How many of your website visitors do you think are ready to purchase from you immediately? According to the statistical data generated by various studies, their number does not exceed 4%. What do we do with the 96% who, even if they are not ready to buy now, are still interested in your product/service and are potential customers?

50% of the leads you get are qualified, but they won't become your customers anytime soon. The reasons for this phenomenon are among the most diverse. One of the most common is that these leads are in other stages of the sales funnel and the potential customers are not yet "ripe" to make a purchase. In other words, even if you've done effective website promotion, half of all leads you get aren't ready to buy from you yet, and if you don't keep their attention throughout the entire sales funnel, they'll buy your competitors' product/service. This alarming data demonstrates the importance of lead nurturing technology as a tool to convert customers who are interested but not yet ready to buy.

According to BND's Impact study, companies that are successful in using lead generation technology generate 50% more sales while spending 33% fewer resources in the process. And one of the most effective and fastest tools in this field is automated email marketing.

Progressive companies in North America and Europe are introducing automated email marketing to instantly respond to user behavior online. Thus, the messages generated by the automatic sending of emails arrive promptly and are relevant to the current interests of the leads.

Let's involve the imagination in the game!

You are a marketing specialist at Google, responsible for the Gmail email service. One of your main tasks is to support the onboarding of new users to this service. To do this, send a message to the new user with a greeting and brief instructions on the first steps required to activate the service. Typing such a message every time for every new customer is counterproductive and expensive. In digital marketing, automated emails are indispensable.

So how can you use email marketing to grow your business and increase your sales?

Below, you have 5 tips from the SEOLITTE team:

• Welcome your new users/customers

As mentioned before, 96% of your website visitors are still not ready to take any action on your product or service. But that doesn't make them less interested in you. Perhaps they are in a different stage of the sales funnel, for example, in the stage of determining the problem or weighing alternative solutions in the market. It will be very difficult to sell them anything at this stage. It's much easier to encourage page visitors to subscribe to your site's content (eg: receive blog articles, news, or offers directly). Once you have achieved this, the visitor turns into a lead.

After subscribing to your content, the mailing system will automatically send a welcome message to a new user with a brief description of your product/service, encouraging their movement further down the sales funnel.

• Subtly stimulate the use of your product

The usage level of your product is one of the main indicators of its success and directly affects your sales. Let's do another imagination exercise:

Let's say you own a gym. On the one hand, it would be profitable for you to have people buy gym memberships but not visit. After all, the fewer people there are the more free space in the gym and less worn equipment. Correct? Not! To increase your sales you need a different way of thinking.

You don't have to be happy that your gym is empty and the weight machines are brand new. According to the opinion of consumers and your potential customers, an archipelago hall would demonstrate the quality and high level of service. In addition, you cannot propose to extend the subscription of a customer who visited the gym only 2 times a month, having more visits available.

A recent study found that the less time that has passed since paying for a product/service, the more likely you are to influence the level of usage of that product/service. This is explained by the fact that the client realizes what he has invested money in and is ready to use the purchased product/service.

What conclusions can we draw from such behavior?

To incentivize the customers to use what they purchased from you, you need to implement automated email marketing and entice them to do so. The "reactivate client" message is the main weapon in this mission. This type of message reminds the customer of the exceptional results they can achieve with your product or service. Reactivation usually consists of one or more successful case studies of your customers demonstrating all the benefits of the product.

The aim is to show the effectiveness of the product through concrete examples of successful solutions to real problems.

• Give the cart of unpaid products a second chance

On average, 67.91% of all shopping carts on eCommerce sites go unpaid. The most common reasons for leaving a cart unpaid are:

• The user has encountered some unexpected costs (eg paying for delivery).
• He simply wanted to know how much the product costs in the full order, but he did not plan to complete the purchase.
• He found a better price elsewhere.
• He had doubts about the security of the site.

If you own an e-commerce site, you have probably noticed such behavior from users. It's worth noting that 75% of those who left their cart unpaid intend to buy. However, it is striking that only 19% of all e-commerce companies work to return users to unpaid carts to complete the transaction. The others probably don't see it as an effective method of online promotion and neglect the cart abandoners.

According to the experience of marketing specialists, users who go through the entire sales funnel and stop at the last stage are characterized by a high chance of becoming a "conversion". So, from this moment on, special attention must be paid to them.

By far, the most effective tool a marketer has to drive users back to their unpaid cart is an automated email and retargeting campaign.

Keep 3 tips for a simple retargeting campaign:

• Set the messaging to respond within an hour after the user has left the cart unpaid.
• Give the customer an incentive and keep them coming back (discount on products/service or free shipping).
• In the reminder message, use multimedia elements to remind him of what he ordered and to rekindle his interest.

Become a creator of useful media and content for your customers

One of the most effective ways to generate leads is to create content with very useful tips about the field in which you operate. For example, if you have a tourism business, offer your followers different materials about leisure, tourist destinations, and useful materials about safe travel.

Here you can develop and maintain a blog or profile guide, on topics that resonate deeply with the interests and goals of potential customers. They will subscribe and actively consume content from a source that allows them to improve their industry knowledge and stay loyal to your business.

Moreover, your readers/followers will be the first to start sharing your generated content on social media. This gives you access to your friends and their subscribers, many of whom have similar interests and information needs. According to renowned marketer Neil Patel, your subscribers are 3.9 times more likely to share your content on social media than other content consumers.

• Use retargeting (Remarketing)

Another effective automated marketing tool is retargeting (or remarketing). While the user visits your website or, say, a Facebook page, the special software downloads a small code in his browser, which allows you to monitor him later on the network. Now you know when and which sites your user visits. Thanks to this information and through advertising platforms such as Google Display Network and Facebook Ads, you can show targeted advertising to any of your users in other popular sources.

This strategy is often used to drive returns to an unpaid cart. Likewise, it can also be used for branding, up-selling or cross-selling.

A little recap

So, let's imagine a situation where a lead has signed up for a free trial of your product.

Here's what you'll do in the next 30 days:

• You greet him cordially.
• You send him information and step-by-step instructions about your product.
• You ask him if he likes the product or not.
• You send him several articles demonstrating the "remarkable" successes he can achieve with this product.

Time is the only irreplaceable resource. Use it wisely and let technology help you stay one step ahead.