I have come across many small businesses that have great products and services, but find it difficult to get paying customers.
How can we solve this problem?
We can solve this problem if we understand why it is so difficult to get customers.
It is difficult to get customers because:
- People usually only buy from people they know, like and trust.
- It takes an average of 7-12 exposures to a prospect before people buy.
These two are closely interconnected to each other…
To get people to buy from you, you need to get them to know, like and trust you, and they can’t do that unless they interact with you. Today, interactions are becoming increasingly online through social media and email marketing.
It takes at least 7-12 interactions with a prospect before they know, like and trust you enough to take the next step with you, to make even a small purchase. Again, these interactions are increasingly becoming online.
Why Email Marketing?
To be able to actively interact with people on an ongoing basis, it is important to have their contact information. That is where email marketing comes in. We need to create a mechanism where we can get the email address of a prospect, usually in exchange for providing them some useful information or report in exchange for their email address. We can then email them with their permission with useful information that will help build the know, like and trust factor. Then if we make an offer to them, they are more willing to buy.
How to do Email Marketing?
For email marketing to be effective, people should open your emails. Here are 5 tips to engage with your audience effectively through email marketing:
1. Have the right content, the right conversation
In email marketing, if you have the right content, you will be able to engage your clients in a conversation, and will not just be throwing details at them. The right conversation needs to begin with three important steps:
a) Perfect subject writing: To make sure people actually open your email, a great subject writing is very important. A dull subject will lead to your email being deleted.
b) A distinctive and entertaining voice: Being distinctive and entertaining is important to ensure that once your mail is opened, it is read, and keeps the readers engaged.
c) Tailored content: Content should be customized depending on the previously collected data or demography of the subscriber, and should encourage them to engage with you, take up a given offer, or pass your email to other prospective clients.
2. Make your email interesting from the very moment it reaches your recipient’s inbox
Just like it is important for the headline of the newspaper to be interesting to grab your attention, similarly your subject line needs to be very appealing. This is the first way you can grab your reader’s attention, and ensure they open your mail. So, write something that makes them curious, and wants them to read more. But, just an interesting subject line is not enough, it should be backed by great content, or else your email will land in the trash.
3. Give importance to a call to action and links
You have created an email marketing campaign to increase traffic to your website and landing page. If there are no clicks, then you will have no customers. So, it is very important for your links to be obvious, and allow readers more than a single chance to interact. This can be helped with a perfect call to action that speaks to feelings and emotions. If you just use ‘Click Here’ that will not really work these days – you need to connect that request to click with a benefit your reader will get.
Call to actions need to be exciting enough to entice your audience. For instance, a ‘Click Here’ or ‘Learn More’ is not as interesting as ‘Download Your Free Report’.
4. Make it mobile friendly
The first thing most people do after waking up in the morning is check their phones. In fact, most emails are opened on tablets or smartphones. So, remember, if your emails are not optimized to be viewed on such devices, then you likely are missing out on a big number of clicks.
5. Test before sending
Never send anything before you actually check if it is working. Test internally, using all major providers like Gmail, Yahoo, etc., and also the most popular mobile phones. Make sure your emails do not fall apart, no personalization is failing, and all your links are working. If you send your emails without testing, and it does not work, you will end up looking unprofessional and foolish. So, check your emails before sending.
When Email Marketing?
The email addresses of your prospects is one of the most important assets for digital marketing. Once you get their email addresses, when do you email them? There are two ways to email:
1) Your reader would have given you their email address in exchange for a freebie from you that they find useful. So, the first ‘when’ of email marketing is to email them the freebie they signed up for. Then follow up with around 7-10 emails with useful content. This is done using the auto-responder feature of your email service provider such as Aweber, ActiveCampaign, GetResponse or MailChimp.
2) Whenever you have something to promote or launch, send everybody email blasts that both send useful content and information about your product. This is done using the ‘broadcast’ feature of your email service.
While auto-responder mails help in building the “know, like and trust” factor with your audience, most sales happen through broadcast mails for your product launch.
So, if you create a mechanism to capture your prospect’s email address by offering them something useful in exchange, email them content they find very valuable through autoresponder mails and through broadcast mails, and make them tempting offers through your email calls to action, you have a great chance of attracting many more customers and much more sales than you thought possible!
Interested to know more? Click here to get a FREE report on how you can grow your business through email marketing.
Author:
Binod Maliel | Helping Small Businesses Attract More Customers Through Digital Marketing
Having served in the corporate world for nearly two decades, Binod is an author, executive coach and international trainer on project management and leadership. His passion to help small businesses attract more clients led him to setting up 360DigitalStrategies.com, which helps small businesses attract more clients using digital marketing, and provides training in digital marketing strategies.
In addition, Binod is also a trainer at the Business Development Center Bangalore, a program that aims to train and support entrepreneurs to start and grow successful businesses.
Contact: binod@360digitalstrategies.com | www.360DigitalStrategies.com