You have customers, and they want your products. How are you going to get it to them? Email.
“The best marketing doesn’t feel like marketing.” – Tom Fishburne
http://www.benchmarkemail.com/blogs/detail/the-best-quotes-on-email-marketing
Key Takeaways for this post:
- Email marketing is KEY to automated sales
- It’s 100x easier than you think
- Don’t get confused by all the tools
Email Marketing is about more than just ‘growing your email list.’
Email marketing is not just about growing a large database of email addresses and leads. Thinking like that is only going to lead to disappointment. “There’s money in the list” is a common statement among internet marketers, but the truth is that you need to nurture and look after your list in order for that list to cough up any money. It’s not about the size of the list, but about your relationship with the people in that list.
Email marketing isn’t dead, emails are still the #1 way to talk to your leads and customers. People look at SEO, Social Media and PPC as the three most powerful ways to find customers, but every one of those platforms is owned by somebody else. Facebook could turn around tomorrow and totally change how businesses promote on Facebook.
You own a database. You own your list of leads and customers. You can talk and communicate with them however you want. With cheap software like Aweber, MailChimp and Active Campaign, you can automate how often you talk to customers and convert them into sales.
Finally, customers READ emails. If you’re worried about spam, just think about what spam is. Unwarranted and unwanted, non-helpful and invasive emails. Are you planning on sending those types of emails? I hope not. Don’t forget, these people gave you their information intentionally.
If I got an email every hour and each time I opened it, I made $1, I would BEG for those emails to come through. If I got an email every month and it was just trying to sell me something, I’d get bored and probably unsubscribe.
Think about how much value you want to send to your list, and deliver that.
Email has an ability many channels don’t – creating valuable, personal touches – at scale.
https://blog.mailerlite.com/20-awesome-quotes-about-email-marketing/
What usually goes wrong?
You’re not accumulating new leads
It sounds like I’m contradicting myself here, but building fresh leads is key to email marketing. Your approach to building email marketing needs to have an email and lead capture process.
Its so important to find and capture more leads and emails because it gives you a better idea of what people want. For example, some of our lead magnets just don’t convert traffic into leads. Whereas others capture emails like crazy. We then have proof that people are looking for certain solutions or messaging that connects with them.
According to the Direct Marketing Association, Email marketing yields an estimated 4,300 percent ROI. Every dollar spent on email marketing offers a return of $44, says ExactTarget.
https://www.entrepreneur.com/article/251752
You’re just afraid to start
The most common problem with email marketing is when people have a small list (4 or 5 people) and they don’t want to start marketing to such a small number. For some reason they think it’s embarrassing or a waste of time.
In fact, you NEED to start early and get your message out there as soon as you can. If you don’t, two things are going to happen.
- Your list is going to forget who you are. If you decide to email them when you’ve got 100 people, the original subscribers will have long forgotten about you. When you do email them, you’re never going to get a return from them.
- The reasons to start are never going to be compelling enough and you’ll never start. Is 100 people enough? 1000? If you’re unsure of what to do now, why would you be any better in 96 subscribers time?
Bite the bullet and start talking to your list now. Learn from your mistakes early and grow your database before emailing larger lists. Your list doesn’t know they’re only 4 people. Start talking to them now and get used to the process.
You’re sending dull emails
Without a doubt, the worst offense you can commit with email marketing is BORING emails. Truly, nothing gets people to unsubscribe, forget or plain hate you than a dull email.
Stay away from standard subject lines and email headers. Say interesting things. Be different. And make it REALLY clear who you are and who is sending the emails.
If you honestly don’t think your emails are worth $1 in value – don’t send them. You’d be better off writing an open letter to your list, telling them what you’ve done this week and the blog articles you’ve read, than just sending blog posts via email for the sake of it.
44% of email recipients made at least one purchase last year based on a promotional email
https://www.salesforce.com/blog/2013/07/email-marketing-stats.html
So how do we “crush it” at email marketing?
Introducing: “Value stack” emails
Givers get. Simple as that. If you give as much interesting and useful content away as you can – you’ll be rewarded in kind. If you want more sales, show people how to make sales.
Value stack emails are a method of layering up or ‘stacking’ the value that your subscribers get. If they sign up to a guide on flower arranging, then make sure the following emails that they get are based around flower arranging.
Send blogs, videos, articles, curated content letters etc. The more varied the better. It’s a safe bet that if someone wants information on Lamborghinis, then sending them more content on Lamborghinis will do you well.
Eventually, you’ll want to move them into other silos. Ask them what they want to look at next or think about the next logical step. For example, people interested in Lamborghinis may likely be interested in Ferraris, Aston Martin, and Rolls Royce. So reach out to them and see what they want help with next.
These are free, easily accessible pieces of content. No sales made yet, we’re just trying to show how useful and helpful we are.
Finally, hit ’em with a “sales email”
Sales emails sounds like a tacky 80’s term. But all we’re really asking is “look, you’ve consumed all this free content. If you’re serious about [TOPIC] then you need to check out [PRODUCT].”
We just look at the next sensible step that a customer could take and offer them that step. If they’ve downloaded and read a lot of posts on cleaning your car, offering them some car cleaning products are the next thing.
People get wound up with sales emails, they think that they’re hard to create. If you sent an email with a massive button saying BUY NOW and a price, you’ll still generate some sales. The problem is that you’d need to have a larger list to make it worthwhile. What we want is more sales from a smaller list.
That’s when smarter sales emails come into play. We use the messaging of “if you’re serious about [TOPIC] then you need to check out [PRODUCT].” After a period of time when we’ve been sending value stack emails, we then send a sales email asking they want to take it to the next level.
“Next stage” emails are what’s next.
Your email list are going to be at multiple stages. Some are new leads, others have subscribed for a while. Some are customers, others have just bought one product.
How do you move people to a more profitable customer status? If they’re all at different stages, surely an email newsletter once a week isn’t going to cover it all?
Well you’re right, and the way to remedy all these different stages is automation. Aweber and MailChimp have great automation, and if you’re looking at more complex products, they’re all about offering epic automation. InfusionSoft, Active Campaign, Marketo, etc.
Let’s take a core product customer for example. They’ve just bought [PRODUCT] and you want to grow that relationship. A great way to start is with the cross-sell. For example, if we take someone buying a flat-screen HD TV. Once they’ve bought it, you’ve got a range of options to help them “get the same results”. Items like product insurance, wall mounts, HDMI cables etc.
Amazon shows this automation off best with their recommended products. They have an automation trigger set up that sends customers an email with products in the same categories. Or, with similar purchasing habits.
Summary
Without a doubt, our favorite email is a sales email. There’s something really exciting about writing and crafting an email that could generate sales on automation. We have had customers ask us “but what if we don’t have a list?” and that’s fine. We totally get that, but we’ve found that usually they DO have a list, just not all in one place, and it’s never too late (or too early) to start.
Takeaway
If email marketing is a serious growth option for you (and I’m betting it is) then you need to check out our email marketing master plan. It’s got everything you need to automate and market with emails to your customers. Sign up below.
