When recently surveyed, the women in the Australian Businesswomen’s Network community, said that the BIG email marketing issue they are having is finding a way to get email marketing actually producing sales results. Perhaps you’re sending out a bunch of emails and they are falling flat. Or you’re worried about sounding too salesy and upsetting your list so you don’t send anything (that’s a surefire way not to make any sales). Or maybe you are just getting started and you’re still trying to figure out what works and what doesn’t. Here are my Top 5 Tips for creating emails that sell (without being salesy). 1. Realise your email is part of a larger ecosystem Your emails will get much more traction if they are part of a well-thought out funnel and system that takes your prospect all the way through their buyer journey, from the initial contact right the way through to the sale and beyond. The important thing is to have this ecosystem built BEFORE you start putting people into your pipeline. Avoid ad hoc emails at all costs! 2. Provide a Clear Call To Action A Call To Action is basically the instruction you are giving the person reading your email about what to do next. It might be “go here now for instant access to the free ebook” or “reply to this message before midnight to reserve your place” for example. And once you know where your email fits in the larger sequence or journey you are taking your prospect on, there are a few things you can do to give your Call To Action the best chance of succeeding:
- Make it the natural next step – if early in the journey, then you might be offering a free ebook or free trial, rather than going straight into asking them to purchase your high end $10,000 coaching package
- Make it feel easy for the reader – I often like to add the word “simply” – it’s a good mental cue eg “simply go here now for your bonus gift”. You also want to make the instruction clear, so it’s very easy to understand
- Be specific – avoid vague generalities like “register now” or “learn more”
- Take a benefits oriented approach – focus on the benefit. A good way to think about this is to answer the question “I want to…” with your call to action e.g. I want to… “Start Planning My Dream Holiday Now”
3. Harness the Power of Automation You can automate a sequence of emails based on a certain action your audience takes, such as clicking on a link or opting in for a free offer. These email sequences are called autoresponders. Creating autoresponder sequences is a great way to tailor your marketing message to your ideal prospect and to create that ecosystem mentioned in Point 1 above. Automation also enables you to create the sequence once and have it go to work for you over and over again. 4. Segment Your List It’s so important to give people on your database only the information they want and have requested. Segmentation is basically defining your database into identifiable segments based on what you know about them and then tailoring your communications based on sending information only to those segments for whom it will be relevant. Segmentation is all about avoiding the “one size fits all” approach that many people have to their email marketing. 5. Maintaining Trust This one really underpins everything we do in our email marketing. Our emails either move people closer to us or further away from us. It’s all about how much they trust us to understand them, have what they need and make recommendations in their best interest. Two ways to maintain and encourage trust in our email marketing are:
- Integrity of message – e.g. make sure the subject line is indicative of the content and make sure the content is indicative of the landing page
- Deliver value – be seen as a source of great information, advice, recommendations, links, tips, etc.
Whilst creating email marketing that gets results does take some knowledge and effort, it doesn’t have to be hard. In fact, knowing a few key principles can dramatically improve your results.
