Relationship Nurture Flow: How to Create It and the Best Metrics
So, do you know what a relationship nurture flow is — also called a communication flow in marketing?
This is one of those tasks in marketing that is as complex as you decide it should be.
In other words, you can work with a very simple relationship nurture flow, but you can also make it quite complex. It all depends on your availability, your goal, and your expertise.
Today, we are going to talk a lot about the communication flow, understanding what it is, what it’s for, which tools are most commonly used to create it, and the key metrics you need to track.
Are you ready to get started? Let’s begin with the basics:
What is a Relationship Nurture Flow?
A relationship nurture flow — or communication flow — is a schematic of what will be communicated to a customer or lead, as well as when and under what circumstances.
The main goal of the relationship nurture flow is sales conversion. This is because you will already be communicating with leads that your company has generated.
So, we can define the relationship nurture flow as a series of communications — most often by message or email — that helps lead the lead toward conversion.
But sales aren’t the only purpose of a relationship nurture flow. In many cases, it is used not only with leads but with loyal customers, inactive customers, or even clients in the middle of their contract.
For example, think about a travel agency: to ensure the customer’s success post-sale, a communication flow is created to guide the traveler along their journey.
The flow kicks in once the customer books the package. They first receive an email with their ticket, followed by another with recommendations for boarding, then a reminder email, then one about the services they’ve booked, and so on.
The communication flow, then, has a well-defined structure, but its objectives can vary depending on the situation.
This makes this technique applicable for a variety of purposes and across various channels, adapting to the reality of the clients, leads, and prospects, as well as the media in which it appears.
Are Newsletters and Communication Flows the Same Thing?
Not really. Although they share the main channel — email — there are crucial differences between a communication flow and a newsletter.
The main difference is that the communication flow has very clearly defined triggers, typically created based on the mapping of customer/brand interactions.
The example of the travel agency makes this clear. Each “stage” of the service receives a follow-up email, which is pre-mapped in the communication flow.
The newsletter is quite different. It is an email sent to everyone who has signed up, at a frequency you determine.
But there is no other trigger besides the sign-up, and the emails only change in content, and rarely in strategy.
The communication flow, as we’ve seen, has a very clear goal — generating sales, nurturing leads, etc.
The newsletter can have several different objectives depending on the edition, and even different objectives within the same edition.
So, despite this common feature — sending emails — the two strategies are quite different from one another.
But I’m getting ahead of myself a bit on the objectives of the relationship nurture flow. Let’s talk more about them now:
Where is a Communication Flow Used?
Understanding the objectives of the relationship nurture flow is the same as understanding where it is used and for what purpose.
The communication flow can be used for various purposes, but most of its uses are related to converting leads into sales — or lead nurturing.
Even so, this doesn’t prevent the strategy from being used for other purposes. In fact, the structuring of the communication flow concept by Inbound Marketing has allowed us to understand where else it could be applied.
And this allows us to make any application we want today.
But what are these applications? And what changes do they bring to the structure of the communication flow? Let’s discover together now. Join me:
In Lead Nurturing
The most common use of the relationship nurture flow is in lead nurturing.
Basically, you define offers, calls to action, and triggers that will move the newly converted lead further down the Marketing Funnel.
In this case, the communication flow will offer personalized materials, offers, and anything else you can to keep the lead’s attention and move them toward the next stages of the funnel.
For example: at the top of the funnel, you offer content and more personalized materials. In the middle of the funnel, you offer market and price comparisons. And at the bottom of the funnel, discount coupons, free shipping, etc.
This is the most common use of the relationship nurture flow, but it’s not the only one. Another very popular one is in dealing with delinquency. Check it out:
Against Delinquency
Delinquency is one of the biggest challenges for people working in service industries, especially those who charge monthly fees.
It’s hard to find a company in this sector without any delinquents. And delinquency can occur for various reasons, from forgetting to pay to lack of funds at the moment.
What delinquents have in common, however, is the time they’ve been delinquent. And this is where the nurturing flow comes in.
Communication flows are created around this time. Has it been a month? They get an email. Has it been two months? They get a different email and a WhatsApp message. And so on.
Time is what unites all delinquents, regardless of the reason for their delinquency. And that’s why it’s easy to set up a relationship nurture flow to combat it.
For Specific Services
As we saw in the example of the travel agency, relationship nurture flows can also be created for very specific purposes.
That was just one example, but we can think of many others. Airlines can do the same, trendy restaurants with waiting lists, logistics companies have been using nurture flows for years, and so on.
To Stimulate Repeat Purchases
It’s much easier to sell again to a customer you already have than to sell to a completely new one.
In fact, it’s easier and cheaper. With a relationship nurture flow, you can create triggers related to the purchase and time them according to your product.
For example, let’s say you run an e-commerce store selling pet food.
You can create a relationship nurture flow for people who buy 5kg packages, timing the sending of emails based on the average time it takes for such a package to run out.
And in the meantime, you can also create customized nurture flows to offer toys for pets. Dog food buyers get emails about dog toys at a certain frequency. The same goes for cat owners.
The use of communication flows for repeat purchases is also one of the most popular in digital marketing, especially due to the low cost of the strategy and its high potential return.
For Post-Sales
But it’s also very important to work on post-sales beyond just repeat purchases, aiming for customer success so they become loyal and recommend you to others.
And here’s something interesting: post-sales and repeat purchases have similar objectives, don’t they? Getting a customer to buy again and recommend your store.
But at the same time, the methods are different. Post-sales is much more than simply ensuring more sales.
Through it and the relationship nurture flow, you can send practical information that will affect the customer’s experience with your product.
For example, if your product requires installation, you could include in your relationship nurture flow an email with assembly instructions or a list of authorized professionals.
Repeat purchases are part of post-sales, but post-sales is much more than repeat purchases. We have a whole article on this topic, by the way. I highly recommend reading it:
Understanding Relationship Nurture Flows by Purpose
Okay: now we’ve talked a lot about where relationship funnels are used, and we’ve also started discussing the specific points these purposes bring.
But we need to make a crucial differentiation here that I know you’re already asking for along the reading: the funnel for conversion and the funnel for customer service, support, and post-sales.
The differences are quite large, but they are easy to notice and apply when creating the funnel. However, we need to formalize a definition for each of these points so that we can follow the article without any misunderstandings, okay?
So let’s go:
Relationship Funnel and the Marketing Funnel
The Marketing Funnel uses the relationship funnel quite a bit, especially in lead nurturing.
Here’s how it works: you create an entire lead generation strategy, right? They left their contact information on your website and are ready to be approached.
This is exactly when the relationship funnel comes in, along with a marketing automation effort that will automatically send emails to your base.
In this work with the Marketing Funnel, the relationship funnel usually starts at the back, at the point of conversion, and guides the lead through their Buying Journey.
It works with a very simple algorithm: “if the lead takes the expected action after opening the email, they get this next email. If not, they get this other email.”
And so on. One action leads to another, slowly walking toward the sale.
Relationship Funnel for Customer Service and Support
This relationship funnel is quite different. Here, instead of guiding the lead toward a sale, the main focus is on customer success.
The main difference between these two relationship funnels lies mainly in the people you address.
When applying the funnel to a Marketing Funnel, you’re talking to leads—people who know your brand, have interacted with it but haven’t purchased yet—unless, of course, in the case of repurchase funnels and Post-Sales Funnel.
But the relationship funnel for customer service and support deals with people who have already bought from you and need additional information—such as support channels, operating hours, ticket information, etc.
This relationship funnel is simpler to set up due to its limitations. You cannot control the customer’s process or when they need support. Because of this, the funnel must focus on the most basic points to be effective.
How to Create a Relationship Funnel?
Well, we’ve talked a lot about what a relationship funnel is, where it is used, and how these uses occur.
By now, it should be easier to understand the structure of a relationship funnel, right? If not, here’s a quick schematic below for us to follow the article smoothly.
Let’s assume you’re a company selling a digital product, a software that helps other companies with training, right?
The starting point for the relationship funnel is the conversion to lead via the chatbot installed on your website.
This relationship funnel starts at the Top of the Funnel and aims to promote a Mid-Funnel webinar, which at the end has a Bottom of the Funnel CTA:
- [E-MAIL] Welcome email with CTA for a rich material;
- [TRIGGER] If the person clicks the CTA and downloads the rich material, they receive another email;
- [E-MAIL] Sending another rich material, now Mid-Funnel;
- [TRIGGER] The person clicks the CTA again and downloads the new e-book;
- [E-MAIL] Invitation to a webinar about the content they’ve been reading;
- [TRIGGER] The person confirms attendance at the webinar;
- [E-MAIL] Information about the webinar and free download of the participant kit;
- [TRIGGER] The person watched the webinar and clicked the Bottom of the Funnel CTA;
- [E-MAIL] Invitation for a free trial of the platform.
See how, with 5 emails, you’ve created a simple funnel that can already generate sales on your site?
Of course, a real communication funnel, which doesn’t just live in the realm of examples, will be much more complex because it also has negative triggers: if the person DOES NOT click the CTA, what do they receive? If they DO NOT watch the webinar, what’s the next email?
But anyway, this quick example already helps us better understand what the structure of a communication funnel looks like. Now we can talk about how to build yours today.
Let’s go?
Profiling the Customer and Creating a Persona
The first basic step: who are you talking to?
Here, you don’t need to think about Funnels, CTAs, materials, or content marketing. You just need to understand who your customer is and create a persona.
This is important because you need to understand your audience to map their interactions with your brand.
This process is a bit long and complex, involving some different variables and a lot of research. Since space is limited here in this article, I suggest reading our article on the topic below:
Mapping the Customer’s Journey
This is the most important part of building the relationship funnel—understanding the touchpoints between the customer and your brand, and how to insert yourself non-intrusively in those moments.
This is a specific task that requires in-depth knowledge of your segment, your customer, and your own operation.
You need to understand how your customer operates within your market, so you can understand what they expect from your brand and how they’ll interact with it.
It’s also necessary to understand your own operation well to figure out how your brand will stimulate and respond to that interaction.
For example: you notice you’re generating a lot of leads through the WhatsApp button. So it’s pretty clear that your customers use WhatsApp to interact with your brand.
Done: WhatsApp has entered the map of interactions in the relationship funnel and will be a key part of the communication.
Try to identify channels, forms of contact, common requests, and what types of interactions there are according to the Marketing Funnel and the Customer’s Journey: what do they do at the Top, Middle, and Bottom of the Funnel, and also at each stage of the Journey?
But we need to talk a bit more about the channels:
Listing the Contact Channels
Although we’ve talked a lot throughout the article about email marketing, this is not the only form of contact that can be part of a relationship funnel.
In fact, I’ve seen firsthand relationship funnels that start with an email, go through SMS, then WhatsApp, and even end up with phone calls to close the sale.
Email is the simplest tool you can use to build your relationship funnel, but on its own, it’s not the most effective.
Emails can end up in the Spam folder, Promotions tab, or simply be ignored in the inbox. In fact, most emails are completely ignored.
Speaking of numbers, in our article about sales strategies for WhatsApp, we determined that the average open rate for emails is 15%, while the app’s open rate is around 90%.
That’s why mapping the channels in the relationship funnel must go way beyond email, focusing on all possible interaction points.
And another thing: the relationship funnel also requires testing! Don’t be afraid to get the strategy running and, in the middle of the project, add new contact points or remove those that aren’t delivering results.
Creating the Content and Material
With everything mapped out, it’s time for you to determine what will be delivered to your leads based on your business and conversion goals, and then start producing.
The production will require, at the very least, a copywriter and a designer. This duo combines their strengths to deliver beautiful materials, a great email template, and the ideal message to keep the lead engaged.
This is the point where most companies choose to save, but this is the worst place to try and cut back on the budget.
It’s exactly here that your relationship funnel will really work. If you don’t invest at this moment, all the work up until now is at risk of becoming irrelevant when the sales don’t come in.
Automating the Trigger
All of this is done only once, okay? You won’t need to create different emails or send them one by one.
Marketing automation is a key ingredient of the relationship funnel. It’s this automation that ensures the messages arrive according to the triggers.
In fact, most marketing platforms offer relationship funnel builders, usually drag and drop, so you can do all the work we’ve mentioned so far directly through them.
RD Station, HubSpot, and ActiveCampaign are the main players in the market, and all of them offer this extra feature.
Constant Measurement of Key Indicators
As you may have noticed by now, creating a communication funnel is a very extensive task. It requires valuable time and resources from your company to work properly.
Because of that, you need to always keep an eye on your key indicators to avoid losing all this work and correct any problems ahead of time.
There are relationship funnels that fail because a single email subject line isn’t meeting the average open rate of the rest. If you don’t measure open rates, you might think the whole strategy went wrong and lose all the work.
The main metrics you need to analyze are:
- Open rate
- Click-through rate (CTR)
- Desired conversions based on your goals
- Customer success feedback
Of course, each strategy will have its own metrics, but these are the key ones, related to engagement with your funnel and, most importantly, the results it’s bringing.
In the next section, we’ll dive deeper into each of them. Let’s go!
What Are the Key Indicators of a Communication Funnel?
This is the last point you need to know to create your communication funnel.
If you’ve made it this far and are still feeling a bit lost, don’t worry: the relationship funnel is a truly complex task, but you’ll learn as you go.
Everything we’ve talked about so far are points you’ll need to follow and incorporate into your relationship funnel, but how it will really look depends completely on your customers and your company.
So, if you feel a bit lost, it’s natural: everything will make sense as you formalize your ideas and discuss them with your team, okay?
This is the last part of the article, and also one of the most important. What are the indicators and how to measure them correctly? Let’s find out together now:
Open Rate
The question this indicator answers is simple: how many people are opening the emails you send?
It’s absolutely necessary to do this analysis to ensure your efforts aren’t in vain.
In many cases, you may have the best offers, the best copy within the emails, and an enormous possibility of generating many sales with your relationship funnel.
But your customers aren’t even opening the emails. Why does this happen?
The reasons are difficult to determine without testing. Your email may be landing outside the inbox, which drastically reduces the open rate.
Or it could be that the email subject line isn’t good enough for your target audience.
In any case, all email sending platforms offer this indicator with plenty of prominence, usually being one of the first pieces of information you see once you send an email.
Always keep an eye on your open rate and do plenty of A/B tests. This part of the work is crucial for the success of your entire relationship funnel.
Click-Through Rate (CTR)
The next step is to understand if your leads and customers are clicking on what you want them to click inside the email.
This is also a simple piece of information that all email marketing platforms offer without much hassle.
This point is important to measure because it gives you a deeper understanding of what’s really happening with your strategy.
Low CTRs indicate low engagement with what’s being offered, whether it’s content or an offer, but also a non-persuasive copy or a poor design to accompany it.
Never stop measuring your CTR because you may have the best open rates in the world, but they won’t be useful if you don’t have a good click-through rate.
Desired Conversions According to Your Objective
Moving further down the relationship funnel, you need to establish in advance what your goals are in order to measure them at the end of the process.
This is absolutely necessary because you won’t know if your strategy is working or not unless you know what your goals are, right?
Once you determine your goal, you will need to track the numbers related to it on a frequency of your choice.
This is done with the support of the sales team! At this stage, relying on the sales team is crucial to get these indicators.
This also includes monitoring customer feedback if your goal is related to support and customer service.
Feedback on Customer Success
This is where you’ll work with the customer support and success team to understand exactly what the customer’s perception is of the relationship funnel.
This is very important because the communication needs to match what your customer needs. It can’t be too much or too little.
Think about the example from the beginning, the travel agency sending emails to assist the customer with their trip.
If the customer gets three emails a day, what was supposed to be helpful becomes inconvenient. And if they don’t get crucial emails — like the ticket and hotel or excursion info — the trip becomes harder.
So always look for a middle ground. And the only way to find it is by talking to those in constant contact with customers.
You noticed throughout the article that we worked quite a bit on lead generation and qualification throughout the Marketing and Sales Funnel, right?
We also discussed how the relationship funnel work begins once you generate a lead.
But I haven’t asked you a very important question. How is your lead generation?
Without a constant flow of leads, the relationship funnel ends up being a rather costly effort that won’t yield satisfactory results in a short period of time.
This entire machine works with this special ingredient: leads. And you need plenty of them because we’re dealing with a system that works with small percentages of your base to generate constant results.
If you don’t have a lead generation method on your website, come check out Leadster. Our chatbot generates and qualifies leads automatically on your site using the most effective approach: conversational marketing.
By clicking the banner below, you can test our platform with no credit card required. You’ll see how leads start coming in. Depending on your site’s traffic, you’ll begin generating new contacts even within the trial period.
I’ll be waiting for you, okay? Thank you for reading, and we’ll see you in the next article!
