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In this podcast, Dean discusses the challenges of email marketing for B2B companies in today’s digital landscape. He highlights how the marketing world has evolved over the past decade, with increased costs per click, the need for direct response advertising, and the difficulty of generating and nurturing leads.
Dean emphasizes that traditional email nurturing sequences are no longer as effective, as people have become more cynical about leaving their information and are overwhelmed by email marketing. He suggests implementing multiple strategies to improve email marketing, including offering additional value upon download, remarketing through various channels, and hosting live webinars or Q&A sessions to engage and build trust with prospects.
By listening to this episode, you will learn:
1) Embrace the ever-changing landscape: From skyrocketing costs per click to the need for direct response advertising, it’s crucial to stay on top of these shifts and adapt our strategies accordingly.
2) Crack the code of lead generation: It’s time to think outside the box and discover innovative ways to generate and nurture leads that truly resonate with our audience.
3) Go beyond the ordinary, offer extraordinary value: Whether it’s a free resource, an exclusive discount, or personalized content, giving your audience something valuable upon download or interaction sets you apart and boosts engagement.
4) Expand your horizons, tap into multiple channels: Don’t limit yourself to a single channel; instead, explore remarketing strategies across different platforms to reach your potential customers where they are most receptive.
5) Forge real connections, build unwavering trust: Hosting live webinars, interactive Q&A sessions, or even personalized video messages allows you to actively engage with your prospects on a personal level.
Timestamps
[00:00:00] Marketing changed: email nurturing sequences.
[00:05:35] Email marketing harder than ever.
[00:09:16] Grow database, nurture leads, webinars, multiple measures.
[00:11:35] Remarket with custom audiences.
[00:13:44] Live events build audience trust.
[00:18:32] Grow business with digital marketing.
Hey everyone.
It’s Dean here and welcome to open source growth. I am your host. And today we’re not going to be talking about anything, direct response advertising. Related specifically. In fact, we’re going to be talking about email nurturing sequences and particularly email nurturing sequences. For B2B companies now.
This is an interesting one because. Over the past 10 years, the world of digital marketing has dramatically changed. It doesn’t matter if you’re a SaaS company, an accounting firm. Are you a real estate agent that. Offers, you know, commercial real estate. Or are you a conveyancer or a lawyer? Look.
The world we lived in 10 years ago from a marketing perspective is so aggressively different to the world we live in. Now we used to pay 30 cents per click in the two thousands. We’re now paying upwards of $30 per click, depending on the vertical you’re in. We. Used to just have simple. Our websites, which are like brochures. Now they don’t convert anymore. You need to now have a direct response advertising influenced.
Website with hard hitting sales copy and great offers and multiple buyer journeys and paths and things like that. You know, we used to just be able to generate phone calls by asking people, well, you know, call now for a free quote. Now we have sophisticated. Um, you know, gated content offers, whether they be free checklists or free trainings or whatever. Um, and we now segment our office out based on buyer intent instead of simply. Asking people to leave their. Uh, you know, their contact details.
What’s also really interesting too, is that we now live in this world where we. Um, more and more cynical of leaving information with businesses because they know they’re going to get absolutely dominated from an email marketing perspective. It’s really crazy. The world we live in, isn’t quite the same. And, you know, just to make things even tougher to, as a paid traffic specialist, we understand the new, the nuances and the unique pain points that come from running. Uh, trafficking an iOS 14 world where, you know, being able to track end to end your leads that come through your Facebook ads, matching the conversion information against what you’re seeing in your Stripe terminal or your Thrivecart terminal or Shopify or whatever. Your, your, you know, Your operating system is. To manage your numbers. In your business.
Like it’s not as easy as it once was. And something that’s a whole lot harder nowadays. Is. The world of not only generating the lead, the generating, the lead is more costly. It’s not necessarily harder to do. But what’s more difficult nowadays. This is being able to take a gated offer lead. So whether that would be a gated content lead, which we would call a marketing qualified lead, and taking that person from marketing qualified all the way through to sales qualified. Which.
Basically in layman’s terms. Means taking someone from mildly interested to very interested and willing to step onto a call with a sales specialist or a. Um, practitioner. Now. This is tough. Like it is really, really tough to get right. Because. The problem that we’re all finding ourselves in as B2B marketers, is that. We’re looking to get people into our database. So we go about setting off a whole heap of. Um, Marketing initiatives, which. Get us thinking about, okay, cool. How do we build out the size of our database? Oh, okay, cool. Let’s build out some. Free. Um, resources, which we know our target customer may like, we then segment those. Um, free resources based on buyer intent.
For instance, he may have a, just say you’re a law firm and you offer B2B. Um, legal services to small business owners. Um, so your first thing may be like, you know, The ultimate guide to structuring. Uh, you know, do the ultimate guide to structuring your business, uh, for. I don’t know for sales companies or whatever. So that may be a very high. Like a very low. Um, commercial intent, but very valuable knowledge that the target customer may want. And then, you know, you may develop at a second gated offer or another marketing qualified lead, which may be all about. Oh, okay. Cool. Um, you know, You know, The 70 must ask questions. For every. For every law firm that you will. That you will interview. Or something along the lines of that, which would then give. The the, the law firms legal, our marketing team and understanding of like, okay, people are downloading this. They are more likely to engage and are more likely to spend money with us.
I mean, you couldn’t, you could pretty much call them a sales qualified lead instead. Or that in between point between sales qualified, our marketing qualified. Which I’m yet to figure out exactly what that is. But. Look. That doesn’t really matter. The point I’m trying to get to today is that email marketing is so much harder to get it to work than ever before. I remember. Talking to people. Oh, how many years ago? Like five years ago when they got started in digital marketing five years or 10 years before me that when they were running their email marketing campaigns, they would have open rates north of 60%. It was almost reading. Personal. Emails and that, you know, every email was read in their inbox. And. Back in the, you know, those glory days of digital marketing, it was the wild west. And, you know, those campaigns would absolutely go. Go ballistic.
People would be generating so many, so many leads. People, every email would be read. Um, Every email would be not only read, but read with emotion and intensity and real rigor. Unlike the way we go through emails now. We never used to skim. We used to read emails line by line. Now we skim through them. Now, and that’s just. Not just your emails. That’s there. My emails that everyone’s emails. This is what we’re dealing with. Even though we could be the best copywriters in the world and best direct response advertiser in the world., people are skimming their emails, you know, which means that the work that you’re doing as a. Marketer or you’re doing as a founder or a sales person or whoever you are in the growth team. It’s getting more and more difficult to be successful nowadays.
So. Now that there’s a whole lot more competition in your prospect’s inbox. And so many other people are now competing for your, or for their attention. And you’re one of them. What’s now starting to happen. Is that there are a lot of thought leaders like Ryan Deiss from digital marketer.com who have always communicated. Hey, if you get, but if you generate leads by using a free report or a lead magnet, That you can email market. Them and nurture them and warm them up. To jumping on a call with you. Now. If you did this five years ago, work like clockwork, but users are now getting privy to it. What’s a really interesting, um, test for you to do as a marketer or as a business owner or a founder. Is to go into your inbox? Oh no, no. So go into your MailChimp account or your active campaign or your get response. Um, your EDM, um, your. Whatever supports your email marketing. Right.
And then have a look at your sequences that you’ve set up now. Inside your email sequences. If you see more and more people. Um, leaving your list after that very first email. It’s it tells you a couple of things, not only about how good your emails are, but however, it also will tell you the nature of the game and having a look at that on subscribed right off the first email over the last five years. That’s where, like, you know, the writing’s on the ball here. Because. I hate to say it. Ladies and gentlemen, people are waking up to those email marketing newsletters. They are just like, they, they, they can see a nurturing sequence. They can see themselves getting hammered with emails. It’s all. Very very tough.
And if you have relied in your business on generating a bulk. Database growth. Your days are. Your days are numbered. Um, if you have totally relied, not only on growing that database, but using these email sequences to nurture and get them onto sales calls. See, where we are taking things at the agency, and I want to let you know what we’re doing, so you’re able to get across it and you can see how were starting to market to our. Um, the clients as we are essentially a B2B marketing agency in many ways. Yes, we are a SaaS focused agency. Most SaaS companies are B2B focused and because that’s the case, um, We have to eat our own cooking. So what we’re now doing internally and what I recommend you to do. Is to not only evaluate your lead quality, see where they’re unsubscribing along your emails, nurturing sequences, especially those who opt in for marketing qualified offers.
What we’re now looking at doing and implementing is a fortnightly or even a weekly webinar. I’ve always been very bearish on webinars. I’ve never really enjoyed them myself. But it’s just more and more evident nowadays that as we build the size of our own database, this chasm will exist and it will remain to exist in our database and as it will for yours. That taking your. Target customer from. Remotely interested to, I want to work with you is that gap is, is widening and it’s widening at a rate of knots. So, if you are looking to make the most of your database, looking at them, looking to make the most of your email list and wanting to activate them and to get them into the fold of your business, you have to do more than just send them an email and ask them to book a call. It’s no, it’s not good enough. It’s not going to work. And it only really works. And you’ve got extreme scale.
We’re talking a hundred thousand, a million people on your list. To get this to grow. So what we are recommending to our clients as we are to you today is that don’t look at your B2B email nurturing sequences as your. Hail Mary throw, which will always work in fact. What we are recommending you now is to do a multiple. Of things like two, three measures to fix things. Number one as soon as people download. That guided offer. Offer them more value. So for instance, if they’re downloading their first ebook list, If they’re downloading an ebook, give them a secondary free training on the back end of that. Simultaneously, if they are downloading that ebook ensure that you are marketing them again, not only below the line within the email sequences, but also above the line with your Facebook and your Google and your LinkedIn ads.
So remarket them by segmenting out your list by your marketing qualified lead leads. Okay, great. Create custom audiences based on this and run Google ads, display, um, run. LinkedIn ads run Facebook run. Instagram run YouTube, remarketing ads, run them all to ensure that people know that you exist. A B. They are starting to see all the other things you do. And see. And once they understand what you actually do and how you can actually help them. Start. Uh, asking the questions and really by understanding, you know, your three stage or your five stage marketing funnel, depending on the model that you’re using in your. Um, your business.
We use a three-stage because we like simplicity. You know, are they in the awareness phase? Are they in the evaluation phase? Are they in the conversion phase or the activation phase? And no. The questions that they ask at each of those phases and craft content to remarket your audience with this. Along the line. Because at the end of the day, There needs to be top. Um, there needs to be top. You know, above the blind remarketing and below the line remarketing. Yeah. Your sequences are still going to run. But then he comes like the third thing. The third initiative needs to have, not only do you need to provide them with more free training or more. Free resources. Not only do you have to remarket them both via email and via paid social or paid Google or whatever.
You also need to develop. A. Kind of a hybrid. Of being able to speak with a company representative at scale. And this is where we are saying like a free Q&A every week. Where, you know, or an AMA event, or like an ask me anything event. Is going to be super crucial in the formation of an audience that loves you. A guy who does this exceptionally well is Chris Walker from refined labs. He is an absolute beast in this area and. I would totally recommend you check out his weekly. Um, calls that he obviously once did, or is still doing today.
So. Again, Um, having that weekly or fortnightly live event enables you to pull, you know, prospects together or interested parties. You work with them? One-on-one. You know, group scale setting. You’re able to answer their questions or you’re able to teach a very tactical, very actionable, um, you know, item every single week. That’s going to be super, super valuable for you. And once you do this, And once you start working through these like live webinars, or if you’re running, you know, five for free, you know, Facebook live events and you’re emailing us to get them on there. It gives them that next opportunity to be able to ask questions with you. And it keeps them that opportunity to. Not only feel as if you’re a real person, but it also enables them to see the human side of you. And that. Obviously help, you know, Establish some proof and some credibility in what you do.
So it’s one thing to be marketing, like all day long and being able to have these canned responses ready to go based on like chat GPT or whatever the hell you’ve written your emails with, but being able to do it on the fly reflexively. At scale with people around you. That’s there’s some real magic there. And, you know, there’s also some additional magic with these live. Webinars formats too. And let me put it to you this way. You’ve get to create a whole heap of content, which you can chop up, splice up, do whatever the world you want with it and turn it into your remarketing ads or even your awareness ads to build out your personal brand or even your company brand. Like there’s some real power here. So. If you’re thinking about, okay, cool. Do I need an email sequence to be successful here? Yes, you probably do. But you need to understand what that email sequence is it meaning to achieve? Are you generating a whole heap of low quality marketing qualified leads. Okay, great. So that sequence, instead of trying to get people from downloading the checklist right away and going straight onto a call. Probably an idea.
What’s more ideal probably going from. That marketing qualified leads. Um, you know, that low quality marketing qualified lead, the checklist, nurturing them to get onto a free webinar, which is truly exciting. Or an ask me anything, call whatever you want to call it, which doesn’t feel like. At pre-canned sales pitch, right. That is, that would be exciting. Oh, okay. If someone downloads a, say a free resource, which has commercial intent. Yeah. Great. That’s where you go about selling them. Via email or. Persuading them via email. To jump on a call with you. But just remember they can jump on that. Ask me anything call too, especially if you’ve got any objections or any thoughts in regards to how things work, how much things cost, blah, blah, blah. So that would work out really, really well, too.
Do you do your email marketing in conjunction with a solid paid social remarketing strategy? Absolutely. You used re-targeting ads use Facebook ads, LinkedIn ads, Google ads, YouTube, whatever. To follow your people around the internet with the right content at the right time, based on where they sit in the customer journey, are they. Um, Where are they in the sales funnel? Where are they in the database? Um, make sure you have content for them at that particular journey. So. At that particular point in the journey. So they are. You know, fully nurtured and they know that they’re getting the right information from you when you get an opportunity to tell them, you know what I’m saying?
So. Make that happen. That’s really, really crucial. Will this impact your email nurturing sequence. If you go about setting up these. Live webinars with exciting content that you have a solid promise or an amazing opportunity to ask me anything, will that improve the performance of my email nurturing sequences? And it’s a ground resounding. Yes. Why is that? You’ve actually got exciting shit to talk to your list about. That they really want. That’s truly impactful and meaningful. So. If you are, you know, considering, okay, how do I take my MQL and turn them into high quality SQLs? This may be the best. Podcasts are listed. Listen to all day. Because it’s not just about relying on your emails, nurturing sequences anymore. It’s about. Creating a more than that. Creating live events, remarketing through social and paid social and having a small percentage of your budget dedicated to this every single month.
So when you say, Hey, we’ve got $10,000 a month to spend on Facebook ads, have a thousand dollars and remain in the remarketing minimum. Even up to $3,000 worth of your budget, the 30% should be on remarketing. Through the funnel without a doubt. Because if you can take these. Ideas on board from today and implement it in your business. You’re going to make your sales team a whole lot happier because at the end of the day, Marketing role is to get the prospects into the room sales role is to turn the prospects into purchases. So. Again, the better you do marketing, the easier it is for sales and the easier it is for sales, the easier it is for you to hit your growth, your growth goals. So I hope you’ve learned something here today, guys. Um, you know, this is a really hot button issue in all of marketing right now, especially with us likely to come into a recession in the next few months, we’re going to be doing some really interesting things. Throughout those few months, because there is a massive opportunity. On the horizon, which I can’t wait to reveal with you all very soon. Um, but guys, if you liked this episode, please do share it with your friends.
Don’t forget to subscribe to this podcast. If you get value from it, we publish two to three episodes every single week. On the perils and the power plays of growing your SAS company, your B2B company, your online brand on line with the power of digital advertising, direct response copywriting, and a whole lot of marketing strategy. I’m your host Dean, Denny founder and director of Owendenny digital Australia’s top ranked SAS marketing agency. And if you like what we do and you want to engage us. Hit. The show notes and hit the link to book a 10 minute chat with me, more happy to discuss and figure out. Who you are, what you’re trying to do and how we may be able to help you.
Hope this episode has been well for you. And I’ll speak to you when I speak to you. God bless stay well.
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