Keeping Track Of The Results Of Your Lead Nurturing Strategy
Analytics are scary for marketers. We’ve all been there. Having the responsibility of determining the ROI of your marketing campaigns is hard. But it's also one of the most powerful ways to get insights that will bolster your future marketing efforts and generate results. Plus, it will be your shield in defending your efforts to company leadership, no matter how intimidating and challenging it might be [1].
There is one inherent difficulty in measuring lead nurturing email campaigns though. The entire goal of nurturing is to foster relationships and make connections. But how do you get solid numbers to prove that?
Nurturing is, by its very nature, less tangible and concrete than some things you do as an eLearning marketer. Because of this, knowing whether your work led to a job well done can seem less concrete too. But there are a few key ways to measure your nurturing email campaign efforts. By following our tips, you’ll get your real numbers and ROI results for your campaign.
The Most Common Nurturing Metrics
When you send lead nurturing emails, you can measure how well they're performing by first looking at the number of emails your marketing automation platform sent [2]. You can also see how many were actually delivered (not rejected by the server). Your automation software can track "sent" emails differently. So, make sure you know whether the number of sent emails it gives you includes "bad" addresses that won't actually receive your messages.
As you track how many of your nurturing emails were delivered, keep an eye on how many bounced. Emails that bounce are split into two categories. Hard bounces are emails that are rejected because of an invalid address or because they were blocked by the server. Soft bounces, on the other hand, happen when emails are temporarily rejected because recipients' mailboxes are full, the message is too big, or the server is down. Make note of bounces to ensure you aren't sending messages that aren't getting where they need to go.
Checking And Optimizing
When nurturing emails do arrive at their destinations, though, you can start collecting numbers about how many emails were opened. It is crucial to check how many prospects are engaged by clicking through to your website as well. To go even further with this measurement, you can divide how many leads opened how many emails from the whole bunch that was sent. The above is done to calculate your open rate. This number gives you a good idea of whether readers are actually reading your emails. It can also give you insight into which types of emails are performing better than others.
Unsubscribes Matter
Finally, take a close look at how many of your emails are getting marked as spam and what your unsubscribe rate is. Tracking how many recipients unsubscribe to your emails after they've already given you permission to send them is important. It shows you that people are taking the extra step to opt out of your messages. Meaning they're no longer relevant or meeting that lead's need. Similarly, when subscribers mark your emails as spam, they're saying they no longer want to engage with your messages.
If you see that your spam or unsubscribe numbers are high, check to see whether you are still sending timely, valuable emails to the right target leads. Ensuring what you're saying is still what your leads want to hear is the best way to keep these numbers low. Hopefully, this will lead to an engagement increase.
Metrics To Dive Into When Measuring Lead Nurturing Emails Performance
While metrics, like sent emails, open rate, and unsubscribe numbers, are a great starting point for analyzing your lead nurturing email campaigns, there are a couple others that deserve a closer look:
1. Engagement
Measuring how your leads are engaging with your emails is critically important. With the right tools, you're able to listen to what your leads are saying and how they're interacting with you. Remember that discussion about open rate and click-through rate? Those come into play when tracking how well your lead nurturing emails are engaging your customers, but also whether your emails are reaching the right people. The way to most effectively measure that is with a marketing automation tool [3].
These tools will let you nurture your leads throughout their journey in a way that leads them to conversion. Automation tools let you see which campaigns perform best with certain segmented lists. They also help you understand which of them your subscribers interacted with most. Beyond that, marketing automation allows you to focus more on engaging with your eLearning customers.
2. Revenue Impact
Know first and foremost that you will rarely convert a lead as the result of one lead nurturing campaign. It'll often take multiple contacts and messages to form a strong relationship that turns a lead into a customer.
To see whether your interactions along the way are pushing your leads further in their buyer's journey, take a few things into account. How many of your messages have been successful? Maybe that means your email got leads to click through to your website or maybe it's not getting them to sign up for your emails at all. You can also build a system in which you assign values to certain actions and then see how much value certain types of messages rack up.
While measuring the ROI of your lead nurturing campaign efforts might seem daunting at first. You can feel confident in knowing that you're tracking solid results. Getting a better understanding of how your efforts are forming connections and, in the end, increasing your success is key.
Curious to learn more about lead nurturing in the eLearning niche? Download our Complete Lead Nurturing Guide for eLearning Companies.
References:
[1] Successfully Measuring Lead Nurturing Campaigns
[2] The Definitive Guide to Lead Nurturing
[3] 6 Insanely Effective Tactics to Engage Email Subscribers (#5 Is a Must-Do)
