Marketing through email has stood the test of time and the constant evolution of digital marketing to prove itself invaluable. Email marketing leads are more important today than ever. Email allows you to reach out and make a personal connection to your audience, creating the opportunity for more conversions. Building and nurturing relationships between potential […]
Marketing through email has stood the test of time and the constant evolution of digital marketing to prove itself invaluable. Email marketing leads are more important today than ever. Email allows you to reach out and make a personal connection to your audience, creating the opportunity for more conversions. Building and nurturing relationships between potential customers and your brand through B2B lead outreach is essential to the success of your business.
Wondering just how relevant marketing through email is? According to Statista, email spend for email advertising in the U.S. alone is expected to increase from $270 million in 2015 to $350 million by 2019. With the number of U.S. internet users who send at least one email per month expected to rise to 251.8 million people by 2019, the numbers speak for themselves. Your business can’t afford the opportunity cost of not pursuing email marketing leads.
It’s been shown that people who buy products marketed via email spend an average of 138% more than those who received no email offers. With people on the go, a whopping 56% of email is now opened on a mobile device. Given there are an estimated 281 billion business and consumer emails sent and received every day, that number is staggering. It also means your email lead generation efforts need to stand out. They can’t just be cookie-cutter blasts that inevitably end up in the trash folder (or worse, never make it past the spam folder).
Simply put, your competition is using email lead generation. Why aren’t you? If you are, let’s show you how to generate even more email marketing leads.
First, we’ve been throwing around the term email marketing leads a lot, but what is that? A lead is a potential customer who has expressed interest in your product or service by taking an action. This sounds very clinical so let’s put it in more plain terms. A lead is someone who has already interacted with your brand purposefully and is, therefore, more likely to convert.
This interaction might’ve been via an email opt-in (hence, email lead generation) or another source. Email marketing leads are one of the most direct paths to connect with potential customers. You are given a direct link to them. That being said, there are numerous ways to lose members on your email list, so getting their information is not the end of the work. In order to convert those leads into sales, you have to nurture the relationship. Freebie content via drip campaigns, automated opt-in responses (personalized, of course), and consistent communication are key elements of email lead generation. After all, what’s the point in generating the lead if you aren’t going to do anything with it? To help with these, there are tons of lead generation tools available at your disposal.
In order to successfully generate these email marketing leads, you need a strategy.
Email marketing leads don’t magically appear! Are your efforts failing to result in more email lead generation? Then you may need to reexamine your strategy. This strategy needs to be targeted and specific. Understand what you want the specific end result of this particular campaign to be and center on that; not every email needs to be all-encompassing. Too much information becomes overwhelming or, frankly, boring. Your potential leads aren’t going to finish reading your novel of an email and you’ll have wasted time, money, and effort.
Important strategy elements include consistent communication, providing engaging content, and always incorporating a call to action. Consistent communication will keep your business at the forefront of their mind. Don’t go overboard, though. A barrage of emails is a major turnoff to most consumers. When you send content to your contacts, make it purposeful (more on that later). Keeping your content engaging goes along with this. Make your communication something leads will look forward to and want to interact with!
So you’re ready to generate more email marketing leads now, right? Great! We’ll dive in and provide excellent tips on how to generate more email marketing leads through successful campaigns.
To optimize your marketing through email, there are specific actions you can take. Some of these may come across as purely logical, but too many poorly-constructed emails are sent daily. Follow these guidelines and the effort you put in with marketing through email should increase your business. After all, you want to be part of the group seeing an average ROI of $38 for every $1 spend on email marketing, right?
When you’re marketing through email, it’s important to know where your lead is in the sales funnel. Are they just starting out? Are they set to purchase? Optimizing your content for where they are in the process is the best way to present yourself. This will position you exactly where they are without being too pushy or making them uncomfortable. You will lead them down the funnel to your product or service. This can also result in new leads from satisfied customers. Never underestimate the value of word of mouth or the forward button on an email!
In accordance with the CAN-SPAM legislation, companies are not to use “no reply” in the sender name of their emails. Why? This violates the recipient’s ability to opt out of future emails. That being said, however, why would you want to use “no reply” anyway? Sending an email from a “no reply” sender is the quickest way to ensure your email is never opened and immediately trashed. For someone working for email marketing leads, this is a bad tactic! Send even your automated emails from an email with a name. Leads are much more likely to open an email they believe is created and sent by a human than something clearly automated.
Starting at the top of your email, don’t underestimate the value of the subject line! How are you planning to generate more leads with email marketing if those leads don’t know what they’re being sent? Your subject lines should be clear, short, and direct. The recipient should know what to generally expect when they open your email just from the subject line. Don’t come across too gimmicky or spammy. Consider, also, that way your audience is primarily viewing their emails! Shorter subject lines may benefit those with audiences who mainly check email via mobile devices. This little line holds a lot of weight, doesn’t it? Don’t underestimate its potential!
This is plain and simple: get to the point. If you’re simply sending out dry, boring content, who wants to read it? Consider this: you’re only as memorable as your last email. If your email marketing leads are being bored to tears, your conversion rate will suffer. Furthermore, you’ll likely see an increase in people unsubscribing to your email list. You worked hard for those contacts, keep them! Write clear, concise emails. There’s no need for a novel. You can always send out more emails later! Your content should be purposeful and direct, but don’t forget to make it simultaneously personable.
Being personable here is two-fold. First, when you create your emails they should read like information from a friend. They should be addressed to their name, not a generic “hello friend” or any variation of that. Coming across as cold, indifferent, or just hungry for a sale is a turnoff. You won’t generate further leads by being a vulture. Consumers smell the desperation from a mile away. There are endless ways to automate emails to include forms of personalization. One example is using their name in the salutation. Yes, people know things are automated but that doesn’t mean they don’t appreciate the effort being made nonetheless. If you feel a personal connection to a brand, you’re more likely to consider it and more likely to convert. That’s the end goal, isn’t it? Triggered emails also provide personalization, in a sense, but more on that shortly.
The second meaning of being personable here is making sure your targets are receiving emails relevant to them. You won’t generate email marketing leads if you’re sending out irrelevant content. Make sure your target is categorized correctly in the proper email chain. This is even more important in the beginning stages of the relationship. Once you’ve built a relationship, one slip up may go overlooked. At the beginning, however, it’s a deal breaker for some.
Continuing with the notion of personalization in your marketing through email, we look at triggered emails. These are emails triggered by specific actions taken by your target. You can create great opportunities for lead generation this way. Consider triggered emails at various stages of your target’s website visit. You can have these set for signing up for your newsletter, buying a product, signing up for blog updates, etc. There’s no limit to the number of ways you can capitalize on opportunities with specific leads. It could be this personalized email marketing technique that converts your new lead!
Our last tactic for successful email lead generation is to always include a call to action or CTA. This CTA should be clear and measurable. Examples of a CTA are Buy Now, Get Started, and Download Now. Your CTA will vary depending on what you’re offering in your email and what the purpose of your email is. The engagement from this call to action is part of the interaction between your brand and your lead. Always ensure to use your brand’s voice and tone. It’s a relationship, not a commercial.
There are a million ways to use email marketing to generate more leads. You can personalize every aspect to your potential customers. The more personalization, the better. If you’re not seeing the results you want, reexamine your efforts and make sure you’re following these guidelines. Optimize your communication for the results you want. Email marketing leads are important and vital to the success of your business. The effort put into email marketing will pay off. Don’t be left behind wondering what else you might’ve done for the success of your business. Which of these changes do you need to implement most?
At Brenton Way, we’re here to help you generate leads and implement an email marketing strategy that will help your business grow.
