If you think that mailing and email marketing are the same things, you’ve never been so wrong before. The first one is just a tool, while email marketing itself is a well-set mechanism, the smartest machine that turns:
- new subscribers into potential clients;
- leads into new customers;
- new customers into repeat clients;
- repeat clients into regular ones (ultimately, these are the ones that ensure stability for your business.)
As deplorable as it sounds, the most eloquent copywriter with unique content and the most creative designer with fantastic styling won’t make you the same profit that a skilled marketer will. Fortunately, technical progress doesn’t stand still. Nowadays, any entrepreneur can assemble a powerful machine for converting leads to regular customers, using just a chain of emails. This is our minimum program:
The final goal is to raise the lifetime customer value to the highest point in order to achieve the maximum financial result.
Lead Generation: How It Works?
No matter what type of business you have, there is an opportunity to follow up and nurture a relationship with your customers via email. It makes sense whether you run a shoe store or a professional practice. So, that is not something that works only for web-based companies. All you have to do is to “catch the attention” of potential clients, warm up the target audience, and lead customers to make a purchase. And of course, you also need to be able to send bulk emails without spamming them in order for your emails to be read. Nobody reads emails in the junk or spam folder.
The lead conversion can be achieved through referral links, phone calls, advertising, etc. If you’ve decided to use the first strategy and launch a powerful link building campaign, LinksManagement is a platform you should start with. If you aim to use email marketing for lead conversion, we’ve got good news for you too.
According to a recent study by McKinsey, email is still a significantly more effective way to acquire customers than social media. Just look at this diagram:
It is clear that email is still one of the most important channels and probably will remain important next few years. That’s why email deliverability should be one of your main focus too.
Based on the techniques of inbound marketing, lead conversion occurs on the second stage of lead generation (sorry for tautology.) It looks like this:
- Acquaintance with the company: the visitor learns about the brand through various marketing channels, such as blogs, social networks, or business sites.
- The visitor uses the call to action (CTA): it can be a button, message, or image that prompts a person to take advantage of the offer.
- The user goes to the landing page that collects useful information and forms a database of potential customers, providing a lucrative offer for the visitor in exchange.
A necessary disclaimer: the OFFER that you send to the subscriber and potential customer should Embrace the Value. It can be a free and useful online tool, an educational course, an original template, or an eBook. If you want the customers to give personal data, they should know that it is a profitable transaction.
Now, here is a five-phase plan for you to turn a stranger into a friend, customer, and a raving fan.
5 Steps to Maximize Lead Conversion Rates
Since email marketing is the most effective method of generating new leads, it makes sense for everyone to learn how to use this online tactic with maximum benefit.
- Identify the Buyer Persona
By trying to appeal to everyone, you appeal to no one. So, what you need to avoid is to have underdeveloped or neglected buyer personas. You should know who you are going after, what pains they are trying to solve, how to show up when they are searching for a solution to their problem.
A classic example – let’s suppose you want to build a deck on the back of your house or get somebody to build it for you. Do you call in a carpenter or your general handyman who also fixes your shower and plugs your drain? If you are everything to everybody, you are nothing to nobody. How to avoid that mistake? Define who your ideal client is and make a strategy that aims to solve their challenge.
- Create Conversion Emails
If you want to succeed in email marketing, it is necessary to motivate the target audience to interact, “push” them to take steps closer to conversion. Here are a few tricks you can take advantage of:
- Catchy subject lines
- High-quality, suitable images enhancing the message
- A concise and clear summary of the essence of the letter
- Relevant links for sharing in social networks
- A convincing call to action
- Storytelling
Rather than delivering a tip or advice in the email, make it count for more by including a short story that illustrates that point. Use “If this, then that” rule: if this happens then you do that. There are whole parts of the brain that light up and fire off when it hears a good story. Moreover, it makes the email more relatable and personal.
So, don’t explain how your clients can stage their homes to sell faster. Include a story about a past customer who has done that and ended up selling a house for $10,000 above asking price.
- Play the Hits
So many small businesses get intimidated when they start thinking about putting together an email campaign. But more times than not, they already have content that they can repurpose and string together into an email series.
So, if you have some blog post already, a podcast interview you did, or a new video, introduce it in the email and link to it!
- Simple Segmentation
Do not treat everyone the same. Don’t let everyone get the same autoresponder emails and the same broadcast. Divide your audience up to the point where you are learning more about them while giving something relevant for them. Create personalized interactions that increase customer lifetime value.
According to a recent study by MarketingSherpa, segmentation of the subscriber list boosts the percentage of emails open rate from 20 to 40% and skyrockets the conversion of mailing at the same time.
While working with your email list, try to separate the following categories of subscribers:
- Loyal followers and marketing leads
The ones that demonstrate an interest in your company or product. Notify them about the most advantageous offers and exclusive discounts, rewarding for loyalty. After all, keeping an existing customer is much cheaper than finding a new one.
- New subscribers
In the list, these people are not loyal to your company yet. Moreover, they barely know a thing about your service or product. You don’t have enough information about the interests of such clients to give them what they are looking for. So, for newbies in your database, use a special chain of emails, offering discounts for adding funds to their balance, for example. Track their reactions to these offers.
- Inactive followers
These subscribers can open and view your mails but don’t take any further actions (following links, registering or making a purchase). Try to include intriguing calls to action for such a group of subscribers, exclusive “closed” offers, or think of other ways to transfer them from passive readers to loyal followers.
The idea of targeting each segment with a distinct message or product is the heart of email marketing. Create a sales funnel around the purpose of helping your audience and use the entire arsenal of email marketing tools on the web. The key to converting leads is to think inside the clients’ inbox, understand their needs, and provide the maximum value!
About Author:-
Marie Barnes is a writer for Photza. She is an enthusiastic blogger interested in writing about technology, social media, work, travel, lifestyle, and current affairs.