5 Reasons Why Settling for Email Marketing That’s ‛Good Enough’ Could Actually Harm Your Business
You’ve heard it over and over – email marketing is an essential part of any online business. If you’re not doing it now, or only occasionally, it’s time to ramp up your efforts. But did you know that implementing email marketing the wrong way could actually hurt your business instead of helping it? Below is a list of the 5 reasons to use email marketing in your business.
Despite the many marketing channels available today, businesses rely on email marketing to engage customers in a personal way. It’s still the best channel to reach people and offer them value.
But there is a right way and a wrong way of doing it. If you’re engaging your audience on autopilot, without a good email marketing strategy in place, you could be hurting your brand and driving customers away.
It’s not enough to deliver ‘okay’ email marketing.
It’s Time to Go Beyond the Basics with your Emails
Here are the 5 reasons why:
1. Email Marketing is Too Important to Leave to Chance
If you aren’t including email marketing in your digital marketing toolkit, you’re missing out on incredible opportunities and leaving money on the table. While there are new methods available, email marketing is still an essential part of any marketing strategy.
It’s estimated that around 300 billion emails are sent per day, and this number is climbing. Look at any major brand, and you’ll see that they’re actively building lists and engaging with their subscribers.
But you can’t leave it to chance. If you just build a list and blast out random messages, you won’t get the results you’re looking for.
If you approach it this way, you’ll send emails that are irrelevant to your subscribers. With all the junk in their inboxes daily, they’ll tune out your messages. The worst-case scenario is that they’ll think you’re spamming them.
Instead, you need a strategy that includes taking the time to really understand your subscribers, and crafting valuable emails that are specifically tailored to their interests. By personalizing your emails, you’ll create a better customer experience and build a stronger connection with your audience.
2. Your Customers Want a Personal Experience
The trend in all online marketing is toward personalization. Email marketing works so well because it’s highly personal, to begin with. The strength of this method is that it goes straight to your subscribers’ email inboxes.
Your subscribers are bombarded with emails every day, so you need to go that extra mile to make yours stand out from the rest. This is where personalization comes in.
How do you personalize your email marketing? It involves more than just including the recipient’s name in the greeting or subject line.
You can personalize your emails by offering ‘intelligent content.’ This means tailoring the content you offer according to their account history, preferences, and behaviors.
A great way to do this is by segmenting your list and then offering the appropriate content to the appropriate segments.
Look at buying history, interests, location, times active, and anything else relevant to your business. You should be able to see the different segments of your list. You can then create unique messages and offers for each, ensuring that you are reaching the right people, with the right content.
We live in an era of constant connection, and this is only increasing. You can now order meals, talk to a friend anywhere in the world, get a ride, or get whatever information you’re looking for instantly on your smartphone or other device.
This means that your customers are also looking for immediate responses. You need to be available to provide this information, or someone else will.
How do you offer support when your subscribers need it? It’s impossible to be awake and watch your email all the time, but there are some solutions to augment and support your email marketing.
One is to use a chatbot to answer common questions. A chatbot is a software program that uses AI and machine learning to answer frequently asked questions. It can search your knowledge base and answer in whatever way you program it.
The great thing about chatbots is that they run 24 hours a day, and they can provide answers to most of the questions your subscribers have. It feels like they’re chatting with an actual human representative of your business. Your chatbot can refer any difficult question to live support.
Another idea is to provide a robust knowledge base that your subscribers can access at any time and make it easy to search. Your knowledge base could include a link to your content archive and other resources, FAQs, a wiki, and a troubleshooting guide.
If you have customer service representatives, categorize the questions they receive. Use software to separate inquiries by technical issues, general questions, or refunds – and then develop protocols for your team. You can also hire virtual assistants in different parts of the world to handle questions any time of day or night.
4. Irrelevant Emails Make People Unsubscribe
For email marketing to work, the content and deals you offer must be relevant to your subscribers. People will quickly unsubscribe from lists that send irrelevant emails that aren’t interesting to them. These messages lead to email fatigue. Remember that people are bombarded with emails all the time.
How do you create consistently valuable content? The key is to know your target audience so you know what they want from you.
Create a detailed ideal customer profile for your subscribers. Conduct market research and base this profile on objective data obtained from your research.
Once you’ve created your ideal customer profile, you should continue to learn about your audience on an ongoing basis. You can use your email list to do this. Once you start offering content and making offers, you’ll see what converts and what doesn’t.
Analytics tools can help you learn about your audience so you can refine your content even further. For example, you can track behavior when a subscriber visits your site. If you see them lingering on a particular page, this tells you that they find the content relevant.
You can also ensure that your content is meaningful to your subscribers by setting the right expectations initially when they sign up. Give people an accurate idea of what they can expect from your list and its content. This will cut down on people signing up for your list and immediately deciding it’s not for them and dropping out.
5. Your Campaign Needs Next-Level Strategies
To succeed with email marketing, you need to go beyond the basics and take advantage of next-level strategies. In addition to personalizing your emails, offering immediate solutions, and consistently delivering relevant content, here are some other things you can do to take your email marketing to the next level.
Automation. There are many ways to automate to save time, reduce human error, and offer a better experience to your subscribers. Automation options include triggers for follow-up actions and automated workflows that help you identify and nurture leads.
Integration. You can integrate email with your social media, your ad campaigns, and search marketing. This helps you grow your audience across channels. Give them access to exclusive content and offers on each platform and cross-promote for even better results. This is called omnichannel marketing, and it harnesses the power of each marketing channel for better overall results.
Testing. Split testing (or, A/B testing) is often overlooked as a method to monitor and improve your email marketing. A/B testing involves running two versions of the same message with just one element changed, seeing which one converts, and then refining your message for optimal results.
Re-engage Subscribers. Create a strategy for re-engaging inactive subscribers. Identify audience members who have disengaged and offer additional value to win them back. You can do this through a re-engagement campaign that shows another side of your business, exclusive content or offers, or reminders.
Offer More Value. There are many strategies you can use to offer more value. Think of it in terms of ROI. Your subscribers invest their time and attention when joining and engaging with your list. Make it worthwhile for them by providing solutions to their problems, entertaining them, or inspiring them.
Correspondence with your Audience is a Key Factor
Connecting with your audience is important because it helps you build trust, rapport, and engagement with your listeners or readers. There are different ways to connect with your audience, depending on the context and the medium. Some common methods are:
Responding to what you see and hear from your audience
Looking at people and smiling
Being personal and authentic
Referring to what they already know or care about
Walking towards your audience or using gestures
Complimenting your audience or showing appreciation
Telling a story or sharing an anecdote
Keeping up with the Changes in your Email Marketing
Email marketing is here to stay, but you must stay on top of ever-evolving trends. Don’t do the bare minimum and leave your email marketing to chance. Take control and use these methods to engage your audience and build lasting relationships with them. Doing so will not only increase your profits but will also help you get results and achieve higher levels of success.
What are your 5 Reasons to use Email Marketing?
Want to learn more about how you can get more out of your email marketing?
Head over here: Email Market EssentialsYou will discover all of the ways to write emails to your audience in this course created by our CEO Linda Henslee.
Hello, my friends & business associates. So this year, I’m doing something a little different for the end of the year. I’m doing a Holiday Story Promo for all my fans on the internet. And no, I’ve never done this before, so it will be interesting to see how it works.
Here’s how the Holiday Story Promo will work:
Write your favorite holiday story on a word document or in an email. Send it to me Here. This is my email address. The deadline for the Holiday Story Promo submission is January 25th, 2023. After I’ve read all the stories, I will select one (1) winner. The winner will receive a $50.00 gift card to Amazon.
Holiday Story Promo Submission Rules:
The deadline for submission is January 25th, 2023, no later than midnight pacific time.
It must be emailed to me @ linda@lindahenslee.com.
The story must be at least 3000 – 5000 words long.
The story must be positive and show me love & encouragement. Nothing negative or depressing.
The winner will be announced by February 1st, 2023, by email.
In your submission, you must include your correct email address so that your gift card can be emailed to you if you’re the winner.
That’s it! I hope you are the lucky person picked for the winning submission for the Holiday Story Promo. Remember…it’s all up to you to make it the best story! I can’t wait to read them; oh, and one more thing. The winner will also receive the Amazon Gift Card, and the story will be shared here on my blog for everyone to read.
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Learning to listen to your customers is essential to go above and beyond with your customer service. When you know how to listen, you’ll begin to hear about what they want and need from your brand. Getting your customers to talk isn’t as hard as you think.
You can use the ideas below for inspiration.
Surveys
You want to send out a survey to your customers at least once a year. This allows you to track your industry’s growth, predict trends before they become hot, and see gaps in your niche that no one else is filling.
Be aware of the timing when you send out a survey. A survey sent in the middle of the holiday season isn’t likely to receive much attention, and you may only get a handful of subscribers to participate. But a survey sent out in the middle of January when the holidays are over will get a much better response rate.
Suggestions
Keep a form on your website open constantly just for suggestions. Your customers might suggest content ideas, feedback on a current product, or questions about your services. When customers take the time to fill out your suggestion box, it means they care a lot about your business. So let them know you value their thoughts and periodically remind them that you have a suggestion box if they’d like to share their ideas.
Set up a form on your website with questions to help you write a case study. Start by asking for some basic information from your customers. Ask for their names, ages, marital status, and location. Details like these help set the stage for writing your case study later.
Then go deeper by asking customers to describe their life before trying your product or service. What was their business, marriage, or life like before your brand? Were they happy? What was bugging them?
Ask your customers how their lives have changed since they implemented your product. Did they get out of debt thanks to your financial success product? Did they finally have enough for that dream vacation they always wanted, thanks to your work-at-home product?
Don’t forget to ask for a picture of your customer. Your case study will interest more people if you include your customer’s vision.
Extra Services
Testimonials
Case studies tend to be longer and more in-depth than testimonials. Both are good ways to generate interest in your product or service. But due to the transient nature of testimonials, it’s easier to gather these from customers than case studies. Customer service and your clients can provide you with referrals that will exponentially expand your business.
Make a testimonial form on your website. Ask open-ended questions that encourage more than simple ‘yes or no answers. For example, ask customers about their biggest fear before buying your product. Ask them why they chose you over a competitor or what other products they’ve tried previously.
Make It Beautiful
When a customer gives you a testimonial or provides a case study, turn it into a beautiful image. At the bottom of your image, include your website address. Then share the image on your blog, in your social media circles, and with your mailing list.
Your customer will be so proud to be featured that they’ll share it, too. This exposes your brand to even more potential customers and can help you grow your business in new ways.
Customers are eager to share their opinions when you give them the opportunity. Feedback forms like surveys and case studies show your customers that you care about what they want.
No Excuses! It’s time to take your customer service above and beyond. Do that now by downloading your free workbook.
You can add a personal touch to your customer service when you use postcards or greeting cards to reach out to your customers. They make your customers feel valued, and in an increasingly digital world, your brand stands out when you send a card or gift through the postal system.
Look for One of A Kind Cards
If you are sending a card, make it something special. Skip the cheap, blank notecards, and don’t go for bland. You want to send a card that your customers will pin to their bulletin board or share on social media. You want a special card. Once your customer knows it is not junk mail.
One place where you can find unique and original cards is Etsy. There are hundreds of hand-made greeting cards that you can search for on the site. You can even have one custom designed for your customer if you want.
Try Send Out Cards
Another option that you may want to consider is Send Out Cards. This is a website where you can select a greeting card you like and have it sent to your new customers. It works similarly to stock photo sites in that you buy credits for a certain amount of money. You use your credits to purchase cards and upload your signature, so it looks like you signed the card. Then it’s sent out like a regular letter to your customer.
Send Out Cards will let you keep a contacts database to send birthday cards to your customers. But it’s not just for birthdays—there are plenty of holiday-themed cards to choose from, too. Whether your clients celebrate Christmas, Kwanzaa, or Hanukkah, you’re sure to find a card that’s right for them. Using postcards and Send OutCards makes it easy for your business to use.
Use Reminders to Make Personal Connections
Your new client just mentioned she’s expecting a little one in six months. Pause to add this info to your calendar and set a reminder ahead of time. You can put something simple like, “Jane’s baby is due in June. Send a card.”
Sites like Send Out Cards, have a gift area that’s perfect when you want to add something special to your card. You can send your customers a treat like a fantastic brownie or tasty fudge. Of course, you can opt for a non-food item if you prefer. You can include a gift like a necklace, a toy plush, a beautiful scarf, or any number of genuine products.
Sending out cards to your customers is a small personal touchthat will delight them. It shows that you care not only about their business but also their lives. When your customers feel you care, they are excited to work with you.
Today’s article is about making customer phone calls. A straightforward way to go above and beyond in your customer service is to start calling new customers when they purchase from your site. The goal of your call isn’t to sell your customer something else or convince them to upgrade what they bought. Instead, you want to use this call to thank them for their purchase.
Offering Help To Your Customers
After you thank your customer, ask if they need any help. Please make sure they can download the product they bought. If they couldn’t access the product, help them do that immediately. You may have to send another login link, explain how to save a product, or guide them into finding where their downloads are stored on their device.
When making new customer phone calls, you may also want to ask follow-up questions to give insight into the purchasing process. For example, you might say, “Did anything trip you up while you were buying? If so, would you share that with me so I can fix it for future customers?”
Touch Base With Your Customers
Sometimes, you’ll follow up after a new customer purchases a service from you, like coaching or virtual assistance. In these cases, use your follow-up call to learn something about your customer. So when making new customer phone calls, use the information to your advantage.
You might say, “I’m calling you to thank you for your business and ask if there’s anything you need from me. We’ll be in touch later on, but in the meantime, is there one thing you want me to know about you before we begin working together?”
Your customer may share insights into their lives by saying, “I want you to know that my son’s getting married this year. I’m super focused on making more money in less time to enjoy this season with my family. That’s why I signed up for your services.”
Keep It The Follow-up Call Quick
Since your call is unsolicited, be mindful of how long you keep your new customer on the phone. A short window to aim for is around five minutes. Your call might last longer if a customer needs help or points out a problem. But as a general rule, you want to keep your call quick.
Let Your Virtual Assistant Call
If you get a sudden influx of new customers, you may not be able to handle all of the follow-up calls yourself. In this case, it can be helpful to outsource these chats to a virtual assistant that you trust. Tell your VA to reach out to new customers and make a personal connection.
You can even create a brief script if you want to. Something simple usually works best. Your VA might say, “Hi, I’m Jodie, and I handle tech support for Solopreneur Services, LLC. I wanted to thank you for your recent purchase of ABC product. Were you able to download it successfully and use it?”
Your virtual assistant should also use this opportunity to share a phone number or email address where the consumer can reach support if they need it later. Little touches like that may not seem like much at first, but they make customers positively view your brand.
Give your customers remarkable customer service, and they will pay attention. The more you serve them, the more they’ll want to tell others about your brand, and your business will flourish.
Discover how to make exceptional customer service the cornerstone of your brand when you download your free workbook.
