How to Grow Your List and Get Leads Through Email Marketing
Direct mail is to the real world what email marketing is to the digital world. Email marketing has been around for so long (the first email marketing blast was sent in 1978, as a matter of fact) that it can seem like an outdated dinosaur when compared to more modern forms of advertising, like social media and video ads.
Not to mention, we all have a precarious relationship with email marketing. Every one of us is inundated with emails every single day that we never even open. It can be hard to believe that your emails would be any different when they land in someone else’s inbox.
The truth is, 50 percent of people buy from marketing emails at least once per month, 59 percent say emails have influenced their purchases, and consumers spend an average of 10 seconds reading brand emails.
Email really is a successful way to market your business!
But…
As is the case with any advertising campaign, you’ll only get out what you put in. You can’t just send a boring, valueless email and expect to grow your list or generate a steady stream of leads.
Here’s what you need to know to grow your list and make email marketing a successful way for your business to generate leads.
Know Who You’re Targeting
You could think you have the coolest emails ever, but that doesn’t mean your audience does. Especially if you don’t know exactly who you’re targeting.
Before you dig into the details, figure out your audience according to their:
- Lifestyle
- Occupation
- Shopping interests
- Travel preferences
- Income
- Home and where they live
- Religion
- Hobbies
Once you know who you’re targeting, you can do a better job of making sure you choose the right tactics and content.
Know What Email Marketing is, and What It Isn’t
Email marketing is pretty simple. It involves sending emails to your target audience, but how you target your audience matters.
If you want your email marketing campaign to work, you have to get crystal clear about what you want your emails to do. The simpler your message is, and the more appropriate it is for your audience, the better your ROI will be.
Some common email marketing tactics include:
- Building relationships by engaging with your audience in a personal way
- Boosting brand awareness to make sure you’re top-of-mind when your audience is ready to take action
- Promoting new content on your website or sharing useful resources you have created
- Generating leads by enticing subscribers to provide you with their info
- Marketing your current or upcoming line of products and services
- Nurturing your leads by providing your audience with content they find valuable
- Providing your audience with first access to new products, services, or materials
Your email marketing campaign isn’t going to be able to do all of those things. Especially all at once. Choose one or two to focus on and let your strategy evolve over time according to how well your emails perform.
Tips to Grow Your List
Using a lead magnet is one of the best ways to grow your list. It involves offering something for free. It could be a free eBook, a checklist, a webinar, or anything else you can think of that your target audience might want. They give you their email address and you send them the free offer. Once you have their email address, you can continue to send them email newsletters.
Whether you use a lead magnet or not, you should also provide visitors to your website with an easy opportunity to enter their email address into an opt-in form. You never know who may resonate with your message and want to learn more about your business—no freebies required.
Creating Messages That Connect
A generic message isn’t going to cut it if you want to connect with your target audience. You have to make them feel like you really get them. That means:
- Adding their first name to the subject line or your greeting
- Including region-specific information, when appropriate
- Ending your emails with a personal signature—not the name of your company
The content in your email matters too, of course! Only send content that is relevant to your lead’s lifecycle stage and related to the last engagement they had with your brand.
If you really want to connect, send something funny, something that helps their personal growth, or be vulnerable about a challenge you’re facing. The more relatable you seem, the more they will connect with your brand.
Timing matters too! Sending too many emails can feel spammy, while not sending enough can make your leads forget all about you. It’s important to choose an email schedule that nurtures your leads, even if the schedule isn’t the most convenient for you.
Manage Your Expectations
Even with the most amazing emails in the world, you aren’t going to get 100 percent engagement. It’s normal to strive for a 10 percent open and 2 percent click-through rate. Don’t take it personally. People are busy and inboxes are full. They may not have the time to pay attention to your message now, but that doesn’t mean they won’t click on your email later.
It’s also important to keep in mind that email marketing is often a waiting game. Just because your subscribers don’t take action after you send the first email—or the first 10 emails—doesn’t mean they won’t take action when the time is right.
Contact Sierra Productions For a Free Consultation
Have customers from different backgrounds with different interests? Are you finding it difficult to differentiate your email marketing campaigns, depending on the profiles of your subscribers?
We can help you reach customers directly in their inbox with targeting tactics, push-to-open, and re-targeting campaigns that result in measurable engagement with your audience.
With over 25 years of experience, you can bet that we know what it takes to create a personalized email marketing campaign that really works. Contact us today for a free consultation!
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Email: info@sierraproductions1.com
Website: Sierraproductions1.com
Phone: New York (212)-359-9497 | Dallas (469)-661-1411
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