Email Marketing That Works - Grasshopper Marketing

31 Jan Email Marketing That Works

Posted at 18:45h in blog, blogging, boost website traffic, content marketing, email marketing, Online Marketing, small business, web 2.0 by Shannon Kenner

Every business has a sales cycle. The more expensive the product or service you sell, usually the longer the sales process. Email newsletters are a great way to ignite an interest in a prospect or gently push someone down your sales funnel. Either way, your emails should be about quality content that your target audience will find valuable. There’s no need to include your blog post about your presentation to Rotary. That’s not that interesting to your prospects.

Permission-based marketing (like email newsletters) is a fantastic tool because someone has agreed to receive your stuff by opting in through your website. (We’re never going to suggest buying a email list and spamming people. Not only is it illegal, it is just a total waste of time and money.) You might have to trade an eBook or piece of free downloadable content to gather their email address. But once you start growing your list, here are tips to keep keep your sales funnel healthy and full.

Tactic 1

Send email newsletters regularly.

If you’re not already building an email list and sending an email newsletter monthly (or at least quarterly), now is the time to start. An opt-in newsletter sent to your email list is a great way to stay top-of-mind in your prospects’ minds, announce a refer-a-friend campaign to current and former customers, or share news with your partners.

Make sure your email newsletter is filled with helpful resources, tips, solutions, and other help. Why not do a collection of your top 5 blog posts every month? Try not to use more than 10-20% of your content to sell directly. Let the newsletter be a source of outstanding information the receivers will want to share with their communities. You may even consider subdividing your mailing list, so you can send more specific newsletters to targeted clusters of your audience.

Tactic 2

Analyze your email newsletter subject lines.

It’s important to track and measure your subject lines so you can repeat what’s working and revise what’s not. Does an engaging question as the subject line cause the open rates to increase? Does a short or long subject line cause more people to click a blog article link? Does it make a difference if you have your company name listed first or last? Does your subject provide a good, quick summary of the newsletter? For more info, read Best Practices for Email Subject Lines.

You won’t know what works best, unless you check the numbers after a campaign has been sent. Find a good, low cost email marketing system to track results efficiently. MailChimp is a good one, but there are several others. Make sure you choose a template that will look good on mobile devices as about 70% of emails are opened on phones.

Tactic 3

Send email from a person, not a company.

This is such an easy one, yet many don’t do it. Your email’s sender name can make a big difference in open and click-through rates. We’ve found sending emails from a real person’s name from our marketing team generates an average click-through rate 32% higher than an email sent from the company. That winning email generates more leads and ultimately more sales. Email should be sent from caring humans, not faceless corporations.

Tactic 4

Use call-to-actions.

Tell people what to do after they read your newsletter. Do you want them to call you? Share it with their friends? Download more content? Clearly tell them and gently guide them through your sales process. At Grasshopper, we like to send previews of our top 5 blog posts and then link back to the full article on our site. This helps drive traffic to our site.

Tactic 5

Be patient.

Email marketing can take time. Remember, a person has to be touched by marketing an average of 7 times before he converts. You should focus on providing value and information slowly throughout a period of a few weeks. Overtime, you are gaining respect and when a need for your service or product shows up, you’ll be forefront in their mind. You will be paid proportionate to the amount of value you provide to your customers. So in your email newsletters, heed lots of attention to the value you provide to your customers. Once they’ve tuned into your business and start to like your free stuff, your paid stuff will be even better.