The goal of every business is to have a consistent flow of new prospects and have the ability to turn them into regular customers. E-mail marketing is an easy, effective and inexpensive vehicle to achieve this goal.
The first step in generating new prospects through e-mail marketing is to determine what you’re going to use to get your contact list, either rent a list or generate your own contact list.
Generating your own “opt-in” list is always the most effective way to go. Many businesses have found success through unique content on their website as a means to draw prospects in and have them opt-in. These potential customers are usually highly engaged, interested in new products and ready to receive information about your product or service.
This is also the time to formulate your plan, determine what are you looking to achieve? Random, spastic effort will only help you achieve frustration. Knowing where you’re going before you start, makes achieving one’s goal much easier.
Once you gain new prospects, how do you convert them to customers through e-mail marketing? Everything starts with a well-crafted “welcome letter.” Smart use of a dynamic welcome letter can help you segment and target your list by interest.
For example, a retailer can provide direct links to specific products. This is also the time to brand your product in the prospect’s mind. Your welcome letter will have the highest open rate of any communications you send out and the opportunity shouldn’t be wasted, unfortunately many businesses fail to capitalize on this one time opportunity.
Prospects receive hundreds of e-mails. Stand out from the crowd by using the information you gather through your sign-up process and welcome letter to develop dynamic content and a targeted message. Instead of a sales pitch, supply your prospects with knowledge. A well-educated consumer is a life long customer.
If your market is B to B, explain how you can help them grow their business. Don’t supply a “cookie cutter” approach; everyone likes to feel their business is important to their suitor. Demonstrate how you can provide a high ROI.
In addition to targeted, dynamic content, personalize your message. A more conversational e-mail will engage a reader. You can easily test this by doing A/B testing of some one-to-one prospecting e-mails.
Create two e-mails, one very informal and conversational, the other more like a product pitch. Send both out to potential customers and see which one performs best. If your results are typical, you’ll find that people are much more likely to respond to the informal personalized message.
How do you accomplish this? Personalization is key. Addressing someone by name shows you put effort toward reaching out to that prospect. Most e-mail campaign service providers offer this as an option with a simple click, assuming you captured their name during the sign up process.
When targeting your e-mail, develop content that is relative to each prospect. For example, if your product or service could be used differently for different market sectors, then create an e-mail for each targeted group, outlining the specific benefits of your product or service for each target market.
Once you turn your prospects into customers, work at keeping them engaged with your company. Have regular e-mail correspondences with your customers. Keep them informed of new products or features of your service and how they can apply them to their business.
E-mail makes it easy, efficient and cost effective to stay in contact with your customers and provide them with relative, current information.
Like all things in business you just have to do it and do it consistently.
The absolute last thing you want to do is bombard your customers with noise for a couple of weeks and then have no contact for a couple of months.
Correspond when you have something to say, once or twice a week should be plenty. If you miss a week or two don’t sweat it, steady consistent contact with pertinent information is the most important thing.
If you have any questions please feel free to contact me.
Jon Simms
jon@simmsmotorsportsmarketing.com
