#221: The top 5 reasons you need a nurture strategy now

Welcome back to another edition of the Course Creation Incubator podcast. I’m your host, Gina Onativia, here to get you excited about your course creation, your workshop, your next group coaching, whatever it is that lights you up and put you out there in a new way. I’m here for it. And the last couple of weeks we’ve been talking about Reset, My favorite new book from Dan Heath How to Change What’s Not Working.

If you haven’t listened to those episodes, please go back. Today we’re talking about nurture strategy and how to make sure you are loving on your potential student or your potential prosper act to make sure you are top of mind when they are ready to buy. So, so important. I wanted to record this because I have met so many different entrepreneurs and experts, pretty well-established that have like really great offers, making money that don’t have a nurture strategy.

If you do not have a nurture strategy and you have a thriving offer, well, maybe are not so thriving offer an offer that you’ve made a little bit of money on, but not thriving. It’s time to put in a nurture strategy. It’s time to go out to your people on a regular basis and say, Hey, I’m here each and every week to love on you, to give you insights, to tell you a little bit about me and how I can help you.

Because when it comes to thriving in business, to me in this day and age, if you want to have a thriving offer, you got to have a great nurture strategy. You got to have a nurture strategy, number one and a good one. Number two. So that’s why we’re going to break it all today when I talk about your new nurture strategy, because, again, I’ve been talking to way too many entrepreneurs and business owners who are doing pretty good, but I think could be better or doing better if they had an incredible nurture strategy or they just had one.

Right. Or I talked to so many authors who have a nice audience. Maybe they start out with a couple of thousand people on their list, not nurturing them for the next book, the next speaking opportunity, whatever that looks like. So that’s why we’re going to talk about nurture strategy today, because I see how important it is in the day to day before we jump in.

This episode is, of course, brought to you by our Done for You services. If you want high touch, custom done for you, course creation and marketing, check us out. We only take a couple of clients a quarter. It is the highest, highest standard we could bring to you guys. We are highly custom. We have no templates. We just want to take care of you.

If you’re interested, go to course Creation boutique ecom slash course to learn more. And before before we jump in one more thing. I was kind of publicly shamed by the library this past week and I thought, what a great opportunity to share it on the podcast because there’s a lesson there. Tristan had a Warriors book out, and if you guys don’t know this Warrior series by Erin Hunter, kudos to this lady making a lot of money off of warrior cats and a prolific amount of books.

And when a Warriors book comes out, four, ten, 11 year old set, it is very popular. And I did not know Tristan had the number one of a new series out at the library and they were pinging me, Hey, return this book, lady. And and they did away with fines and I know they did away with fines. So I talked in the last episode about tapping into motivation.

So I dragged my feet. I dragged my feet of about returning this book. So then we return the book as a family after Tristan’s tennis camp this week. And they wouldn’t let my husband, Alex, just put it in the conveyor, the return conveyor, because the alarm went off. Right. Like where this book is really overdue, Go see the librarian, because they want they wanted to shame me, right?

And rightfully so. So the conveyor belt goes off. My husband looks so embarrassed and he whips around and he’s like, It’s her fault. And he’s pointing at me. And then I had to return it personally to the librarian and look her in the face. And she looks me in the eye and she says, Are you not getting our alerts, guys?

I died a little bit inside. And I said, Yes, I’m getting I’m getting your alerts. I’m sorry. And then and then she said something that really made me want to crawl into a hole. And she said, Someone’s been waiting for this book. And I just died a little bit because I cracked a joke. What do I do? I crack jokes.

I crack jokes on this podcast. Right? Humor is the way I deal with things. So I cracked a joke. She did not think it was funny. She said, Somebody is waiting for this book. So I just died a little bit inside because if I known someone, some kid was waiting for this book, I would have returned it four weeks ago.

And I thought, This is the way they get people to return books. They say somebody is this book is on hold. This book is on hold by three kids or whatever. Actually doesn’t matter. Just the idea that somebody was waiting for this book and I didn’t return it broke my heart. And then plus bonus points if they told me his name right, Like, do you know Johnny was waiting for this book for three weeks?

Anyway, I tell you guys this because it’s embarrassing and hopefully it’s funny that the local library shamed me. The interesting comes out and he’s like, Should we get some books? I’m like, No, we need to leave now. But secondly, because if they had communicated to me so I would love for them those emails. They should have a little thing that’s like, this book is on hold so I know someone’s waiting for this book because that’s motivation for me, knowing there’s a kid out there that wants to read this warrior book that would have prompted me to return it.

A lot earlier. Now I’m not proud. Please don’t write to me and say, Gina, you’re embarrassing. You need to get your books back. I know. I’m very embarrassed, but just thinking about the motivation behind how we communicate, because I was getting alerts, right? Your books overdue. Your books overdue. But I knew they did away with fines. So I was like, I’ve got a little bit of time.

But if I had known someone was waiting, think about what would motivate your person, right? Because sometimes we have urgency in our emails and in our marketing. But what’s the differentiator? What’s the line that will really get them to move? So hopefully this little library story makes you think about that, right? And what little extra piece can I add to to really guilt them into making action, not about guilting, but prompting them.

They weren’t a guilty me. They were just telling me what’s what. Okay, hopefully you enjoyed my little library story. Let’s talk about you now and in terms of your new nurture strategy. So I mentioned this upfront. If you’re in business to me, you want a way to nurture. And when we say nurture or I mean talk on a regular basis with your prospects, okay, with your best people reaching out to them with great content, with wisdom, with dumb stories, like my story about the library and connecting with them in a different way, showing your expertise, showing your authority, giving them some content, loving on them until they are ready to buy.

Okay. There are a few reasons why I think nurturing is so important. Number one, the buying cycle has become so much longer for some of us, like the sales cycle is really stretched out in terms of when somebody is ready to buy, right? So it might take a few days depending on what your course or product is. You might have a low ticket and they might be able to choose in an hour or minutes to buy.

But you might have a course that’s thousands of dollars and your sales cycle might take days, months, years. You want to be able to nurture them throughout that sales cycle. So that’s number one. Number two, you never know when a prospect is going to be ready. I just had a client who sold a ticket, sold an event ticket to somebody who signed up to their list in 2016.

Okay. So they had been nurtured for nearly a decade and then they bought now, I hope you’re not listening to me. Be like Gina. Do I need to nurture someone for a decade in order to promote a sale and get a producer say, Oh, no, no, no, That’s not why I’m telling you that they’re producing other sales in the meanwhile.

But it just goes to show some people are thinking about it, Right. Or they might have signed up for your list years ago and kind of pitter patter in and out things happened in their lives. Maybe they were in school and they weren’t quite ready yet, whatever it is. And then years later they’re ready and they think of you because they see your email, because they see your newsletter, because you are top of mind for them.

That’s what I’m talking about with a nurture strategy. Here’s a third reason why I want you to have the new nurture strategy. Trust is harder than ever, right? We trust no one. I Bowis and on here both talks about the erosion of trust and how story connects us all. Trust is at a low point, folks. If you want people to trust you, you got to show up every month, every week, hopefully.

Roche Trust me, because I tell you vulnerable stories about not returning library books, but I also deliver content each and every week. And I try to be here for you guys each and every week. I hope there’s a bridge of trust happening between us. And then the fourth reason why I think you need a new nurture strategy is to separate you from the rest.

Right? So much competition these days. I think showing up consistently and showing that you care and that you have smart, relevant content is a differentiator. So when it comes to nurture, I’m of course talking about I want you to have a great opt in and then what happens after that opt in. Because so often I hear experts say, Well, I did cultivate my list, but then I just didn’t do anything with it.

Oh gosh, if I had a dime for everybody who said that to me, and then they collected thousands of emails and never nurtured, that’s number five, right? Don’t collect thousands of emails. Hundreds of emails and then do nothing with it that nothing breaks my heart more to know that there was an opportunity for a great nurture strategy. So that’s number five.

So when we’re talking about nurture strategy, we’re talking about an opt in and then your email and your follow up with people as a result. So in a great nurture strategy, I feel like there’s three criteria. Consistency. Are you talked about you’re in there every month, every week, every other week, whatever it looks like, too. It’s in your voice, right?

It makes sense for your brand. So if you don’t want to do a long like I would never do a long email, long newsletter if you guys get my emails, you know, they’re pithy because that’s who I am. I’m like, Get in, get out. And then third, you’re adding value. Like I said before, your nurture strategy has to have content that adds value.

And then the fourth criteria, if I was going to have a fourth criteria call to action, I always want you to have a call to action. So it’s about consistency. It’s about representing your voice, added value, and then a call to action. Okay, let’s talk about it. If you do not have a nurture strategy right now. And to me, the first one is the easiest and I call it the hodgepodge.

Okay, So whatever you’ve got lying around, let’s repurpose it. All right. Let’s brainstorm. If you need to redefine wine and chrome, come up with your new nurture strategy. The first one is just the hodgepodge. This is the easiest one. So if I have a new client and they’re established or I have a client right now who is looking to sell an event and I want them to put out consistent content.

So like, what do you got that you can repurpose each and every week and maybe you start with six weeks of content like ahead of time and you plan that out and then you come up with a system where you’re putting together pieces of content each week. Maybe you’ve got a video or you’re on a podcast, or maybe you did this series that you can repurpose into four or five weeks of content, whatever that looks like.

Don’t worry about the hodgepodge. It’ll feel like a mix to you, but likely not a mix to the person reading and absorbing and listening. So start there because sometimes I feel like people are like, I need to put together a video series and it needs to be consistent. It’s like, just not true. I’d rather you get out there on a consistent basis and start reaching out to your people than having to worry about something formal.

Okay, so hodgepodge is number one, putting together your content, your thoughts, right? Just sending an email out and saying like, this is what I’m doing this week. This is what I learned. This is the genesis, by the way, of the newsletter right? So that’s number two. You’ve seen these bigger influencers put out the newsletters like the James Clears, the Mark Manson love their newsletters.

I’m saying you don’t have to put that out. First and foremost, you can start with the hodgepodge and then you can morph into naturally. What will happen is you are morph into a more natural flow, something that is more like a framework like these guys in a newsletter. So newsletters number two, or if the hodgepodge idea freaks you, actually, Gina, I need to go out looking Polish and everything from the get go, then do a newsletter and you can make that monthly doesn’t have to be weekly to start.

So you can do monthly, you can do little tips, you can do quick hits. There are no rules when it comes to a great nurture. Okay, So one is a hodgepodge. You’re collecting all kinds of info. Two is a newsletter, three is a video series. That to me is more work, right? So try to batch your video series.

So get like say three or four videos, done it once, write a little email with it, use chatbots to help you release those on an ongoing basis. Number four is a podcast. Hell of course. Want to just put that out there. I’ll link to the show notes on some episodes that we’ve done about the benefit of a podcast.

You could do a seasonal podcast, like if a ongoing podcast freaks you out to a seasonal one, right? Think about how you can do it in a chill nature. Like maybe you team up with somebody who can help you do it. Like who could be your sounding board each and every week. I have a client who does that, has a sounding board, talks about what’s relevant that week.

So another idea is just doing a trending update. Okay, so whatever is going on in the news, this is great, especially for financial advisors. I have a former client who would just send an update on a regular basis. Hey, this is happening in the news. This is how it’s likely to impact you. I loved this nurture because it was relevant.

It was low left and it was timely. So that’s another piece that you could do. That’s a fifth piece of doing just relevant, timely update. So whatever you’re doing, do it consistently, do it. That sounds like you on your brand and value and of course have your CTA. So let’s talk about that before I go. So your CTA, meaning what’s the next step?

Do you want them to go to LinkedIn comment or Instagram and comment or tick tock or whatever it is? So leave them to the next place. Or if you’re seeding your event or your offer or your workshop, you’re going to want to call to action. For that you can have a call to action to a waitlist. So always send them to the next step.

They’ve taken that content with you that they just add it. You’re adding value to them. Always, always, always lead them to the next step. Hopefully you are going to rock out your new nurture strategy. If any of this has impacted you in an awesome way, I would love for you to leave me a rating or a review. I would seriously appreciate it.

Until next week. Go create value and be brilliant and get it done.