Email Marketing Strategy: What Every Entrepreneur Must Know
Let’s talk about email marketing today….
Do you have an email list? Do you think it’s profitable for you to have one or is having one a time-waster to your business?
Some decide to just stick to social media because it’s where most people spend majority of their time.
Totally agree…
Social media is a place to get attention to your business. However, as an entrepreneur, you need to attract that attention and then convert it to leads. It’s not enough to get 10,000 likes on your post. You must be able to convert that attention into $$$ for your business.
Please note: You cannot go to the bank and exchange your social media likes for $$$. You must have a business model in place on how to convert the attention into leads.
One of the things you should look at having is a persuasive offer. One that your ideal client wouldn’t leave behind when they came across it. This offer will make it easy for you to get people off any social media to your email list where you can continue to influence them.
How did you get to this blog? I’ll tell you… Through an offer… I presented to you an offer and you liked it that’s why you are here reading this…hahaha
Well, an email list is something you should consider as an asset especially if you are a coach/consultant/online trainer/speaker.
As an entrepreneur, how do you use email marketing to grow your business.
Have You Designed A Customized Journey For Your Subscribers?
Let’s assume you have put out an offer, I’ve liked it and I opt into your email list. How will my journey with you look like? How will you turn me from stranger into a paying client?
Every entrepreneur with an email list must design the journey of their email subscribers.
Please note; Everyone who gets into your email list is different and should therefore be prepared for differently.
A Short Analogy to help you design that journey…
Imagine you have a shop. You have an offer on display, 50% off or buy 1 get 2 free on every purchase.
Client sees the offer… stops… gets into your shop… How do you react when they get into the shop?
I’ll assume you welcome them… Make them feel comfortable… Re-confirm why they are in your shop… present to them your offer… They either take the offer or not…
What happens when they buy …? What happens when they don’t buy…?
Time for you to design your journey for your subscribers. Before you design your subscribers’ journey, below are some email marketing hacks to help you build a profitable email list
- When people opt-in, Always deliver the promised value immediately and then continue to regularly provide value to your subscribers. This will help you build credibility, authority and trust.
2. Split test everything. From the Subject lines, to Images, Copy and animated GIFs to Time of delivery. Find out what works best for your list. Some personal findings with regard to the above:
- Shorter subject lines have more open rates
- Text links got me more conversions
- Early morning and night time had the most email deliveries
3. Use personalization. This is where you really have to master merge fields in whichever software you are using. Most email marketing software allow you to add say name-field or birthday field if available. Using personalization in subject lines and copy drastically increases your open rates and conversion rates respectively.
4. Optimize for Mobile. The number of people accessing your information via mobile devices has skyrocketed in previous years. If your content is not optimized for mobile, you are leaving a lot of money on the table.
5. Segment your list according to behaviour. To get the most value out of your list, send information that is relevant to the list members’ journey with regards to your business. This can be based on email engagement (open and clicks), purchase behavior or any other end goals.
6. Never ever sell to cold leads. If people have stopped engaging with your email content, selling to them is a waste of time and you come off as desperate. So, what do you do with cold leads? Find out here….
7. Have more touch points in your email copy. I have found that having multiple link touch points (3 – 5) in your copy increases email conversions. Be careful not to abuse this principle and flood the entire copy with links as it becomes annoying to the reader…
8. Always abide by permission-based email marketing. Buying email lists or getting lists from say a company Human Resources Manager is a bad practice and such lists rarely convert. I have tested … So, what do you do with such a list? … Find out here…
9. Authenticate your autoresponder emails. For people using platforms such as MailChimp, MailerLite, constant contact and the rest, authenticating drastically improves email deliverability as server now recognize your emails. Authenticating is where you connect your email software to your domain so that servers recognize your emails as coming direct from you. This is different from verifying an email which simply shows you own the domain.
10. Allow people to unsubscribe. This is important as it reduces the chances of being marked as spam. Every time a subscriber reports you as spam, this will negatively affect your email delivery rates and servers will begin to block your emails. So, it is better to have an “unsubscribe” link so that people who no longer resonate with your message can get off your list.
Wondering…
- How to create offers that your clients want so that you can easily grow your email list?
- How to design a journey that converts strangers into paying clients
- How to nurture your email list over the long haul so they open, read, and respond to your emails.
