How an Email Nurture Sequence can qualify leads in your floral design business.
Profitable Floral Design Systems Series Part 2.
We all know that being quick to reply is essential to booking new inquiries. In fact, 50% of clients go to the vendor who simply responds first.
Do your customers wait for hours or even days to get a reply when they fill out your website inquiry form?
If your answer is yes, it’s time to implement a system of automated emails for new inquiries.
It’s important to know that…
This means that potential clients expect you to communicate with them through your website, on social media, and via email.
Your website and email allow potential clients to communicate with you when it’s convenient for them. Many couples are juggling jobs, family responsibilities, and the other aspects of wedding planning during the time they are reaching out to you.
An email sequence that initiates the moment they engage with you takes advantage of the time and bandwidth they have available. It’s a system that helps you to position yourself as the most helpful solution for their problem.
Lead generation is one of the best systems you can create and use in your business!
That’s because an email nurture sequence can systematize 3 huge components of your business: capturing, qualifying, and convincing new leads. This system saves you time while converting new leads and eliminating as much of the guesswork and unpredictability from your sales process as possible.
Not only does your business grow faster, but your workload gets easier! Isn’t that fantastic?
Rather than leaving a new lead waiting days for a reply, you can build this simple system one time, and send a sequence of thoughtful replies without lifting a finger.
Your email nurture sequence should be designed to guide your potential client through the difficult process of becoming aware that you are the best solution for their problem as efficiently and effectively as possible.
The goal here is to have a more educated, trusting, and excited client once they arrive at the point of personal one-on-one contact.
So, with the email sequence, you are doing the legwork upfront to position yourself as the solution. You put the sequence into action and turn interested prospects into delighted clients!
Your email sequence will enable you to sprinkle in your charm, persuasion, and influence into your first few encounters with your prospect.
That means you get to take the best pieces of your past in-person client encounters and use them to build the best introduction to your business anyone has ever read and share it with everyone that shows interest in your business.
You might not be comfortable with creating your own content yet. That’s ok. Believe me, you will get there!
I recommend reading this article by Copyblogger about the structure of persuasive copy as a good starting point for writing your personalized email nurture sequence.
The best part is once you’ve created this sequence and the content inside of it, you get to share it on repeat.
It’s a system that will keep working for you with little effort on your part.
This system of automated emails also allows you to ignite the 6 principles of persuasion.
They are authority, liking, reciprocity, consensus, consistency, and scarcity. Use them in your content to persuade your new leads that you are the helpful solution they are searching for and transform those leads into paying clients. These 6 principles have been proven through evidence-based research in the book Influence the Psychology of Persuasion by Robert B. Cialdini, PH.D. I think every small business owner needs to read this book. It will help you to understand the psychology of why people say yes and how using the principles of persuasion will increase your marketing effectiveness.
So, why should you take the time to create this sequence of emails again?
It’s simply because these emails will help you share the same valuable information with all your new leads so you can convince and qualify your prospects at scale!
This sequence of emails will demonstrate your credibility and position you as the expert guide your potential client has been searching for online.
The email sequence I am sharing today uses a powerful mix of curated content and automation. These two tools may seem impersonal to you at first glance, but I assure you that this is not about removing a high level of personal touch. It is about making the parts of lead generation that you are most resistant to--like talking about money for example--much easier to do!
You can take the pieces of the initial sales process that you do not enjoy, wordsmith them and share them automatically with every prospective client who reaches out to you. This way, your carefully curated email sequence repeatedly handles the objections your clients throw at you.
The top 3 objections are price, trust, and time. So, be sure to address those in your messages to get the most out of your new system!
Speaking of getting the most out of your new system. Remember that your website and all your emails must be optimized for mobile viewing because 46% of clients are using their mobile devices to connect with you.
Did you know that…
This means once you have permission to use their email address your lead expects and enjoys the interaction you provide in their inbox via an email nurture sequence. It also lends itself to name recognition because your new lead gets familiar with seeing your name in their inbox!
You can use any email platform, but I am a fan of ConvertKit because it’s so easy to use and offers the ability to automate your emails.
A nurture email sequence personalized for new inquiries is one of the best ways to use systems and automation. When a potential client fills out your inquiry form you can have email automation in place that drips out valuable content and offers the opportunity for them to learn more about your business before you have direct contact.
I’m sharing my nurture sequence of emails with you below because I want you to achieve the ultimate goal of turning a high touch sales process into an elegant automated email sequence that warms up your client for you.
A nurture sequence of 5 emails can warm up your leads and drive your customer to know, like, and trust you with little to no effort from anyone on your team!
The KLT factors are something I’ve mentioned before on the profitable floral design blog. So, you can read more about it here. Right now, all you need to know is that it takes a combination of all 3 to turn new leads into paying clients!
Your focus here is on the customer. Your email sequence needs to cover the how and why that show them you are the solution to solving their problem.
This system takes care of that how and why by teaching the potential client something incredibly valuable. Share your knowledge, educate them, and provide them valuable content in exchange for investing the time they spend reading your emails.
You’ll set your system to automatically send 1 email a day. Keep the focus centered on valuable content, and no hard sales pitches while they are getting to know you, because that comes later!
You don’t need to convince them on the spot that you are the right person to hire because your content does a lot of that uncomfortable communicating for you. It does it in a way that is consistent, measurable, and customizable!
You will be able to track the open rate and engagement of your new leads with an automated sequence. This offers you the opportunity to tweak the message and content based on the rate of engagement you receive from new leads.
When you start with a questionnaire as your opt-in, you can segment your leads by occasion.
Ask one simple question like “which service are you interested in?” and provide some answers for the lead to choose from. If you are a full service company the options could be wedding, corporate event, party, or funeral services for example. Then, you then create email sequences that correspond to each occasion.
This enables you to send personalized emails that are suited to their individual needs which increase both click rate and engagement. For example, this business saw a 244% higher open rate than their average email send when they asked the right question on their opt-in questionnaire.
This process will take more time because you’ll need to create the content and delivery of each segment, but once it’s done the results will speak for themselves. My advice is to start with your wedding clients and then handle each occasion as time permits.
It’s also a good idea to ask your clients about the email sequence after they’ve experienced it. Real client feedback can guide you on what motivated them to work or not work with you. Then, you can use that to tweak and improve on your system and content.
Speaking of automated emails, if you are already a Profitable Floral Design email subscriber the Nurture Sequence template is on its way to you today! So, check your email in a bit and dig into the guide in your inbox.
If you are not yet a subscriber…
Shoot me a message to get my Email Nurture Sequence Templates sent straight to your inbox for free. Take the next step towards automating this important piece of your business today!
Until next time,
LuAnn