The Lead Nurture Email Playbook: What Works and What Doesn’t
The Dave Gerhardt Show (from Exit Five)
Intro
This chapter dives into effective lead nurturing email strategies essential for B2B marketing. Experts discuss best practices and analyze real-life email examples to help marketers improve engagement and conversion rates.
#247 Lead Nurturing | In this episode, Danielle is joined by Samar Owais, founder of Emails Done Right; Sheri Otto, CEO of Growth Lane Strategies; and Sofia Silva, Marketing Manager at Reachdesk.
These three email experts came together for a live roast of real B2B lead nurture emails, submitted by marketers from the Exit Five community. You’ll hear the good, the bad, and the fixable, with practical insights on how to improve your own nurture sequences.
Danielle, Samar, Sheri, and Sofia cover:
- The most common lead nurture mistakes B2B marketers make (and how to fix them)
- Why every email should be treated as a conversation, not just a campaign
- How to write nurture emails that create connection, not clicks for clicks’ sake
If you're building (or rebuilding) your nurture strategy, this one’s packed with real examples and expert feedback to guide your next send.
Timestamps
- (00:00) - – Intro: Welcome to the Lead Nurture Roast
- (02:49) - – Meet the Experts: Samar, Sheri, and Sofia
- (06:46) - – What Is **Lead Nurturing, Really?
- (09:39) - – The Problem with “We” Language in Emails
- (12:01) - – The Biggest Mistakes B2B Marketers Make
- (14:26) - – Why AI Isn’t Your Copywriter
- (16:21) - – Teardown #1: Subject Line Gone Wrong
- (20:51) - – How to Build a Nurture Sequence Around a Whitepaper
- (23:31) - – CTA Overload and Why It Kills Clicks
- (29:03) - – Teardown #2: Great Open Rate, Low Engagement
- (32:57) - – The One-CTA Rule (And Why It Matters)
- (35:39) - – Structuring Long Emails for Skimmability
- (38:11) - – Teardown #3: Cold Lead, Wrong Email
- (40:44) - – Re-Engagement Emails That Actually Work
- (43:34) - – Use Social Proof Instead of Product Pitches
- (45:14) - – Teardown #4: The Overloaded Onboarding Email
- (48:09) - – What’s a “Micro Conversion” in SaaS Email?
- (52:44) - – Time-to-Value and the First Action That Matters
- (54:59) - – This Email Is... a Whole Sequence in One
- (57:19) - – Teardown #5: Trust Email or Generic Spam?
- (01:00:14) - – Why Specificity Beats Industry Buzzwords
- (01:02:29) - – Final Scores and Wrap-Up
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Brought to you by:
Knak - A no-code, campaign creation platform that lets you go from idea to on-brand email and landing pages in minutes, using AI where it actually matters. Learn more at knak.com/exitfive.
Optimizely - An AI platform where autonomous agents execute marketing work across webpages, email, SEO, and campaigns. Get a free, personalized 45-minute AI workshop to help you identify the best AI use cases for your marketing team and map out where agents can save you time at optimizely.com/exitfive (PS - you'll get a FREE pair of Meta Ray Bans if you do).
Customer.io - An AI powered customer engagement platform that help marketers turn first-party data into engaging customer experiences across email, SMS, and push. Learn more at customer.io/exitfive.
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Thanks to my friends at hatch.fm for producing this episode and handling all of the Exit Five podcast production.
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