Intro

#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
• (03:02) - – Meet the Experts: Samar, Sheri, and Sofia
• (06:59) - – What Is **Lead Nurturing, Really?
• (09:52) - – The Problem with “We” Language in Emails
• (12:14) - – The Biggest Mistakes B2B Marketers Make
• (14:39) - – Why AI Isn’t Your Copywriter
• (16:34) - – Teardown #1: Subject Line Gone Wrong
• (21:04) - – How to Build a Nurture Sequence Around a Whitepaper
• (23:44) - – CTA Overload and Why It Kills Clicks
• (29:54) - – Teardown #2: Great Open Rate, Low Engagement
• (33:48) - – The One-CTA Rule (And Why It Matters)
• (36:30) - – Structuring Long Emails for Skimmability
• (39:02) - – Teardown #3: Cold Lead, Wrong Email
• (41:35) - – Re-Engagement Emails That Actually Work
• (44:25) - – Use Social Proof Instead of Product Pitches
• (46:05) - – Teardown #4: The Overloaded Onboarding Email
• (49:00) - – What’s a “Micro Conversion” in SaaS Email?
• (53:35) - – Time-to-Value and the First Action That Matters
• (55:50) - – This Email Is... a Whole Sequence in One
• (58:10) - – Teardown #5: Trust Email or Generic Spam?
• (01:01:05) - – Why Specificity Beats Industry Buzzwords
• (01:03:20) - – Final Scores and Wrap-Up

Send guest pitches and ideas to hi@exitfive.com
Join the Exit Five Newsletter here: https://www.exitfive.com/newsletter
Check out the Exit Five job board: https://jobs.exitfive.com/
Become an Exit Five member: https://community.exitfive.com/checkout/exit-five-membership

***

Today’s episode is brought to you by Zuddl.

We’re halfway through 2025, and one thing’s clear: events continue to be one of the highest performing marketing channels. Niche meetups, conferences, curated dinners, networking - you name it. Everyone’s leaning in.

Events are a core part of our playbook this year at Exit Five. So far, we’ve hosted two virtual sessions each month, one large virtual event, one in-person meetup, and we’re deep in the weeds planning our Drive conference coming back to Vermont this September.

Zuddl helps us run a smarter event strategy - from driving registrations, managing invites, automating comms, reminders, analytics, tracking. Their Salesforce integration also makes it simple to report on pipeline and revenue from events without pulling in ops.

On top of that, the differentiator with Zuddl is how their team is insanely good at supporting us. They always go above and beyond for us - and that’s how we’ve been able to keep the momentum going with 12+ events already this year, with plenty more to come.

If events are part of your marketing strategy, you need to look at Zuddl to see how companies like Zillow, CrowdStrike, and Iterable are using the top event platform for Business events in 2025. 

Head over to zuddl.com/exitfive to learn more.