Email marketing is a tried and tested way of driving lead conversions and fostering your relationships with our audience and customers. But if you’re ever struggling with your current email marketing strategy, don’t give up on it! This blog will talk about what you can do after creating your own email marketing strategy and what you can do to improve your execution to drive better results. Or if you haven’t created an email marketing strategy, this blog can go into further detail why you need an email campaign and what you need to get started.
For further or earlier reading, I previously posted this beginner’s guide to email marketing as a great way to get up to speed on everything I discuss on this specific post so feel free to check this one out first before continuing to read. Likewise, you’re welcome to keep reading if you already know you want to build an email marketing strategy and want to get started on the practical steps from building an audience, supporting your strategy, and understanding where you can grow from there.
Building your email list
Building your email list is one of the fun parts because there’s plenty of creative ways to do this - without resorting to purchasing emails. Building an email list essentially involves two key elements that work together to grow subscriber numbers and that’s using lead magnets and opt-in forms.
Using lead magnets
A lead magnet should attract your prospects through the promise of value and is usually a free offer. This offer can be a lot of different things, and can be given in exchange for an email address. Checkout an example here.
But in a time when people can and should be protective of their personal information, you can’t expect for people to freely give away something like their email address without exchanging it for something of value to them, so you have to use lead magnets that are specifically useful and valuable to your target audience.
Some examples of lead magnets you can create include, but aren’t limited to:
- Infographics
- Ebooks
- White-paper
- Course or Webinar
- Tool
- Checklists
- Template
- Report or Study (or a digest of a handful of these)
You can even repurpose some of your existing content as a base for creating a new lead magnet that can funnel your audience into your newer, more relevant content.
Creating Lead Magnets that Work
Regardless if you’re creating your lead magnet from scratch or repurposing old content to attract new audiences, your choice of lead magnet should become an asset to the users who decide to become subscribers to your content. This investment in their attentions and needs will eventually pay off into them choosing to eventually purchase from you.
So how do you make a lead magnet that actually attracts your prospects? Here’s a guideline that can help direct your lead magnet creation.
1. Make your offer actionable and achievable:
Include practical information that solves a relatable problem and a realistic way to execute a solution.
2. Asset should be easy to consume:
Leads should be digitally accessible whether as a PDF, a video, or a webpage where it’s easy to access and reference. Ideally, these items should also allow for a flow to entice the consumer into more premium content.
3. Create your offer with future content in mind:
Part of planning your marketing strategy ahead of time is being able to plan the content you are slowly going to make available as you launch. So carefully crafting your content should help not only to maintain brand consistency, but help to continue to entice your audience into your future offerings. Which brings us to:
4. Treat your lead magnet as a gateway into your premium offers:
Not only should you make the offer be relevant and appealing by itself but you should also be offering lead magnets that can serve as teasers or gateways into your future offerings.
5. Create magnets that are relevant to each stage of the buyer’s journey:
Other than maintaining brand consistency as stated in a previous item, preparing each email on your marketing strategy should also aid your audience along a customer journey so you actually achieve lead conversion. Curate your email experience where you’re consistently enticing your reader to become a consumer without being pushy, and make sure you’re helping them long their journey with your business.
Creating an Opt-In Form
An opt-in form is how you’re going to get a prospect’s information and add them to your list. This is how you can develop an essential asset - a database that can funnel into future leads. An opt-in form has only a handful of components but all work together to provide a preview of the kind of content your readers would sign up for.
1. Use an attention-grabbing but relevant header:
Your form should be brand-consistent, with a standout header that both informs and entices your potential audience into accepting your lead magnet offer.
2. Make the copy clear about the offer:
While persuasive, your copy should also be upfront with the kind of information you’re giving in exchange for the value they’re looking for. Any information you present on the form should be an accurate representation of the offer.
3. Keep the form simple:
Having too much going on might discourage your prospects, so keep the fields few, simple, and easy to fill out. You can start with just their first name and email to stay safe.
4. Set your opt-in for double confirmation:
Some research on open rates suggest that a confirmed opt-in or COI email gets a more positive response from users more than a simple welcome email. While you are allowed to do both, first highlighting the COI then welcoming your new subscribers reassures that you’re helping to keep their data safe and that they’re 100% on board to hear more from you.
5. Ensure that the audience to subscriber experience flows:
Last but definitely not the least on this list, you need to put yourself in your potential subscriber’s shoes and ensure that the experience of subscribing to your content is a smooth one. Take note of any design flaws on your creative assets, web or mobile user experience - all of these add up and should aid in presenting a good first impression.
Sending your marketing emails
Once you’ve set up your opt-in form and your lead magnets, you can start sending out your emails - but make sure to keep the following best practices in mind!
Once you’ve got a robust list of subscribers and leads that are waiting to hear from you, don’t start emailing them like crazy unless you want to end up in their spam folders or worse, blocked.
1. Choose an email marketing serviceAn email marketing provider can make a lot of the process so much easier by providing support, data, and analytics that can help you fine-tune your strategy. If you do not nurture your new leads they will go cold and become dead leads. Make sure to delegate your email marketing efforts so you can continue to delight your audience and eventually convert them. Book a meeting to learn more about our email marketing services.
2. Use email marketing tips
Your goal for every email is to generate leads so an email marketing strategy is as much of an involved process like any other marketing business strategy you have on hand. A successful marketing email will have the following components:
- Copy
- Images
- CTA
- Timing
- Responsiveness
- Personalization
- Subject Line
3. Implement email segmentation
Email segmentation is what differentiates an email marketing strategy from a simple email blast. Segmentation just allows for you to carefully group your audience based on some common denominators and ensuring that you’re sending the right kind of email to the audience base it’ll have the best odds for engagement.
4. Personalize your email marketing
When you know who you’re emailing and what they want to hear from you, then add a personalized touch to your messaging! A few ways you can do this include:
- Using the subscriber’s first name on your subject line and/or greeting
- Be region-specific when appropriate
- Send relevant content that aligns with your lead’s lifecycle stage
- Write about personal, relevant events
- End your emails with a personal signature
- Use relevant call-to-actions that make sense within the content
5. Automate what you can automate
If the above mentioned seems like a lot, don’t worry - we can help you automate wherever possible by auto-grouping and auto segmenting your audience database and sending the right content to the right user.
6. Use templates
This can go hand-in-hand with any automation feature you might want to implement but when you can automate workflows and responses, using templates can help staying within brand and avoiding sounding like a bot - negating what we talked about on personalization. Choose tested email templates and work with your email service provider to customize them according to your brand and business.
There are other important legal internet rules that you need to keep in mind but I detail those specific email compliances here for future reading. While all of this can be overwhelming to keep track of in creating your first email strategy, don’t be discouraged! You can delegate this task to our team of experts that will create a strategy specific to your needs while staying on top of the changing trends and being in-the-know of any compliance rules to execute a successful email marketing strategy. Hop into a call with Carly here to get started!
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