series?

The nurture series is ESSENTIAL to the inbound marketing strategy.

It's where people get to know you, learn to trust you, and build a connection that leads to a sense of community and partnership with your brand.

The nurture series provides and hands-off way to stay in constant contact with new leads. It sends out just the right email at just the right time without you having to remember a thing or lift a finger.

So simple.

EVEN BETTER if you set it up correctly, your nurture series can be re-used over and over and over again for a variety of different opt-in and freebie offers! (I'll explain that more in a second)

How to set up your first nurture series and reuse it!

Alright, this is a two-parter.

Let's look at how I set up a nurture series and it's overall role in an inbound marketing strategy.

When I make an inbound marketing plan the first thing that I focus on is the freebie or opt-in offer. This is the thing that gets people ON to the mailing list in the first place.

>> Click here for my Ultimate Guide to Freebies

Once I know what the offer is I'm able to plan out the blog posts, social media strategy and ads (sometimes) that will lead TO the opt-in offer.

AND, I'm able to figure out what we want to say to the lead AFTER they get onto the mailing list.

This is not the nurture series > Usually we start with a thank you. Maybe there's a link to the download (if it was something downloadable). And there might even be a couple of quick emails that talk about that particular opt-in offer and how to best use it.

THIS is the nurture series > After a lead receives those first few thank you and instruction emails I set the email automation to MOVE them to another "workflow." The nurture series workflow 🙂

The nurture series does all the in-depth introductions, talks about the brand, explains WHY they do what they do, shares tips, tricks, and any other helpful information it can. It also helps the reader (or lead) figure out what they need that the brand can provide. Eventually, it goes for the sale!

(A "workflow" is just a set of emails all grouped together and scheduled to send out at certain times based on when a person joins that workflow. Read more about workflows from Campaign Monitor.)

An example in action

Lisa has a new puppy and is curious about training him. She finds Christy's Online Pet School by searching for training tips online.

OPT IN

Christy's website had a ton of great information that Lisa found helpful. One of the things Lisa loved was Christy's blog post about "potty" training for pets. Inside that blog post, Christy offered a free potty training checklist that Lisa thought would be helpful to print out and post by her back door.

To get the checklist, Lisa joined Christy's mailing list and had the checklist sent to her inbox.

BASIC EMAIL FOLLOWUP WORKFLOW

Christy's first email thanked Lisa for her interest and included the download of the checklist.

In her second email, Christy checked in with Lisa to see how things went.

*NURTURE SERIES EMAIL WORKFLOW

After a couple days Lisa received another email where Christy introduced herself and her passion for pet training. It talked about how she started the company and what she hopes to accomplish for pet owners.

A few days later she got an email with some tips for at-home training for puppies.

The next week she got an email that focused on helping her identify the challenges she had when it came to training her new dog.

A few days later she got an email that provided the answer to one of those challenges.

The next email asked her to imagine how wonderful it would be to train her puppy in less than 2 months with only 1 hour of work per week.

Lisa was excited. This was just what she needed. She worked a lot and needed help but couldn't afford a personal puppy trainer - all things that Christy's emails talked about and something her affordable, online puppy training could solve!

Lisa clicked the button on the email and signed up for a free consultation call with Christy to talk about the online training program.

AFTERCARE

After personally following up with Lisa, Christy got a new signup for her Spring Training Session!

Mailerlite

My favourite tool for small businesses who want affordable email marketing that makes great funnels without a confusing interface 👇