Robust Email Marketing for Sales Leads

Her success at email marketing encourages Sonia Ricotti in sending weekly emotionally titled emails aimed at generating leads. She could offer help in changing negative beliefs which hinder someone’s personal development into positive beliefs that may dramatically turn around one’s life. The recipient is invited to learn how to do this through attending a free webclass.

Sonia’s business needs a growing email list. By participating in the webclasses, potential customers from emails could be converted into actual buyers of specific products from Sonia’s enterprise ranging from attendance at conferences to online courses.

It definitely appears that anything can be sold online – from tangible products as cosmetics to services like spa treatments.

Sonia’s systematic efforts point to the reality that email marketing generates sales and customer leads. Allegedly, it produces better returns than other internet-based sales tools. Key to that would be culling and constantly building an email marketing list.

Growing the List

Following are some suggestions on expanding an existing email marketing list.

1. Provide value to potential customers for them to entrust their email addresses. What Sonia has initially offered in the form of ‘freebies’ (always FREE) is called a lead magnet or something that is offered in exchange for the reader’s email address. The following could be considered lead magnets: downloadable e-books, webinars, podcasts, checklists, courses, and any other resource. Later on, giving away more than one of these might be necessary to follow up and cultivate customer relations leading to referrals that yield further email addresses.

It can be said that this exchange of values through emails effectively produces the generation of leads in business transactions.

2. Add social media buttons to email newsletters. More sophisticated email content comes in the form of newsletters thus looking like websites in themselves. Depending on the value of content, the recipients should have the option of sharing the entire newsletter or parts of it. Buttons of Twitter, Facebook, Instagram, and Email are found somewhere near the email-newsletter masthead of the Wharton Business School’s weekly emails to its globally-located alumni network. The email-newsletter contains latest findings on industry research by Wharton faculty and students. On the newsletter’s footer, the School appeals to its alumni by asking them to write in email addresses of work colleagues whom they wish to receive the same newsletter. Sometimes, those buttons don’t have to be available but a simple call-to-action in the form of an instruction as “Click Here”.

3. Add a very visible floating bar, either at the top or bottom of the frequently visited screen. On this bar, the visitors sign up for membership to the website by writing in their email address where they receive instant confirmation of their inclusion.

4. For newcomers to a website, make it easy for them to sign up with their email addresses. The sign-up form should be anywhere prominent on the landing page such as the top of the sidebar, at the website footer (as in Wharton’s), a floating bar, at the end of a blog post, or it could also be a slide up box.

5. Create a promotional video on the product or service that may likewise be uploaded on a YouTube channel or on the Company’s Facebook account. Caution is however advised against lengthy videos. In cases where discussions have to be extensive (e.g., product features), a series of videos can be produced and uploaded one at a time. At the end of the video when interest has presumably been captured, a slide up box can emerge asking viewers to click a link to the website where they can input their email addresses so that they may be able to “stay up-to-date” with further announcements and videos from the source. Wistia is a resource for adding videos to the web.

6. Apart from the lead magnet, add content upgrades regularly that website visitors might find to be of value. For instance, a checklist of common pitfalls in online shopping for topics around homemakers’ holiday planning. A popup box could inform of the content upgrade and ask for the email address where the checklist shall be sent.

7. Add Exit-Intent Popups. When a regular email recipient suddenly clicks the unsubscribe link, it would be worthwhile to have an immediate “chat support” popup that will inquire on the reason for the departure and offer a discount on products and a content upgrade. To first time recipients, the lead magnet may be offered by the popup.

Further Strategies
Further recommendations on how to further generate email accounts of potential customers are:

1. One way of adding value to the website is through regular blogs on relevant topics and sub-topics. A series of educational blogs may be anticipated by grateful and regular followers who are in a position to entice new followers thus providing their email addresses. To avoid fatigue and the pressure of deadlines, asking guest bloggers to participate is a great technique.

2. Case studies within websites can tell stories that inspire existing customers. Word spreads around and may prick the curiosity of audiences in knowing of how products/services may render solutions to certain problems. Harvesting their email contacts during website visits would then prove effortless towards generating sales leads.

3. A google query will inform what keywords are being searched in relation to the product/service. By adding these keywords and thus their extended phrases to articles and blogs will increase website traffic. First time visitors are potential email contacts.

4. Participation in industry-related conferences is an opportunity to network with individuals and groups who are “influencers” (e.g., experts, bloggers, resource persons) and could lead to expanding target audiences. This may take some work but the initial exchange of contact information (email address) is an open door to generating leads.

A Great Digital Strategy

It may appear pretty basic and simple but email marketing may be more difficult to evolve than establishing a presence through a company or product website. It is however hailed as a great marketing strategy for today’s digital age. The instant advantages: emails give the marketer sole control over his strategy and message; the marketer gains direct access to the target customer; the recipient is assured of an enthusiastic response. Even with a 25% response rate, a thousand email accounts to start a marketing campaign with is a wonderful place for lead generation and could continuously expand the client pool through the harvest of emails.