Have you heard the rumors about the demise of email marketing? Let’s put the truth out there right now: Email isn’t dead if you pay attention to your lead’s and customer’s interests!
However, as many of you know, email marketing can be challenging. It's no longer the welcomed, "You've got mail..." that it used to be. Now it's, “Oh darn, another email! How do I get rid of the junk email?”
Here are some of the challenges with email marketing:
- Meet someone and they don't give you an email address.
- Business cards with no email address.
- Email addresses like sales, info, marketing, cfo, etc. may be spam filtered or blocked.
- Someone reported you as a spammer on a major email provider (Gmail, Yahoo!, etc…)
Email marketing is consistently ranked as one of the most effective marketing strategies so obviously, it works. The trick is knowing what you need to do to get your message across and not run up against problems like those listed above.
Here are some rules to live by:
- Have all your contacts segmented by interest in your products and services in your CRM. You are using a Customer Relationship Platform aren’t you?
- Send them only emails that focus on their interest about certain products or services.
- Ask permission to email them related content they would be interested in receiving.
- If you have an existing list of contacts who you are not regularly emailing, get them to double opt-in by sending an email asking for them to confirm they would like to receive relevant information: “We are updating our email system and would like to know if you want to continue receiving valuable emails from us. Click here and choose what you would like to receive from us.” (Look at those who don’t opt in, they never were going to buy anything anyway, the ones that do are your hottest prospects, they want to hear from you.)
- For new leads that fill out a form, send them an email to confirm (double opt-in) that they want to receive your valuable information. Not only is it the law in the US, Canada and the EU, it’s smart marketing; you care enough to ask.
- Send valuable content but not salesy emails all the time.
- Get the recipient involved. Put a call to action in your email. It can be as simple as click on this link to download the free 3 Things You Should Know PDF.
- Don’t make your emails long and boring or use fake subject lines to lure them in to reading your email. They’ll either go to sleep or think, well, if the headline is fake, what else are they lying about?
- If you don’t have an email address, send the person a postcard with an online offer; that will result in getting their email information.
- A one-and-done email isn’t going to create many new sales. An email campaign (drip email marketing) will give you a higher return of new sales. It’s not uncommon to have seven or eight touches before your prospect buys. This is relationship marketing, not a magic wand.
Emailing that gives you the best results isn’t free. Send emails from an online email software provider like Constant Contact, Mailchimp, Aweber, or through your CRM system’s email campaign software. Don’t send them from your computer’s desktop email software.
Getting your email delivered is a whole discussion in itself, the short version is use a professional and trusted service to deliver your email and that’s definitely not your desktop email software.
Emailing to leads and customers can be very effective. [quotesright]Always have a follow-up after sending your email.[/quotesright] Especially when you coordinate with a workflow in your CRM that notifies your sales team the email was sent and the recipient did or didn’t click on the link for your offer, or gives you other valuable insights. Then the sales team can follow up and close the sale!
Yes, email isn’t dead, it’s simply a matter of how effectively you use this sales tool to close more sales with leads and exiting customers.
- by Joseph Norcott, www.btne.com or email: jwn@btne.com