Lifecycle emails, also known as drip email marketing, involve sending a series of automated emails to prospects and customers over time based on their behaviors and stage in the buying cycle. The emails are meant to nurture prospects by providing relevant content, building trust and relationships, addressing concerns, and ultimately moving them closer to becoming sales-ready leads. Effective lifecycle email programs segment audiences, map the buying cycle, develop content to align with each stage, automate email delivery, track engagement metrics, and integrate with CRM to handoff qualified leads to sales. Continuous testing and optimization of content, timing, and messaging is important to maximize results like conversion rates and revenue.

1. Lifecycle Emails:
What & Why

2. First a bit of background…

3. Majority is not “ready to buy” yet
Majority
Ready to Buy
Never Buy

4. Influencing Behavior for Conversion
(Opportunity - Concerns)
+
Movement
Readiness
+
Call to Action

5. Source: http://www.cmswire.com/cms/customer-experience/getting-from-good-to-great-digital-marketing-mktgnation-018411.php

6. Source: http://blog.apelletier.com/2009/09/lead-nurturing-step-1-review-your-current-lead-to-opportunity-to-customer-process/

7. What Are Lifecycle Emails?

8. Sending the right email, to the right
person, at the right time.
(@patio11)

9. Send people emails based on what
they do or don’t do
(via customer.io)

10. WPEngine
Free Site Speed Test + 1 month
Site Optimization Course Landing Page
Relationship
& Trust
Performance Tips Security Tips
Scalability Tips Sales Pitch
Source: https://training.kalzumeus.com/lifecycle-emails

11. Citrix ($1.5 Million in 4 months)
Lead Sources (Webinars, Organic Search,
Paid Search, Partnerships etc)
Segmentation based on
11 personas & 6 products
1 auto email each week Manual Segment
Marketing for 3 weeks Based Email
Leads about product benefits
Harvest Sales Ready Leads Throughout the Cycle
Source: http://www.marketingsherpa.com/article/case-study/antinewsletter-strategy-nurtures-15-million

12. Upsides of Lifecycle Emails

13. Average CTR of ads is 0.01%.
Content specific to prospect’s needs
with good CTA can generate 20+% CTR.
Source: http://sherpablog.marketingsherpa.com/b2b-marketing/channel-marketing/lead-nurturing-with-relevant-content/

14. Appeal of Content in B2B
• 82% prefer content related to same
industry
• 67% prefer content targeted to their job
function
• 49% prefer content targeted to their
company size
• 29% prefer content targeted to their
geography
Source: http://docs.cdn.marketo.com/definitive-guide-to-lead-nurturing.pdf

15. Performance of Event-Triggered Emails
• SmartPak Equine has 40 event triggered,
lifecycle emails
– Open Rate: 28% for automated, 17% manual
– CTR: 5-6% for automated, 2-3% manual
– Conversion Rate: 11% for automated, 6% for
manual
– Revenue per email: $0.44 for automated,
$0.16 for manual
Source: http://www.marketingsherpa.com/article/case-study/triggered-email-ecommerce

16. Objectives for Lifecycle Emails
90
80
70
60
50
% Marketers
40
30
20
10
0
(66%) Prospecting & (44%) Activation & (42%) Retaining &
Qualifying Leads Increasing Sales Asking for Referrals
(78%) Nurturing & (34%) Completing Post
Developing Relations Sales Transactions
Source: http://sherpablog.marketingsherpa.com/email-marketing/presidential-campaign-email-tips/

17. Qualifying Leads for LMS Company
Source: http://www.marketingsherpa.com/article/case-study/auto-qualify-new-leads-without-lead-scoring

22. Qualifying Leads in Real Estate
Source: http://www.marketingsherpa.com/article/case-study/great-email-followups-to-qualify

26. 10% of emails resulted in leads. A
few folks directly called the agent.

27. Trial To Paying Customers

29. Shopping Cart Recovery Emails
19% in 2012 (14.3% in 2011)
Source: http://www.listrak.com/Whitepaper/sca2012study/3/

30. Trend is to send more emails
207% increase in 2012 among retailers
sending 3 automated messages
Source: http://www.listrak.com/Whitepaper/sca2012study/3/

31. Sending the right email …
(with lifecycle emails, you are sending
content that the recipient really cares about)

32. … to the right person …
(the recipient has self-qualified himself/herself
through online behavior)

33. … at the right time.
(automatic email timings are aligned with the
recipient’s timings)

34. Send people emails based on what they
do or don’t do.
(And get them to do what you want them to do.)

35. Lead Nurturing with
Drip Email Marketing:
How

36. Convert Marketing-Ready Leads
into Sales-Ready Leads

37. Lead
Nurturing
Source: http://www.cmswire.com/cms/customer-experience/getting-from-good-to-great-digital-marketing-mktgnation-018411.php

38. What is Drip Email Marketing
• A series of automated emails
– Spread over a period of time
– That
• Build Trust
• Sell Opportunity
• Familiarize with your product or service
• … any other important thing to make lead sales
ready

39. WPEngine
Free Site Speed Test + 1 month
Site Optimization Course Landing Page
Relationship
& Trust
Performance Tips Security Tips
Scalability Tips Sales Pitch
Source: https://training.kalzumeus.com/lifecycle-emails

40. Citrix ($1.5 Million in 4 months)
Lead Sources (Webinars, Organic Search,
Paid Search, Partnerships etc)
Segmentation based on
11 personas & 6 products
1 auto email each week Manual Segment
Marketing for 3 weeks Based Email
Leads about product benefits
Harvest Sales Ready Leads Throughout the Cycle
Source: http://www.marketingsherpa.com/article/case-study/antinewsletter-strategy-nurtures-15-million

41. TAB: Helps organizations manage
print and digital documents
(How they got started with email drip
marketing)
Source: http://www.marketingsherpa.com/article/case-study/pilot-campaign-increases-conversion-326

42. Step #1: Segment the Audience
• Prospects interested in paper management
solutions
• Prospects interested in hybrid
management solutions

43. Historical data to the rescue
• Looked at the behavioral data to segment
the audience. Qualifying Actions:
– Downloading a whitepaper, case study or
toolkit
– Attending a related webinar
– Spending 15 seconds or more on a related
TAB page
– Other related actions

44. Step #2: Outline a basic buying cycle
• Problem Recognition
• Education
• Brand Evaluation
• Objections
• Decision

45. Step #3: Match content to buying cycle
• Pulled up content from existing pool to aid
potential buyers for each stage of buying
cycle
• Articles, case studies, toolkits, whitepapers
• 5 landing pages and content groups
targeted to each stage in buying cycle

46. Step #4: Create emails for each stage
• 1 email against each stage of buying cycle
• Used a consistent design for emails
• Each email sent in a gap of 10 days
• Each email brought potential buyers to
corresponding landing page

47. Entering into the campaign
• Email campaigns were started for all
potential buyers in the existing list
• First email started after 3 days for new
potential buyers entering the list
– New potential buyers were the ones who
expressed interest in their solution on their
website

48. Step #5: Lead Scoring & Sales Handoff
• Track 3 parameters across 5 emails
– Clicking a link in the email
– Downloading a piece of content from
landing page
– Spending more than 15 seconds on the
landing page
• Sales takes up leads based on lead score

49. TAB Results
• 133% increase in open rate for emails
• 650% increase in click through rate for
emails
• 32.6% increase in conversion rate
(download content from landing page)
• Happier sales team with better qualified
leads

50. Lumension offers IT security
resources
(How they went about improving their
drip email marketing campaign)
Source: http://www.marketingsherpa.com/article/case-study/fewer-emails-yield-225-more

51. Step #1: Find & Analyze the Best Leads
• Figure out common traits of best leads
• Relied on the data from previous nurturing
programs
• Factors considered:
– Company vertical
– Lead source
– Offers taken
– Orders of the offers taken
– Time spent on the website

52. Step #2: Drawing upon previous success
• Team took forward assets from existing
campaigns (12 drip marketing series based
on lead’s industry & product of interest)
– Content
– Targeting & Segmenting
– Lead Management

53. Step #3: Tuned the campaigns
• Messaging & Approach
– From field set to account manager instead of
marketing
– Less HTML focus
• Timing & Volume
– Tested 4 approaches for faster sales-readiness
• 2 emails in 1 week, 3 emails in 3 weeks, 6 emails in 3
weeks, 4 emails in 8 weeks
• Content
– Initial emails offered guides, later emails
offered sales oriented material (like trial, demo)

54. Lumension Results
• 225% increase in sales ready leads
• 376% more engagement per lead
• 489% increase in leads with multiple
engagements
• 12.1% increase in leads with at least one
engagement
• 27% opportunities generated like this
became customers

55. Exercise: Design Your Own Drip
Email Marketing Campaign

56. Step #3: Identify motivation factors
• What knowledge will motivate a marketing
lead to become a sales lead?
– Opportunity pitch
– Success stories
– Compliances
– Auditing
– …
• Example: By using Facebook Ads, company X
increased their revenue by 238%

57. Step #4: Identify Concerns/Objections
• Refund Policy
• Social Proof
• Familiarity
• TCO
• Internal Selling
• …
• Example: 100% money back guarantee

58. Step #5: Create 1st campaign
• Pick one segment from step #1.
• Create outline of 3-5 emails that
– Offer them valuable content
– Motivate them to engage with you
– Address their concerns
• Keep initial emails should focus only on
valuable content
• Later emails should shift towards sales talk

59. Repeat step #5 for all the
segments

60. Step #6: Lead Scoring Formula
• Decide a basic formula to score your leads
– Email open / click through
– Downloads
– Time spent
–…

61. Step #7: Setup automatic campaigns
Possible tools: customer.io, pardot, eloqua,
marketo
– customer.io is generally good enough to get
your hands dirty

62. Step #8: Setup Analytics
• KISSmetrics / Mixpanel for funnel
visualization
• intercom.io / Mixpanel for person specific
data aggregation

63. Step #9: Integrate with CRM
• Gather all the customer activities into your
CRM
• Have it handy for sales to know the history
of interactions

64. Step #10: Execute, Test, Optimize &
Repeat