In a previous blog post titled Why You Can't Afford NOT to Have a Lead Nurturing Campaign, I talked about the importance of capturing leads and staying in front of them. If you've read that post, you might remember that 79% of marketing leads never convert into sales. Lack of lead nurturing is the common cause of this poor performance. 

We know that staying in front of our leads is a crucial component of moving them through the sales cycle and eventually converting them into customers. We also know that email is the major tactic that we use for lead nurturing. But keeping up with regular email marketing to your database can be incredibly time consuming, especially if you're sending targeted emails to different lists based on their behaviors. This is where email workflows come into play. Let's examine what an email workflow is and how it can help your business.  

As those of you who have consistently read our blog posts or have chatted with us about inbound marketing likely know, inbound marketing does not stop once a visitor has become a lead. Instead, inbound marketing is all about touching potential buyers at every stage of the buyer's journey and helping move them through the sales cycle to become customers (and eventually promoters). One way we do this in inbound marketing is by implementing lead nurturing campaigns. Let's look at what lead nurturing is and why you can't afford to ignore it. 

A common marketing goal for most companies is to find new customers and increase the size of their database. Touching more people and gaining new customers is a great goal but, while this is something that every company should be reaching towards, many companies end up focusing so heavily on this goal that they overlook the opportunity they have to nurture their relationships with current customers and encourage repeat business. 

The relationship with current customers is something no one can't afford to ignore. These people have already bought into your company and product, you've already sold them and taken them through your entire sales funnel. They believe in your company. Don't let that be the end of your interaction with them! Turning your current customers into repeat customers can be huge for your business. In fact, did you know that the probability of selling to an existing customer is 60–70% and the probability of selling to a new prospect is 5-20%; (that’s up to 14 times more, or 5 on average). In addition, returning customers spend on average 67% more than first-time customers. You already have an established relationship with these people and you cannot and should not let that relationship fall by they wayside.

While there are a lot of inbound marketing tactics you can (and should) use to communicate with your current customers and help encourage repeat business, today I want to address one of most direct touch points: email. So, why is email marketing important for growing return business? Let's take a look...