The Art of Nurturing Leads into Successful Sales

Email marketing isn’t the cool new kid on the block – it’s been around since 1978. But it’s an incredibly effective form of marketing with several unique benefits. It’s not something your business can afford to ignore.

You need an email marketing strategy for a whole host of reasons. It’s a vital part of your digital marketing strategy for two simple reasons though – it’s incredibly effective, and it’s entirely owned by you.

It’s incredible how well it works. And considering how low the starting costs are, even small businesses can reap the benefits without spending a fortune.

You need an email marketing strategy because you own your email list. While it’s true that social media platforms are trendy and often effective at marketing your business through organic and paid content, there’s one big thing that should keep you from relying on them entirely:

You have no control over those platforms.

An algorithm change, a shift to a newer, hipper platform, or something else out of your control – and your results are gone in an instant. That’s not a sustainable foundation for your business.

But with email marketing? You own your email list, today and forever. You can build it through a whole variety of channels, including social media and your website, and directly sell your products and your services to your customers.

Email marketing is effective, it’s sustainable, and it can be simple too – if you know what you’re doing. And that’s just where this guide to email marketing comes in.

How can you get started using email marketing to build your business? In just two simple steps. First, you need to choose an email marketing service to help you deliver emails and measure your results. Then, choose the right kinds of email campaigns for your business goals.

Ready? Let’s go!

You just can’t grow your business by sending emails yourself – who has the time for that when your inbox is already overflowing? That’s where email marketing services come in. They help you scale your email marketing to grow your business by taking the manual work out of your email campaigns.

An email marketing service is a provider that helps your business create, target, and deliver emails to your audience. They’re critical for growing businesses because your individual email account lacks any way to measure results, segment lists, and create sophisticated emails. There are a huge variety of email marketing platforms on the market and they all offer something a little different. But they usually have the following offerings:

A Way to Build Emails and Landing Pages

If you’re not a web developer, you don’t want to be dealing with creating emails from scratch in HTML. Email service providers (ESPs) offer email builders that help you create functional and eye-catching emails for your audience without deep technical knowledge. Many will allow you to do the same for landing pages where your readers will arrive after clicking through your email too.

A Way to Organize and Segment Email Lists

As your email list grows, you’ll want to begin organizing your users into groups, by interest, demographic data, or other qualities. That way, you can easily send them emails that are targeted to what they want or need to know. If you own an athletic supply company, for example, you could segment your lists to target yoga enthusiasts, running fans, and avid hikers. Then you could send yoga mat offers to one group while offering running shoe promos to another.

A Way to Automate Your Email Sends

You want to be able to schedule email sends ahead of time – no hovering over the keyboard at an exact hour needed. Emails are most effective when sent at certain hours. A good email marketing service will make scheduling those emails ahead of time simple and fool-proof so you can work on your own schedule.

Good Standing with Internet Service Providers (ISPs)

Your emails are only effective if they get to your audience smoothly. Your email service provider should help you comply easily with anti-spam regulations and avoid getting shunted automatically to spam folders.

Access to Analytics and Data

Once you’ve started sending out email campaigns, it’s important to be able to measure what’s working well and what could be improved. A good email marketing service should allow you access to analytics on each of your emails, campaigns, and users.

You will want to see how many people are opening your email (your open rate) and clicking onto your content (your click-through rate). Many email marketing platforms also offer you the ability to conduct A/B testing, trying two similar but slightly tweaked versions of an email to see which performs better.

Every business is unique – there’s no solution that will fit every company. That’s true in almost every aspect of digital marketing including the selection of an email marketing platform. But don’t worry – there’s an option that will fit your needs. Since email marketing is so effective, it’s widely used.

That means there are dozens of email service providers who all offer a slightly different service. Just think through your needs and budget first and then you can start making a decision.

What Does Your Business Need?

A small local t-shirt company sells the same product as a big national retailer. But they have different email marketing needs.

The first thing to think about is how many emails you would like to send per month. If you don’t already know this number, do some calculations. How many email subscribers do you have on your email list now? And how frequently would you ideally email them? Multiply those numbers and you have a ballpark figure.

Now, think about what kinds of content you typically send out. Are you an ecommerce business that sends a lot of shopping-related emails? You will need an email service provider that allows an elegant use of images and possibly ecommerce integration too. Are you a blogger or professional who mostly sends informative newsletters or subscriber-only content? You will benefit from an ESP that makes those integrations simple.

How technical do you want to get in building emails? If you’re comfortable with a bit of HTML, then the user interface for creating emails isn’t as important for you. But if you’re just starting out in email creation and don’t want to mess around with the complicated technical details, you’ll want an email marketing platform that offers an easy drag-and-drop format.

What Can Your Business Afford?

Now that you have your basic requirements, it’s time to figure out what you can afford or want to spend on email marketing. Email service providers range from free options to the very pricey, but those price increases usually come with benefits. If you’re a small business just starting out in email marketing, you might not have any budget at all to spare. You’ll want to stick to looking at free options in that case.

But if you’re looking to significantly grow your email marketing capabilities or send tens of thousands of emails per month, you’ll be looking at paid options only. That extra cost does come with extra support, in many cases. Since there are so many different paid options though, be very clear on what you really need to avoid wasting money on features you don’t use.

Engaging an email marketing service is a big investment of time and money if you’re doing it for the first time. That’s why it’s important to make the most of your email service provider – getting the full value it offers to fuel your business growth. Maximizing your email marketing service means creating a thoughtful and strategic email marketing strategy and adhering to industry best practices.

Find the Right Audiences

When you begin your email marketing strategy, your audience might be small – too small to divide into segments yet. But as you focus on growing your leads and your email list, you will want to have a plan for targeting your different audiences. These might align with your Buyer Personas – aligned by interests or common features. Be sure you’re sending your email campaigns to them in a way that speaks to their interests and needs, not just what you want to tell them.

Write the Right Content

You can hire the fanciest email marketing service with all the bells and whistles and waste every penny you’ve spent with them. How could that happen? If your content strategy isn’t as top-notch as your email service. You need to have engaging subject lines, well-written and professional content in your newsletters, and offer writing your audiences want to read. Make sure you’re not just sending them promotional emails all the time either – email marketing is also about building relationships.

Follow the Right Practices

An unglamorous but very critical part of an email marketing strategy is making sure your emails are deliverable and go to your audience’s inbox. A good email marketing provider will offer a lot of help in this area, making sure it’s easy to set up the legally required opt-outs and disclaimers in every email.

You will also want to brush up on anti-spam laws that apply to you and be sure to adhere to the marketing rules of your platform too. Always send emails from a professional email address that reflects your business well to avoid being sent to spam folders. And check spelling and grammar before hitting send – don’t tarnish your credibility with a poorly-edited email.

Creating Effective Email Campaigns

Now that you know all the logistics of working with an email marketing service, you’re almost ready to hit send on your first marketing email. But just sending out emails on any topic that comes to mind whenever you want is not a strategy – that’s just a mess, and a waste of your time.

Instead, begin by thinking about what you want to achieve with your email marketing right now. Are you looking to create a nurture funnel for your prospects, muster up interest in your newest product, or focus attention on a profitable service? There’s an email campaign that works to reach any business goals you have – so let’s find out about a few of the most popular types.

What is an Email Campaign?

An email campaign is a way to reach your audience of prospects and customers at the same time, offering them information, deals, or engagement right in their inbox. You can have very targeted campaigns aimed at a specific segment of your audience, or a broad one that’s more general. You can send the emails in your campaigns whenever works best for your audience. That’s the beauty of an email campaign – it’s customizable, personal, and efficient.

But writing an effective email campaign that gets you results isn’t easy. Your inbox is probably overflowing these days – the same is true for your audience. Since email marketing campaigns are so effective, almost every business is using them. That means more noise for your message to cut through to deliver your message.

Fortunately, there are many types of email campaigns. You should mix and match the ones that work for your business – sending every type to every email list member is just going to annoy your audience. With some thoughtful planning and a solid strategy, your email campaign can get the results you want.

The first step to a successful email marketing campaign is deciding what kind of campaign you want to run. There are many types of marketing campaigns, and they all have different goals. From an email promoting a seasonal sale to a custom birthday offer to a monthly newsletter, you should find the email campaigns that work best for your business. Get the details on types of email marketing campaigns below.

The Welcome Email

The first step in your email marketing strategy is the welcome email. This goes out automatically to anyone who gives you their email address on your website to sign up for offers or updates. True to its name, it welcomes your newest audience member to your email community, tells them what kind of content they can expect, and allows them to set their preference for how often they receive emails from you.

The Special Offer

Email campaigns can be offering something as well – a seasonal offer, a limited-time sale, a special product, or an upsell to a more expensive product. These kinds of promotional emails can go to a wide selection of your audience if the offer applies broadly like an end-of-season sale. Or you can send more targeted emails if there’s a segment of your audience you’d like to entice with a deal or a new product.

The Shopping Cart Reminder

One very effective email campaign is the abandoned shopping cart email. Sometimes prospects will visit your website, browse your products, and add a few of them to their online shopping cart. They’re clearly interested in what you’re offering. But then, they disappear. Maybe they got distracted, or decided to do more research, or realized a bill is coming due soon. Setting up an email campaign to remind them of the items they almost purchased can increase your conversion rate by nudging them to complete their purchase.

The Email Newsletter

An email newsletter is a great way for most businesses to connect with their customers and prospects. They should be informative, not sales-focused – you’re providing valuable and interesting content instead of pushing for a sale. This works great for non-ecommerce businesses that send fewer marketing emails and so don’t have that opportunity to connect and build their brand.

But it can also be useful for building relationships with customers when you sell a product or service online. It can break up a series of marketing emails nicely – you’re providing a service to your audience in place of asking them for something.

Email newsletters can also help power your content marketing strategy. You can get additional views and shares on those blog posts, articles, and case studies you’ve worked hard to produce. Your email audience is already engaged, so they’re more likely to read and share your content too. And all those extra shares can bring in extra viewers and readers, generating additional leads. To learn more, read about email newsletters here.

The Referral Program

A referral program can reward your loyal customers for recommending your brand to their friends and family. It’s low-cost and highly rewarding. And with email marketing, it’s easy too. Just set up an email campaign to introduce your program and set the terms and you’re off. Learn all about referral program details and how to get started.

The Automated Testimonials

When your customers are delighted with your company, you want them to share the news. Send them automated emails after they make a purchase asking about their experience and how satisfied they are. Ask them to post reviews on your site or for a testimonial to include on your home page. Get all the details about testimonials .

Email campaigns can be an opportunity to strengthen a connection with your audience. You can invite them to an in-person or online event, ask for their feedback on their latest purchase, or share your content that they might find interesting or relevant.

And last but not least, the most common email campaign is the newsletter. This is one of the best ways to build that relationship with your audience. This type of email campaign isn’t all about getting a sale. It’s a way to share your content and keep your audience updated on what’s newsworthy, what’s new, and increasing the trust and value you offer to your audience.

Once you’ve selected some types of email campaigns to focus your efforts upon, you can start thinking about how to create and run those campaigns.

First, you need a way to deliver all those emails to the people who should receive them, when they need to get them. This is where email automation comes into play. With the help of an email automation service, you can set up multiple email campaigns and direct them to the appropriate audience. You can even set up automated emails to go out automatically once an action is triggered, like a welcome email for list signups or an abandoned shopping cart email. There are many email automation services – find the one that matches your budget and your needs, starting with our list above.

Next, you need to create the content for the emails. Every email campaign will be different, just as every business and audience is different. There isn’t one set of hard and fast rules that work for every company. But in general, there are a few key principles to keep in mind.

Keep it Short

Not only are email inboxes crowded, but your audience is also facing plenty of distractions on and off the screen. Make sure the point of your email is immediately clear – excess wordiness means more time to get distracted. This also means your content needs to be very engaging, from the subject lines down to the last sentence. Write compelling copy that moves the reader through the whole email quickly and with a purpose in mind.

Keep it Friendly

Emails are more like a direct conversation than a banner ad or some other digital marketing techniques. Keep that in mind while writing your content – it should sound like a conversation. You can use automated email personalization to enhance that feeling by using your reader’s name.

Keep it Customer-Focused

In a world where we’re all drowning in email volume, no one is going to take much time to read an email that only talks about how great your company or product is. That’s nice for you, but it doesn’t draw in the reader. Instead, focus on the customer and their fears, needs, and desires. Be sure your language centers around their experience and their lives instead of just your brand and your readers will be more engaged.

These guidelines apply to both your marketing emails and your email newsletters. Whether you’re trying to make a sale or strengthen a relationship, always keep it short and focused on your customers.

Email Automation

Once you know what kind of email campaigns you want to run, you can begin setting your email automation. Automated emails can be set up through some email marketing platforms or through an additional service like Zapier.

When a prospect joins your email list, you can automatically send out a welcome email. Or when a website user fills up their online shopping cart but doesn’t make a purchase, you can automatically send them a reminder email about the items they’re missing out on.

Email automation offers a way to send customized, targeted, timely emails to your prospects and customers. It can help increase your conversion rate and build customer relationships with a one-time set up of an action that triggers an email.

The success of your email campaign isn’t just about the emails. Your email campaign is just one part of your larger digital marketing strategy. To create the most successful email campaign possible, you also need to think about how it fits into your overall customer experience.

For email campaigns with a sale in mind, make sure the landing page your email links to is a seamless experience. You should keep the same look and feel of the email on the landing page to create a consistent brand experience. And your landing page should have the same call to action that your email had. That call to action should be easy to find and simple to do – whether it’s making a purchase or a different action.

When you’re creating an email newsletter campaign, your goal is to inform and engage rather than make a sale. But that doesn’t mean you can just drop your reader into a blog post and consider the job done. Make sure your content is well-written and informative, and tells a story the reader can engage with. Include high-quality images or graphics. And include social share buttons that encourage readers to share your content with their social networks, increasing your reach organically.

Partner with Email Marketing Professionals

As a business owner with a lot on your plate, you probably don’t have time to set up, write, send, and analyze multiple email campaigns. But you don’t want to miss out on the benefits of email marketing for your business either. That’s why you need a partner like ContentFirst.Marketing on your team.

We’ll provide a detailed digital marketing strategy, develop a data-driven and well-written email marketing plan, and analyze your results for you. Schedule your free business review today to find out how we can work together to get you measurable results.

CONSISTENT FOLLOW-UP AND EMAIL MARKETING HELP NURTURE YOUR PROSPECTS INTO BUYERS.

This is where Copywriting, Content Creation, and the Digital Distribution Channels all come together to build your authority online. We will create consistent messaging and content across your website to engage prospects and former customers.