What drives your business?
For many people, the answer might be sales. You need revenue to succeed.
Of course though, to make sales, there’s a whole process that comes first, and one of the most important parts of this is being able to build relationships. In the eyes of many businesses, one of the best ways to do this is through email marketing.
With the right email marketing campaign, you can reach a huge audience, building new relationships with customers, and bringing in sales. As with any marketing, ROI is key, so here are 10 email marketing strategies that can drive sales.
1. Set Expectations with Your Welcome Email
People are protective of their email addresses.
While email is an amazing tool, it’s also a source of great frustration (how often do you go through your inbox unsubscribing from unwanted emails?) Unfortunately, there’s a lot of poor email marketing happening out there, and people don’t want to give out their personal details just so they can be spammed (it’s thought that nearly 29% of emails are spam).
One way you can allay these fears is by setting expectations with your welcome email.
Highlight what information you will provide with your emails and how often your subscribers can expect to hear from you.
This goes for both hot and cold outreach, people are much more likely to engage if they know what to expect.
2. Use Your Brand Voice to Stand Out
It’s easy to get trapped in this idea that emails are about business writing and you have to stick to a certain style. This is marketing though, and marketing takes personality and creativity.
People have signed up for your email communications because they like what you offer.
A big part of email marketing is being able to convey your message in the limited space available to you. A unique brand voice is one of the most powerful ways you can do this and ensure people look forward to receiving your emails.
Showcase your unique character in your emails and build the connection between your subscribers and your brand.
If you don’t already have a clear picture of your brand voice, then look through your content and see what makes you unique. By keeping a consistent voice and using tools like personalized email signatures, you give your business a human feel that’s vital in marketing.
3. Understand What You’re Trying to Achieve
There’s no point aimlessly sending out the odd email saying “buy this.”
Making sales is about building relationships, and this takes time. People don’t often make a purchase after their first interaction with your business. Instead, you’ve got to create touchpoints with the customer and understand how to guide them through the customer journey.
To do this, you should have a clear picture of what each email is trying to achieve. “Are you trying to send a client questionnaire to get some feedback? Or, do you simply want to share some product news?”
Part of this is realizing that most of the time your goal isn’t to sell – it’s about building a relationship and to do this, you’ve got to put the reader’s goals first.
4. Provide Real Value
Building a relationship (one that results in sales) is about give and take.
If you want people to spend their time reading your emails, then you’ve got to make it worth their while. How can you offer the reader value with each email?
- Entertainment
- Actionable insights
- Professional knowledge
- Discounts, prizes
People are giving up their time to open and read your email, so what’s in it for them? Only when you provide value will they feel you’ve respected their time.
5. Personalize Through Segmentation
One of the best ways you can maximize the value for the reader is through personalization.
When you use segmentation, it means you can serve people with the types of content they’re looking for. Not every last detail has to be personalized, but by making use of these features, you’re treating people more as an individual and less as a number.
There are lots of different ways you can segment your audience:
- Demographics
- Geographical
- Survey results
- Past purchases
- Website behavior
- Position in the sales funnel
- Whether they’ve opened past emails
74% of marketers said personalization of emails improves engagement, and it’s important to use all the tools available to you in this area.
6. Use Subject Lines to Grab Attention
You’ve got a limited amount of space to grab people’s attention. In the blink of an eye, people decide whether your email is worth opening or not, and one of the few things they have to go on is the subject line.
This makes your subject line extremely important and while it might only be a few words long, those words need careful consideration.
Being creative with your subject lines is a way to give people a reason to open your emails.
Here are some tactics you can use to grab attention with your subject lines:
- Use personalization
- Create urgency
- Spark curiosity
- Highlight an offer
- Lead into a story
7. Drive Action with Strong CTA’s
You’re sending an email because you want people to take a certain action.
Just because you have an action in mind doesn’t mean it is obvious to everyone else though. If you want people to take a certain action, then you’ve got to make it obvious what you want from them.
This is where clear CTA’ can make a big difference.
For example, if you want people to book in for a free consultation, then these email request templates can be a big help. You can’t just hope for people to take action, you’ve got to guide them in the right direction.
8. Cold vs Hot Emails
It’s important to remember that email marketing works in a lot of different settings. We tend to think of email marketing as newsletters, abandoned cart reminders, etc, but it’s also a useful tool for cold outreach.
This may be something that works really well for your business, and the same tips apply. People often get too salesy with cold emails, but again, the important thing is being able to grab people’s attention and build a relationship.
One thing you’ll also have to focus on with cold outreach is how you follow up on emails that don’t get a response.
9. Use A/B Testing to Optimize
The words you use in your copy, the time and day you send each email, the interval between emails, different CTA’s – there are so many different variables that decide the success of your email marketing.
This is why a/b testing is so important.
It allows you to understand what works and what doesn’t, gradually perfecting your campaigns. The right email service provider should make it easy to a/b test your emails and pinpoint which techniques are working for you and which ones aren’t.
10. Continue to Engage
You put a lot of effort into building a relationship with your customers. It may have taken months of email marketing for them to actually make a purchase.
Surely, after all the hard work, you want to keep nurturing the relationship?
Achieving the initial sale is great, but that shouldn’t be where your email communication ends. Keep engaging with your customer and providing them with value through your emails.
Make sure your email marketing includes post-sale care and continues to offer value.
Conclusion
Email marketing is an important tool for any business.
Whereas with other channels, you generally have one opportunity to make a big impression, email allows you to create multiple touchpoints and gradually build the relationship. The key thing here is your email marketing strategy though.
People are naturally dubious when new emails pop into their inboxes. They don’t want to spend their time sifting through spam, so your strategies need to cut through the doubt, grabbing people’s attention, and offering real value.
If you can do this, then you’ll likely find your email marketing brings in an excellent ROI.
