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Business, Email, Marketing
5 Lead Nurturing Email Sequence Examples to Wow Subscribers
- August 2, 2022
- Comments Off on 5 Lead Nurturing Email Sequence Examples to Wow Subscribers
- by allwordsbypeta
Get your nurture sequence to do all the work for you, while you sip on your latte.

Let’s talk about first impressions…

I sign up to a lot of email lists.

Partly because I’m nosy.
I like to know what people are saying, and I like to see different lead nurturing email sequence examples.

But it’s also because I like to know a brand if I’m going to spend my money with them.
And what better way to do that than to sign up for their list, and devour the 4-5 emails they send me introducing their brand, their ethos, their origin story, their funny little foibles, and what their dog did in the office that one time…

Except that often doesn’t happen.

Why you need an email nurture sequence

When I discover a new brand and sign up to their email list, I’m not just after the discount/freebie/special offer. I’m motivated (excited even) to find out more. I’m ready to get to know them, to dive into the story, to become part of their tribe.

Which means I’m waiting to spend money with them (and tell my friends about this great new business I’ve found).

When there’s nothing…except for maybe a 2 line templated email saying: “Here’s your discount code”…then I’m left deflated. I want my email nurture sequence. I want more!

This was their opportunity to make the perfect first impression.
To pick me up in my excitement and plonk me in front of all they had to offer.
So that I’d jump in and become their newest customer.

Without it…if I’m honest…they end up in the graveyard that is my Promotions tab, only to be noticed if they send a particularly interesting subject line in a month’s time.

Which is why I’m so passionate about getting all the businesses I work with to create (and continuously one) their welcome sequence – those 4-5 emails that get sent out to new subscribers.

It’s your one chance at a first impression. An opportunity to develop the initial excitement of a new visitor and turn them into one of your tribe.

Increased sales, increased customer LTV, increased organic referrals, you name it: your welcome sequence can hand it to you.

How to write a good email sequence

You’re sat, staring at the blinking cursor, your discount code already entered into your Shopify backend.

How do you sum up years of mulling over your idea in your head, the late nights struggling with stock levels, or tying down your USP, the bookkeeping, hiring your first team member, the way your product or service has made people’s lives better, what you want every one of your customers to feel like when they hear from you…

What can you write that will make them feel like they know you, and want to be a part of your story?

Well, that’s it really – you need to give them a story to be part of.

What is the story of your brand?

Human beings love stories, and we share the good ones. We used to share them around campfires at the mouths of caves, then we traded them in return for food and shelter as we travelled to new towns and lands. We wrote them in books and wove them into songs and turned them into multi-movie franchises.

Now we click tiny arrows as we scroll through our phones, sharing the best stories with our friends and followers. And our reach is endless.

Story nurtures connection – and that is how you get customers that buy from you, stick around, tell their friends (and Insta followers), and take your brand off into the stratosphere.

What’s your story?

How an email nurture sequence is your dinner party opener

Sipping your warm glass of pinot grigio, you glance nervously around the room.
Couples and small groups are scattered across the space. Some are staring at the comfort of their phones, some checking their watches, some trying to work out the best place to sit.

School performances, college reunions, company parties…
Life is full of situations where we have to make artificial connections with people we just happen to be thrown together with.

And what is the first thing everyone asks?
“So, what do you do?”

Your stomach seems to have made its way towards your knees.
As an entrepreneur, you often don’t have the luxury of an easily explainable job title or field.
“I’m a doctor!” is easy. Everyone fills in the rest.
“Oh, I refurbish antique furniture and sell it to rich women at craft fairs” is understood.

“Well, I own a business that helps female entrepreneurs find their joy” is likely to elicit a confused furrow of the brows and a nervous sip of wine.
- What do you say to people who ask what you do?
- What are the important things you want people to know about your business?
- What do you wish you had written down when you were trying to work out the best place to put your name tag?
Those things are what your welcome sequence of emails should be made up of.

A primer for your business, how it helps people, and why they should care

How do you make a connection?

You can’t make a connection if you don’t know who you’re trying to connect with.

Imagine walking up to someone at a party, and launching into a heartfelt story about how Airfix models have been the thread that pulls your life together.
And expecting that to be the beginning of a beautiful friendship/romance/lifetime filled with the smell of glue and balsa wood.

I mean, there is a chance that they delight in opening a new model aeroplane too. But you’re taking a pretty big gamble. Surely a safer way would be to start a general conversation, and maybe ask if they had ever heard of Airfix models? Before you commit yourself to going all in!

Emails are the same.
When you’re getting ready to build that connection with your subscribers – the one that will bring you sales, greater customer LTV, and free advertising from all your loyal fans – you need to know who you’re writing to. Who is the “lead” for this lead nurturing email sequence? Yes, I know using the term “lead” is a little dehumanising. But you all knew what I meant!

Who is your audience?

Were they die-hard Friends devotees who’ll spot a Ross reference a mile off? PIVOT!!!
Did they burst into tears at the news that BTS are taking a hiatus?
Are they spending their weekends trying to work out how to stop the pigeons eating their tomato plants?
Or are they balancing caring for their aging mum who refuses to have outside carers, whilst supporting their teenagers through exams?

This is why so much of my job when I start work with a new client is research.
There are many ways to say who you are and what you do.

But it takes finding out about your audience to pick the one way that will resonate with them the most.

So, before you even start with your “Hi! I’m just popping into your inbox to say thank you for signing up! email…

Take some time to investigate who you’re talking to.
You might even get to talk about Airfix models.

The importance of providing value

For me, marketing will always be about the long game.

Your welcome emails, your nurture sequence – they’re what draw new people in. You give them a taste of who you are, and a story to dive into – be part of.

But then you need to get them to stay. And that’s where your ongoing emails come in.
I’ve been on too many email lists that shift from an endearing welcome email, straight to “BUY MY STUFF!” with a shedload of high res images and lots of “SALE!” banners.

Now, I know that I am a customer. A way of making money.
But I’m also a person. And I want to know that a company has thought about how they can serve me, as well as sell to me.
I want them to play the long game.

Keep your customers on board by sending them value. Articles you think they’ll find interesting, stories you think will make them laugh, tips from your industry that will make their day easier.

This works for other sequences too. If you’re trying to work out how to write a good email sequence for a product you’re launching, or a membership you’re advertising. In any of these cases, you need to mix your more salesy content with serving your subscribers.

Because, when you do this, they feel less like a cash cow, and more like a valued part of your business.

And then they’ll give you more cash.

Getting this off your plate

If you think this all sounds great, but you don’t have the time or the inclination to do it yourself…

Then it’s time to bring in the big guns…

Me…

Head over to my email services page to find out about my packages. Or fill in my contact form and we’ll have a chat about the best way to introduce you to your people.

And, if you’d like more ideas on how to play the relationship marketing long game, then you probably want to sign up to my newsletter. It comes out on Friday mornings, and it’s packed full of value, funny stories, and things I think you’ll find interesting (see what I did there?).

You can sign up here

Carry on reading
Business, Marketing
How to keep up with politics without your head exploding
- August 1, 2022
- Comments Off on How to keep up with politics without your head exploding
- by allwordsbypeta
I talk a lot about UK politics.

I sit here sipping my Earl Grey tea and polishing my monocle, aware that my sphere of reference is ridiculously narrow. Even as I make a concerted effort to look beyond my borders.

The fact is, it’s impossible to stay up to date on every issue and event currently kicking off around the world. Unless it’s your full-time job. And as the internet makes our world smaller, it brings home just how interconnected we all are – for good and bad.

So, if you want to acknowledge in your messaging that you are a citizen of the world, affected by Roe V Wade, grain supply lines in Ukraine, and the melting Arctic ice…

How do you possibly stay in the loop?

1. Work out how much you can handle.

If you have the time and headspace to devour the entire Guardian website, and follow it up by listening to Radio 4 while you do your burpees then more power to you. But if (like me) both time and headspace are limited, decide the amount of content that will make you feel informed without feeling overwhelmed. And be OK with that.

Got 5 minutes, but still want to be informed? The Knowledge is a free daily email collated from across the media on all the issues of the day.

2. Take breaks.

I am a politics junkie. I will sit down at a party with someone I’ve only just met and spend 2 hours talking about how the PFI policies of the last Labour government paved the way for NHS privatisation. (And then regret it the morning after!). But even I need a break. Sometimes it all gets too much. When the world is tough, or your life is tough, or both – have the confidence to step away for a bit. We’ll catch you up when you get back.

3. Vary your sources.

Mainstream Media is not the balanced information Mecca that it used to be (well, if it ever was). And the Facebook algorithm does not provide a one-stop-shop for everything you really need to know. If you want to make sure you’re getting the whole story, and you want to be aware of what other groups are also thinking, then you need to triangulate your sources like a good little orienteerer! Mix it up, step out of your box, etc. etc.

Tortoise Media is another relatively unbiased place to find decent information. Especially on important issues that the mainstream media have moved on from.

4. Listen to people with lived experience.

Professional commentators are paid to have opinions on things. Journalists are paid to write interesting stories that make you buy their newspapers. The good ones do their research, and talk to the people actually affected by an issue. Those living it. But a lot don’t. If you want to know what it’s like being a poor single mum juggling childcare and DWP assessments, or a middle-aged mechanic who’s just been made redundant and is walking to the Job Centre every day, then seek them out.

Head to Twitter, find them. And LISTEN.

5. Don’t fall into the “what about the dolphins?” trap.

You’re a lovely person. You care about a LOT of things. And occasionally you might post about one of them. On your personal or business social media. Only for some plonker to come along and say “I can’t believe you’re talking about this! It obviously means you don’t care about these 3 other things!”

And of course, it doesn’t mean that you don’t care about those other things. Only that it’s impossible to talk about all the issues you DO care about all at once, within the character limit of your favourite social media platform.

It’s important that idiots like this don’t put you off voicing your opinion and advocating for important issues. You can talk about the importance of good sex education in schools, while also caring about the plight of bumble bees but not talking about it today.

And it’s important to remember that we can’t all campaign for all the things all the time. Share the load. Don’t feel you have to jump on every campaign that comes along. It doesn’t make you a terrible person if you don’t go on the dolphin march.

“But I’m so adorable!”

So, there you have it.

5 steps towards staying informed, and using that information to speak out about the issues that matter to you. Take this knowledge and use it wisely!
And if you really want to get started, but you have no idea how you can fit this into your business, then we need to talk.

Start with my “How to talk about politics without pissing people off” Framework.

And then, let’s chat about how you can make your brand speak for your politics, as well as make you money!

Book a call

Carry on reading
Marketing, Business
7 Voice of Customer Best Practices to Make Your Audience Feel Seen & Heard
- July 29, 2021
- 1 Comment
- by petaobrien
How voice of customer best practices bring you and your audience closer together.

My copywriting philosophy is…..

Hang on, that sounds a little pretentious, doesn’t it? A little like I’m standing in front of a lecture hall wearing a jacket with leather elbow pads, pushing my glasses back up my nose, and asking you all to “take a journey with me”.

Let’s not do that, shall we?

If you’ve read my About Page (And if you haven’t then what are you doing here? Start at the beginning like a normal person!), then you’ll have read about the 3 superpowers I gained from being a youth worker that I use to transform your relationship with your customers.

If you skipped it (and you really don’t want to go take a look) then here they are:
1. Listening
2. Empathizing
3. Directing
If your brand wants to build a stronger relationship with its audience, then you should be doing every one of those things on a regular basis. They should be woven through your content marketing strategy (we can talk if you don’t have one of those yet), and written on faded yellow post-it notes around your workstation. Whether you decorate them with doodled hearts or not is your own business.

Today I want to talk about why listening is important for a brand. The key is this:

Everyone wants to feel heard.

Have you ever had one of those nights where you sat down with another person and the conversation lasted until dawn? That evening where you felt you’d found your soulmate? When you told your friends about it the next day and you said things like “It was as if we’d known each other forever”, or “It was like he was inside my head”.

Why was this different to a normal conversation over dinner? I’m willing to bet it was because you felt listened to. You felt as though someone was paying complete attention to you. In a world where we’re all constantly distracted by phone notifications (I’ve glanced down at about 8 just writing this paragraph), having the complete attention of another person for more than 2 minutes is a rare and intoxicating thing. It makes us feel important; like we matter.

Your customer, your email subscriber, your website browser, your Instagram follower. They all want to feel important. They all want to feel as if you’ve heard them. They want to know that you read their comments, take notice of their reviews, and pay attention when they unsubscribe.

The more someone is listened to, the greater a connection they feel with the person doing the listening. And people spend more money with brands they feel connected to (That’s why I love a good About Page!).

Voice of Customer questions to ask

Market research should always involve spending time learning about your perfect customer – your avatar if you’re going all “marketing geek”.

Us marketers call this Voice of Customer research – spending time in real life and on the internet paying attention to where, when, and how people are talking about your brand. Marketers love having fancy names for things, it means you can make up acronyms and have conversations with other marketers where no one else knows what you’re talking about.

But really, it’s just listening. Jump on the message boards your customers hang out on. Do they love your new product but wish that it had a different name, or handle, or box? How are they comparing it to other brands who do similar things? What problems are they using your product or service to solve (and are these the same problems you designed it to solve)? Do they have nicknames or shorthand for the things you do? Are they recommending it to others, and how are they doing this? What are they complaining about, and is this something you can fix?

And, if you can swing it, actually talk to your ideal customer.

The benefits of Voice of Customer research

Once you’ve done your “Voice of Customer research” (bleurgh: buzzwords), then you have to actually do something with the information you’ve gathered. Otherwise you’re just nosey.

The simplest way to start is to use similar language in your communications to how your audience talk. If people reading your social media posts, emails and webpages consistently see words and phrases they connect with and recognize, then they will feel a greater connection with your brand. You “get them”. And, you know, they’ll be more likely to open their wallet and throw some cash at you.

If you’re not sure how to weave this new information into your communications, then give your friendly local (or not-so-local) copywriter a call. It’s what we do best. Give us your reams of data copied and pasted into a Google Doc, and we can give you the words that reach out to your audience like a cup of coffee and a warm hug (if that’s what you’re going for).

Voice of customer best practices

You can also use the information to make changes to your products or services. These can be tiny tweaks, like the name or packaging, or adding in an additional element (say a module on time management to your online nutrition course). It could be a wholesale rethink of your product line. As an added bonus, acknowledging that it was feedback from your customers that caused this change, doubles down on the feeling of importance and being heard that they get.

Want a hands-down fabulous example of a brand that speaks like their customers do? Check out Tom Insurance – and be amazed!

I’m all ears

Access to your target audience (whether current or potential customers) is your biggest resource in building relationships. If you take nothing else in from the beginnings of my copywriting philosophy (oh, wait, we weren’t calling it that, were we…), then remember this:

Be the one that sits down next to them on the skate park wall and asks them how they’re getting on. Then they’ll be yours for life.

(You can take the girl out of youth work…)

Want help with your listening? Let’s chat.

Carry on reading