Thought Leadership Marketing: How to Nurture Leads With Email
Discover how thought leadership can transform your email marketing strategy and nurture leads more effectively, as we’ve gathered insights from top marketing professionals. From understanding the prospects’ jobs to be done to sharing expert insights with email newsletters, explore the ten innovative strategies shared by Marketing Directors, CMOs, and other marketing experts.
- Understand the Prospects’ Jobs to Be Done
- Include Industry-Specific Content
- Host Industry Webinars and Workshops
- Deliver Perspectives on Industry Trends
- Tackle Issues With Deep-Dive Content
- Offer Relevant and Useful Solutions
- Create Engaging, Problem-Solving Content
- Educate Leads with Targeted Thought Leadership
- Measure Thought Leadership Effectiveness
- Share Expert Insights with Email Newsletters
Understand the Prospects’ Jobs to Be Done
Marketers can utilize thought leadership in email marketing to understand their sales prospects’ “jobs to be done.” What questions do individuals typically ask during the sales process? What challenges are they encountering? What specific issues lead them to seek your services? What reservations might they have?
You can frame these considerations in terms of “jobs to be done.” What I mean is that people don’t simply wake up thinking they need a specific product like an integrated marketing automation system. Instead, they are looking to achieve broader goals such as gaining better insights into their customers, saving time on marketing tasks, or understanding the return on investment. Therefore, your communication should address these underlying needs rather than focusing solely on the features of your products and services.
Patrick Beltran
Marketing Director, Ardoz Digital
Include Industry-Specific Content
In email marketing, leveraging thought leadership can be a powerful tool to nurture leads. One effective way to do this is by including insightful, industry-specific content in your email newsletters. This could take the form of white papers, in-depth guides, recent research findings, or expert commentary on current trends relevant to your audience’s interests and challenges.
By providing valuable knowledge that helps your subscribers understand their industry better or solve specific problems, you position your brand as an authoritative voice in your field. This not only adds value for the recipient but also builds trust and credibility for your brand.
Such thought leadership content encourages readers to engage more deeply with your emails, enhancing their perception of your brand as a valuable resource. Over time, this approach can lead to increased open rates, higher engagement, and, ultimately, more conversions as leads are nurtured along the sales funnel toward becoming loyal customers.
Swapnil Kumar
Growth & Marketing Manager, Smartlead
Host Industry Webinars and Workshops
One tactic we use involves inviting our email subscribers to webinars and workshops hosted by well-known professionals in the business intelligence sector.
These occasions provide a look into the latest trends and technologies, giving potential customers a chance to interact directly with industry professionals.
This hands-on method enhances their journey and reinforces the credibility of our platform as a trusted source in the field, strengthening our connections with potential clients.
Arkadiy Ostrenko
CMO, BI-Box
Deliver Perspectives on Industry Trends
One effective way marketers can use thought leadership in their email marketing strategies to nurture leads is to share insights and opinions on trends in their industry. As an expert in my field, I frequently analyze trends and share my perspective on where the industry is heading and what companies should be focused on to stay ahead of the curve. For example, if there are new technologies emerging that will impact how businesses operate, I will draft an email with my key takeaways on these technologies, how I foresee them evolving, and recommendations for how readers can benefit from and implement them.
Sharing forward-looking insights and calls to action in this way helps to build trust and establish your brand as a leader that audiences can turn to for guidance. It also gives readers valuable information they can act on immediately to improve their businesses. Over time, consistently providing this type of thought leadership through email helps to nurture relationships with readers and position your company as a trusted partner.
Matthew Smith
Marketing Director, Right Hook Studio
Tackle Issues With Deep-Dive Content
Using thought leadership in email marketing can be a game-changer for nurturing leads. It’s all about building trust and showcasing your know-how. I’ve found that sharing deep-dive content that tackles the real issues and questions in our industry helps me stand out. Instead of just pushing sales, I aim to be seen as a helpful expert.
My go-to move is to send emails packed with things like insightful whitepapers, success stories, or invites to knowledge-sharing webinars, all geared specifically to what my audience cares about. This approach has worked wonders for us, boosting our interactions and conversions. Essentially, by giving out genuinely useful information, I’ve seen firsthand how a once unresponsive lead can become a dedicated customer.
Valentin Radu
CEO & Founder, Blogger, Speaker, Podcaster, Omniconvert
Offer Relevant and Useful Solutions
In my years of experience as a marketer, I have learned that when it comes to nurturing leads, it is never enough to offer your audience insights alone. The fact is, in order to sustain their attention and win them over to becoming customers of your business’s offerings, you must engage them with relevant and useful solutions.
However, it is important to note that the measure of value an audience credits to an insight is determined by how much of a solution it is for their immediate needs. Therefore, one way that marketers can effectively incorporate thought leadership into email marketing strategies and nurture their leads is by making sure that their email content offers solutions.
Indeed, it may be difficult to navigate the lines between promoting a brand and maintaining credibility as a thought leader through email marketing. However, the truth remains that potential customers are always attracted to brands that offer the solutions they seek.
One of the most distinguishing factors about thought leaders is that they offer solutions, and I have learned that providing solutions is one way that thought leadership can be incorporated into email marketing strategies to ensure that leads are effectively nurtured.
Edmafe Eclavea
Marketing Manager, Couponsnake
Create Engaging, Problem-Solving Content
Marketers have a smart idea to attract leads in email marketing. They create helpful content that solves the problems of their audience. For example, they can send a few emails with expert writings like articles or white papers. These emails prove their knowledge and make people trust them.
But the emails must also engage readers to join more insights, webinars, or get guides. This builds relationships and moves leads closer to making a purchase. However, the writings cannot be too complex. They should be simple and clear, with short sentences and everyday words that a student can comprehend.
Khurram Mir
Founder and Chief Marketing Officer, Kualitee
Educate Leads with Targeted Thought Leadership
Thought leadership content provides an excellent opportunity to educate leads and demonstrate your expertise. Using targeted content according to the user persona, you can set up email campaigns that offer additional educational information about product specifications or technical considerations through in-house or external content.
It’s important to note that instead of sharing promotional material, focus on providing tangible value and knowledge to your leads. This can develop a sense of trust and position you as an expert, allowing you to guide the lead down the sales funnel. Staying on top of industry trends and curating content for different user personas is essential to using thought leadership content effectively for this purpose.
Rob Clegg
Senior Content Manager, Exclaimer
Measure Thought Leadership Effectiveness
If you’ve set up your email marketing and thought-leadership strategy, it’s crucial to start measuring your efforts seriously. The great thing about integrating thought leadership into your strategy is the abundance of metrics available.
Gone are the days of focusing solely on advertising equivalencies and media impressions. Now, we’re concentrating on lead generation through email marketing, improving domain authority, boosting search engine rankings, and examining our sales funnel at each stage.
There’s no point in investing significant time and effort into a thought-leadership program based on content marketing if you’re not going to track its effectiveness. The C-suite is driven by numbers, and fortunately, there are plenty to provide when needed. Ultimately, in the digital era, it’s essential to engage people with valuable content that prompts them to take action. The real magic of thought leadership lies in strategic, consistent thought-leadership content marketing.
Lydia Valentine
Co-Founder and Chief Marketing Officer, Cohort XIII LLC
Share Expert Insights with Email Newsletters
As an experienced digital marketer, I’ve found that sharing thoughtful insights through email newsletters is one powerful way to nurture leads with thought leadership. By positioning yourself as an expert guide in your subscribers’ inboxes, you demonstrate knowledge and build trust. This helps move prospects down the funnel by showing you understand their problems and can provide solutions.
For instance, a B2B tech company could nurture leads by sending a monthly newsletter with their CTO’s perspectives on industry trends and challenges. This gives subscribers valuable insider tips from a credible source. The CTO can provide analysis on topics the target audience cares about, establishing the company as a trusted advisor. An email newsletter allows leads to regularly receive this high-level thought leadership, nurturing them toward becoming customers.
The key is crafting content directly from internal experts, tailored to what your audience wants to learn. This thought leadership helps prospects see you as an authority worth listening to. Email newsletters give you an owned channel to consistently distribute that expertise. So, leverage your thought leaders—their knowledge demonstrates your value. This is a proven way to nurture leads by positioning your brand as an insightful industry resource.
Dmitriy Bobriakov
Marketing Manager, RealEstateU
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