Showing top 0 results 0 results found
Showing top 0 results 0 results found
We know your pain. You send out a sales or marketing email campaign and the results are less than thrilling. Leads unsubscribe, emails are never opened, many bounce and people don’t engage. For example, Marketing Charts saw email click rates decline for a 16th consecutive year in 2017, and they saw a 3.4% decrease from 2016 to 2017.
It's hard to stand out and be noticed with emails these days. People receive thousands a day… It's all just white noise. To help you get noticed, we've compiled a list of tips that are guaranteed to increase your success and generate more qualified leads.
1. Start Out Strong
The subject line of your email will often be the difference between it being opened and read, or deleted. Time and effort needs to be invested into crafting an engaging string of words. It needs to catch your potential lead's eye, and to make them think, laugh, or cringe. Simply put, your subject needs to elicit a strong response, and there are a few methods for doing this:
- Personalization: Mention the lead by name, name-drop someone you have in common, or reference a hobby the person loves. All of this information can easily be found on social media and will make your email more intimate.
- Make a joke: An email subject line that puts a smile on your potential lead's face will always be opened. The lead will appreciate the effort and have faith that the email will likely contain more information that they will enjoy.
- Provide helpful tips: You know your customers' pain points. If you promise a few tips first, they'll appreciate your effort, and be curious to open the email in order to find out know how they can solve their problem.
Examples of 29 great subject lines you can use are found here.
2. Be Short And Sweet
The best way to show that you respect your leads is by respecting their time. Emails that are meant to generate leads will only do so if they are brief and to the point. Illustrate to the potential customer that you understand their challenges and explain how you can help. If more detail is needed, provide links. Avoiding some of these phrases will help you out with this.
Extra tip: Bulleted lists and bolded or italic text are great ways to allow the lead to scan for the most important information.
3. Be Smart About Formatting
Not only do you want the content of your email to be easy and engaging, you want the email itself to be quick to open. This is a point readily forgotten!
That means making the file size manageable. The email file should be no bigger than 70 kilobytes (kb). This will allow the lead to open the email and have all the content load instantly - if it takes any longer, they simply won't wait around.
And then there's the dimensions of the email. It’s annoying for a lead to open your email and have to scroll horizontally to read the information. Make sure that it is no wider than 650 pixels.
If you’re using a logo, put it in the top left corner. This is where the human eye naturally falls on a page, whether in a book or on a screen. And with the text, use no more than two colors and fonts. When the content is too wacky it will give your lead a headache and look unprofessional.
4. Use Illustration
Images are not only a smart way to break up text, but they are easier for the human brain to digest. In fact, it’s said to take 60,000 times longer for the brain to comprehend text than images. So not only will a picture embedded in your email make the content more engaging, but it will also allow the information to be better absorbed and more likely to be remembered.
5. Add Value
Don't underestimate your leads. They know what they want and what they don't want. It will only take them a few seconds to realize if an email doesn't offer them something of value. Your main goal therefore should be creating content that fulfills a need (most likely this will be helpful information that will assist them in their daily tasks and responsibilities).
For example, if the recipient is a VP of Marketing who needs to generate more qualified leads, a white paper or educational video about “5 Innovative Ways to Generate More Qualified Leads in 2018” will grab their attention. In the end, your goal is to create trust and adding value is the best method for achieving this.
6. Connect With Social
You can only send out so many emails to a lead. For this reason, inside of your email, you need to provide the opportunity to stay connected continuously. You should provide an easy link to your social platforms so that they can follow you in future if they wish.
The best way to ensure that leads follow your social media account is by filling the email with content that convinces them that you will consistently provide them with information that they want and need. When all of this falls into place, not only will you have a new follower and begin turning that lead into a customer, but they will likely start to share your content with others in their network.
7. Don't Forget The Call To Action (CTA)
While your leads are smart, they aren't mind readers. They don't know what you want them to do next and the best way to address this is to suggest something with a CTA.
The CTA doesn't have to be about buying something from you and it probably shouldn't be to schedule a “free consultation” either, unless you have already had various touch points with the lead. You need to offer them something easy that provides additional benefit to them - after all, they are still getting to know you. A good initial call to action is providing them with a link to extra content (e.g. a webinar, eBook, video, or another article).
Emails Generate Qualified Leads
Sometimes it feels pointless selling and marketing with emails anymore but email outreach, if done properly, can still be a very effective method to generate qualified leads.
