If you have an email marketing list, you no doubt have sent the common newsletter email. Maybe you send it once a week, month, quarter, etc... Email marketing newsletters tend to have newsy topics in them, along with some hopeful action for a sale.
While it's nice to send a newsletter on a regular basis, it's even more important to go beyond these untargeted, broad emails to nurture leads and work towards closing sales.
Conversion Follow-up Emails
We're an inbound marketing agency, so our focus is always getting you more business through your website. One of the key steps in the Inbound process is to convert website visitors into leads.
Your job as an inbound marketer doesn't end there. You must follow up with leads on a regular basis to help move them through their buyer's journey and ultimately turn leads into customers.
A great way to follow-up with leads is to send email marketing campaigns. Whether you do it manually or setup email marketing automation with MailChimp, you should stay in front of your leads with highly targeted emails.
When I say highly targeted, I mean emails that focus on your leads' initial or evolved interest in your product or service. If they converted by downloading an ebook on a certain topic, you should follow-up with them by adding more educational value around the same topic.
Content Marketing Announcement/Enticement
Content marketing is the bait that attracts high quality website visitors. Without it, you're not speaking the language of today's buyer. When you create a higher value piece of content, like an ebook, checklist, webinar, etc... you should send it to the appropriate segments of your email marketing list.
They've already expressed an interest around the topic, if you do it correctly, so they will be much more likely to download and share the content.
Sales Discussion Follow-up
Email marketing isn't just for working leads into sales-qualified leads. You should up your game when it comes to leads that have started a conversation with your sales department.
At this stage, the email campaigns sent should be more focused around the decision stage of their buyer's journey, but education and helpful content will never go out of style. In the decision stage, you will want to be more feature and product/service focused.
Personal Touch Points
Have you ever received a birthday card or thank you note in the mail from a vendor or client? It feels great to get something like that. When it comes in the mail it's even more impressive because of the ease of sending an email these days. That doesn't mean you shouldn't send them an email though!
Have a dedicated effort to send email campaigns for more personal events like birthdays. It will go along way towards building rapport with your leads and shows you're more than just another sales person.
Event Invites
Are you hosting a webinar, open house or in person training? Email marketing is a great way to build awareness about your events. You may even want to give your list early access to signup. Preferential treatment always feels great! It's a good way to entice leads to opt-in as well.
When Possible, Automate!!!
Email marketing is a great tool in the inbound marketing tool chest. It's even better if you can automate it. If you're dependent on you or someone else remembering to go in an send follow-up emails, it's inevitable that some will be forgotten. Don't let that happen!
Setting up email marketing automation is super easy and highly effective. To learn more, grab the guide below:
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