There are various names for this process, some call it to nurture sequence, some people would call it part of a sales funnel. I prefer to say it’s a follow-up sequence, but, the nurture sequence is kind of nice.  Because it’s basically an automated series of emails, which you send to new leads or inquiries.New inquiries or new leads could come from your contact us form on the website. Or, they could come from someone emailing you. Or even from someone booking a discovery call with you from any of your free opt-ins. Wherever they may come from, they should then go into a relevant nurture sequence.

In fact, even your existing clients should often go into a, kind of nurture sequence at some point.  Because sometimes even on social media, we forget that when someone likes your page from five years ago and they see all your stuff, they forget your story and they forget what it is that you offer.

So, we’ve constantly got to be bringing up all these nurturing things so that we can re nurture or re-engage or build that know, like, and trust. And it is important if you are nurturing your existing clients into something else

So, for example, when people leave my program, they get offered the opportunity to sign up on a month to month basis. So that means that basically when you finish your program, you love me so much that you don’t want to go.  You want to stay and to become a VIP and have a monthly one-hour session, and also promote you to my network.

And that just helps you have ongoing coaching.  And, you get that at a really good rate for staying on board. So, it is really important that you focus on education. You focus on telling your story and you are why. It’s really important that you explain the reason that you have your product or your service and what makes it different. And that you do show your expertise.

The nurture sequence is also to boost the client’s certainty in you and your product or service, and it’s to make sure that the client is satisfied or convinced that you are the right person.

10 different points in coming up with the right nurture sequence.

1. One at a time, just do one thing and just get that one thing right. If you don’t have an email list right now, that’s okay, it could even just be your ‘contact us’ form on the website. Get that one email nurture sequence done from the beginning right through to the end. Always have the end in mind, remember that a good strategy always has the end in mind. 
2. Make sure that it is super specific to the audience. Remember, your nurture sequence for a real estate agent is going to be completely different to a nurture sequence to a trailer manufacturer. The language is going to be different, your compelling argument, like your persuasive content, the type of content that you show your success stories and the advice that you give is going to be completely different because the pain is going to be different. The outcome that they want is different. Even though the service that you might be giving them, or the product that you’re offering them is still going to solve their problem. The language that you use is going to be different. If you can segment your audience or tag them, it can be highly beneficial. So, when you have an email marketing list it must be categorized if you have a variety of products or services.
3. A confused mind, buys nothing. People get confused so be sure to have one objective for one sequence with one call to action.  And that can really make your email sequence a lot more powerful for you, a lot easier for your brain and a lot easier for their brain as well. So just remember it’s one sequence with one objective and for one audience.
4. Consider and map out your customers interactions. Get one thing right. And go through that whole sequence before you move on to the next. You can always duplicate and repurpose and edit the content from the previous one.
5. Include compelling content and conversations. You literally can write how you talk right now. Sharing your success stories is always a winner. Offering pain and solution.  Metaphors also work incredibly well.
6. Coffee first. Meaning, don’t go straight for the sales pitch. Make sure, you do not go straight for the sales pitch in the nurture sequence, make sure that you over deliver. So, if you’ve said to them, “I’m going to show you fast and free ways that you can get results online without paying for ads.”  You want to make sure that the first thing you give them is exactly that. People obviously need to pay you for your expertise, but you can always tell people what they need to do. You don’t need to be telling them how to do it.  Which is really important because if we tell them how to do things, they will leave you, they will go and try to do them themselves, and they’ll in essence fail. And then it looks like you failed because you actually haven’t prepared them for success. You can’t promise something and then not deliver on that promise.  
7. So what objections do they have? Like what are they thinking about or what are their objections or what are they worrying about? And can you handle those in your email? And as I said, a logical order is really important. So, you’d always share your story and then start to share your expertise.  You’d never share your expertise first without telling your story. Because it wouldn’t be well received. It’s going to be much better received hearing someone’s story and making them vulnerable and getting to know them better.
8. Mapping out the sequences. I love Trello, but there’s a whole bunch of different ones out there. I love Trello because literally it’s boards and you can have them on your phone as well. And it is free.  
9. Testing – I mean TESTING – super important. So, whatever you do, you’ve got to make sure that you test every step of the process. The frequency of the emails is really up to you and it’s up to your customer as well. If you’re just starting out, start out small, do not over-complicate it. But when we’re looking at the testing, we want to look at things at your open rate. Remembering open rates can have a lot to do with your subject lines. They can have a lot to do with if your account’s been set up correctly. Keep checking your open rates are good, as well as your clicks. Also check you unsubscribes If you’re getting a lot of unsubscribes, you, you want to know where in the sales funnel or nurture sequence did they unsubscribe. And perhaps use it as a learning curve to tweak your sequence.   We want to evoke enough curiosity that we keep them around to discover that.  You want to look at your website traffic. So, Google analytics, if you’ve set up Google my business, you basically log into Google, go into Google analytics and you can have a look at the traffic from your emails. When you send an email, you can turn on Google analytics tracking and we can see how many people are actually coming to the website through email.  Which is really important because it’s like a triangle? You want to make sure that you’re getting website traffic, social media traffic, Google my business traffic, and you want to keep that traffic going. You also want to look at things like what time of the day you’re sending the emails, the subject lines etc.

So, we’ve got email number one.  The subject line could be something like “thanks for downloading”.  I love an emoji but don’t overuse emojis. If it’s a free download, you put the little email button or you could put a little paper.  I like my clients to have a couple of common emojis that they’ll use on an ongoing basis and they become your branding emojis. With that first email, it is super important to make sure that it is sent straight away. And you need to say “You have been subscribed to this list. Please feel free to unsubscribe at any time or email me back and I’ll unsubscribe you”.  It’s actually better for you to unsubscribe them than for them to unsubscribe themselves. But most importantly with that first one, you want to make sure that you’re giving them whatever it is that they wanted.

That second email is about acknowledging the problem or addressing the problem that they have. Engaging or asking them questions. So many times, we don’t say, how did you enjoy that checklist, which was your favourite one?

For me, number three is super important because what are we doing? We’re getting them to think now. Because most of us know that accountability is one of the biggest things for getting people to actually stay in. Engage them and ask them questions.  “Did you find that was a struggle?” or “Perhaps it was number four that you really struggled with? What I found is that number seven holds a lot of people back. So, here’s something to help you.” And then expand on it.  Go and over-deliver and give them something else and then even invite them to email you back with what they are struggling with. Now you’re opening up the lines of communication and showing that you actually give a shit. And I think that that’s super important because we get so many emails, but how many heartfelt emails do we get showing that we actually really do get it.

The third email – this is your story.  So, this is crafting a story that sells.  A video might be really good, but talking a bit about why you do what you do, what you are incredibly passionate about. And this would basically be about your story.

Email number four would be showing WHY your business.  So, your story is showing why you, but number four is showing why your business or your business points of difference. So, you might talk about some myths that are out there. So, for example, on my handle, something like, “oh, it’s a big myth that you’ve got to pay thousands of dollars and go and do paid advertising in order to generate leads when you can for free. And I’ll show you how you can do that.”  So, I’m showing some of my values and I’m showing some of my points of difference. The things that I’m really passionate about or do differently. And showing my expertise and niche. And remember, I always talk about niches inside niches.

Number five is showing social proof or success story and the effectiveness of what it is that you are offering, that’s really important.  You could use a story or even a video testimonial. Include a nice subject line that says, “look, someone else’s problem was fixed”

Number six then is credibility. And often people don’t like to talk about how clever they are or what they do.  But it’s really important, especially for the left brain. Left brain people don’t want to just hear from you how amazing you are. They need to see statistics from proven people like “Harvard university says that if people invest in themselves, they’re more likely to be successful.” So those left-brain people that need statistics, also like to see some qualifications and they want to see that you are registered or you have awards. Or they need some facts.

The seventh email is connecting with the pain points and the FOMO.  Before and afters are a really good way to do that as well, but more from an emotional perspective.

The Eight emails would be pitched. This is where you go in and pitch. It doesn’t have to be a hard networking kind of pitch. You could say, “I get how you feeling, I’ve been there, I’ve done that, I know how you’re struggling.  This is why specifically I’ve created this product or this offer” And then you tell them your offer.  Do not send them a dozen offers, it needs to be an offer right for that person. What do you feel is the next best step for them. The most likely one that they are going to say yes to because at the end of it is logical and it is customer-focused.

Your ninth email would be frequently asked questions. Now, this is huge.  If you have your FAQ on your website why not include them in your nurture sequence as well? Because if they are frequently asked questions from your customer, chances are this person who’s opted in is going to have the same question.

The tenth email is reengaging. So, in a re-engaging email, you could start with something like “Hello for the last time. This is the last opportunity that I’m going to give you to have that one-on-one chat to see how I can help you through this problem” If nobody opens up an email in three months, they will get an automated email that says, “this is the last time we’re sending you an email, we will automatically unsubscribe you”. And if they click on it, it says to them,” congratulations, you here for another three months, please continue to engage. And if you don’t want to just email us back and we’ll unsubscribe you”.  You are paying for people on your email list so you don’t want people there who are completely uninterested.

Push back hard to get a yes or no, because a yes or no is better than a maybe if it’s a yes, it’s a yes. You’ve got the right person. If it’s a no, it’s a no. So, you’ve clearly communicated and you’ve pushed back hard enough to get a yes or no. You haven’t fluffed around to try and get a maybe we’re actually trying to get a yes or no. And it’s not a problem to get a no, because then you can focus on the right person.