Sending well-written, targeted emails remains an effective way to generate leads.
You’ve hired a graphic designer and professional copywriter to create an e-newsletter for marketing your company. It looks great, sounds even better. Now all you need to do is get it in the hands of your customers. Should you open your address book, set up your email and just hit SEND? No way!
In today’s spam-filled world, you can’t do mass emailings on your own, at least not with any degree of success. Your email will likely get stopped by spam filters, and you risk being flagged as a spammer, no matter how clean the content of your email.
To do a mass mailing (50 emails and up), you need to use an email marketing service like Constant Contact, iContact or AWeber. These vendors are approved email marketing companies.
That means that mail sent through their servers will get through most email providers (like Gmail, AOL, Hotmail, Yahoo, etc.). Claiming a 95% or better delivery rate, they get your message straight to your contact’s inbox – not a SPAM filter.
Increasing email delivery success is just one reason to use email marketing companies. You can also use them to maintain your database. Keep all your lists on your mailhouse’s server, which is secure and backed up frequently.
Segment your database into categories and create focused emails that speak to that category’s unique needs.
You can also break your lists into niche segments. For example, let’s say you are a real estate company selling property to investors. One of your niches might be beachfront property. You might have a list of potential buyers who have expressed an interesting in that particular type of real estate. When you come across a beachfront property, you can do a targeted mailing to them.
Other niche lists might be geographically focused, such as investors interested in Florida property; or price focused, such as investors interested in properties selling in the $1 million range. You can create as many lists as you’d like, managing all of them from one account, easily and cost-effectively.
One of the best ways to increase the number of subscribers on your mailing list is to offer a lead magnet. A lead magnet, also called an opt-in offer, is something of value that you provide to users for free. But in order to receive the lead magnet, the prospect needs to provide his or her email address.
The lead magnet is usually a piece of digital, downloadable content. Some effective lead magnets are:
Lead magnets should demonstrate your expertise by solving a problem or answer burning questions the user likely has. They should be quick to digest, highly specific and instantly accessible.
Your email list will grow quickly when you offer an enticing lead magnet that has value for users.
With a good lead magnet, you can quickly build your email list and keep it growing as new people request it. Your mailhouse can help you publish a subscriber form on your site and automate the sending out of your lead magnet when people sign up.
If you’d like to have your mailing be more than plain text, you can come up with a design from scratch or use a template.
Most email service companies offer a wide variety of templates to choose from. You can customize them with your own logo, colors and images to create professional-looking mailers that support your brand. The templates are easy to use. If you can cut, paste, point and click, you’re good to go!
Email campaigns should be just one component of your comprehensive marketing strategy.
The most attractive mailing is useless if the copy doesn’t help you meet your objective. Good content is a necessity whether you want your emails to enhance your professional image, build your brand, sell your products or simply remind the prospect you exist.
Consider hiring a professional copywriter who can craft email copy that gets the results you seek. The money you invest in quality copywriting will pay off for you many times over.
Your email service company can provide you with informative stats each time you do a mailing. Its easy-to-read reports can help you determine what’s working and what isn’t. You can see how many people opened your email, how many clicked through to any links you provided and how many forwarded your email.
By tracking the results of your email campaigns, you can determine what’s working and keep improving.
With email web analytics, you’ll also be able to answer questions like: Is your signup form grabbing visitors’ attention? What’s the best time to send your email newsletter? Does the short version of your next campaign drive more sales than the long version?
With that information at hand, you’ll be able to make marketing decisions and create content that will most appeal to your audience.
Email service companies are surprisingly affordable. Most charge a monthly fee based on how many names are in your total database.
For 500 names, you can expect to pay approximately $20 per month. For 10,000 names, you’ll pay approximately $75 per month. And for 25,000 names, the cost is $150 per month.
You can do as many mailings as you’d like without paying anything additional. And, best of all, with email you never have to factor in postage, all the more reason to make email promotions an important part of your marketing program.
Wow! Sounds great! I’d call that a wrap. Thank you so much for bearing with me. This was well worth the effort. Really sends the message home – POW!
Corey Hooper
President
Creators Bounty
Lighthouse Point, Florida
Susan Greene
Professional Copywriter
Affordable Rates
Orlando, Florida
floridacopywriter@gmail.com
(407) 578-5528
