A great way of developing relationships with your potential and existing customers is through email marketing, a very cost-effective marketing method – if you get it right. In this article, we explain six ways of using inbound email marketing tactics to increase your sales and build revenue.
Before you begin email marketing you'll want to set up a good contact management system (CMS). Otherwise, you may end up floundering to keep up with the details of who you've sent email campaigns to, when and why. But you need to do more than just set up the system. It's really important that it's kept up to date, or you could be wasting resources sending out emails to people who are no longer part of your target audience, and missing out on contacts with new leads.
Segmenting your email list allows you to make the emails you send much more relevant to their recipients. For example, you could target a campaign to people living or working in a specific city or region. You could send to people with certain job titles. Alternatively, you could segment your email campaigns based on how users responded in the past. That lets you personalise them much more, an important way to get attention.
However compelling and well-crafted your email, it won't have the right impact if it doesn't connect. Ensure you understand where your prospects are on their buying journey. There's no point in using the same tone and messaging for someone who's on the point of making a purchase as for someone still looking around. An email isn’t a begging letter. Every time you send an email, think about what value you're providing to its recipient, as well as your goal.
Don't leave contacts confused about what they're supposed to do next. You can't risk sending out a muddy, unclear message. Have a specific goal in mind that you want the reader to act on and keep that in mind throughout the email. Don't be tempted to add extra information that will only distract. Keep your point sharp, and make sure your email marketing software settings reflect what you want to say.
Sending out your emails is only part of the campaign. Stop there and you're likely to miss out on a lot of potential business. Your targets are probably as busy as you, and it's easy for emails to slip away. So always make sure you follow up with a suitable message a few days later. Be careful to keep it contextually appropriate, and to avoid anything that seems like spam. But not following up at all could easily be a big missed opportunity.
A key to business success is knowing as much as possible about your market. If you're not keeping track of how your emails perform, you won't know what works and what doesn't. Analysing your marketing emails and tracking how they perform, for example in A/B testing, can be a crucial tool in generating more leads – and so more sales.
Email marketing is an excellent way for a company to increase connection with a target audience, but it must be carried out with care. Do that and your sales will increase. At JDR, we use email marketing as part of a suite of strategies tailored to the growth goals of each customer. To discuss your goals and find out how we can help, please call 01332 343281.
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