How to use Email Marketing to  Engage, Nurture & Convert Leads

Email marketing may seem like a dying communication channel, but it’s importance to your integrated marketing campaigns are still undeniable. Using current tools and techniques, your email marketing campaigns will become more relevant than ever. This installment of our business tips blog series provides real-world business tips—from business leaders like you—to focus on how your email marketing can be used to engage, nurture and convert contacts into leads.

Email Marketing Services

If you are not currently using an email marketing service, you should seriously consider doing so. Services such as Constant Contact or MailChimp provide inexpensive access to professionally developed HTML and text email templates, allowing you to promote new products, services and/or promotional offers to current and prospective clients.

Pro Business Tip:

An email newsletter is an effective and relatively inexpensive way to stay top-of-mind with your pipeline and position yourself as a trusted expert in your industry. It is highly important to consistently send the newsletter periodically (once per week, once per month), and to make sure the content is valuable to your readers.

Email Marketing Best Practices

1. They say first impressions are important, and this is definitely true of your email subject line. Ask a relevant question in the email subject that will compel the viewer to open the email in the first place!
2. Use a real person’s name for your “friendly from” name. This will usually produce a higher open rate than using your company name or some other generic “marketing” or “communications” name.
3. Personalize wherever possible. Many email service providers allow you to upload the contact person’s name, company name and other information you may have on them. Including their first name in the salutation at the very least will help increase your click-through rate.
4. Segment your email list and target your messaging based on the contact’s lifecycle stage. Are you communicating a promotion to a current client (or someone who has purchased from you before), or are you sending an email to someone who is new to your list and just beginning to explore your product/service? The more targeted the email, the more likely it is that the reader will click on your call to action.
5. Speaking of call to action, each email should have one prime, specific call to action that urges the reader to do something. Perhaps you are driving them to a new product page, inviting them to an event or promoting a special offer. Whatever the call to action is, make it clear, concise and obvious!
   

Pro Business Tip:

Follow up on your email campaigns with a personal phone call. Make sure your sales team is aligned with your marketing team so they can work together to make the campaign successful.

This business tips series is all about sharing advice, so go ahead and share your best email marketing lessons with the rest of the group!