You might have a great lead magnet, that gets people to sign up to your email list. But globally, 269 billion emails are sent every day, to over 3.7 billion email users. The hard work isn’t over just because you have email contact. You need an email marketing campaigns with effective follow up emails.
You need to build real relationships with your customers and demonstrate value, or you risk getting lost in an inbox.
That means you need a great follow-up process in place, to keep customers engaged and hopefully convert to buyers.
According to Hubspot, email generates a 3800% ROI. This means for every dollar you invest into your email marketing campaign; you get back $38! Do you see now why email marketing is worth the effort?
This article assumes you already understand who your target customer is and what motivates them, so you can target your email campaign effectively. If you don’t, this is a topic too big for this post, but will be covered in another article in much more detail.
Demonstrate value
The best way to build a successful email marketing strategy is by demonstrating value and being genuine. Spammy or inauthentic campaigns do not work.
You need to give your customers useful information, without them feeling like they are being pitched to. Customers must feel like you are authentic and credible, and that you don’t just see them as possible income sources.
If you only send out content that is advertising or sales pitches, you will quickly lose the customer’s interest and miss your chance to make sales.
However, it is possible to maintain customer interest but still subtly sell your products. This is why it is so important to really understand your customers, so you can provide information that resonates, keep their interest and build your relationships.
Segmentation is a great way to build your success rate. Email campaigns targeted by customer segment are opened 14% more than non-segmented emails. You can send information that will be of use to different groups in your customer base, but avoid sending emails that people are not interested in. People who receive emails that aren’t useful or interesting to them will unsubscribe, so you really need to avoid this!
Email autoresponder services offer a great way to work out your segments and see what is working and how you can better target your campaigns. Services like Get Response can track email open rates and allow you to categorize emails so you can quickly segment your email list and identify who is interested in each topic.
ClickFunnels is a an even more powerful and robust resource for helping you build an email list and use it to generate sales. Information about ClickFunnels can be found in the blog post:
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After you have gone through the initial follow-up process, you have opened the door to more contact with your potential customers.
How to do the first email follow-up sequence
Customers sign up to your email list because they have seen a potential benefit to them from doing so. Your first follow-up sequence with a new customer must immediately demonstrate that benefit and then draw them in further.
The email sequence is the structure and most important part of your email marketing campaign. A couple of pointers on creating emails within this sequence:
- Choose your subject line carefully. Nearly half of email recipients will open your email just because of the subject line, while 69% will report emails as spam for the same reason. So you need to avoid words that read as marketing terms, like free, help and percent off.
- Nearly half of all emails are opened on a mobile device and 42% of people will delete an email if it is not optimized for mobile. So make sure your emails work for mobiles, such with a larger font.
- Although 67% of people prefer HTML based emails, plain text emails are more likely to be opened. To maximize your chance, it is best to use this format.
- Be authentic! In all of your content, be authentic, genuine and yourself. Your customers are attracted by what you are offering, so show them.
Beginning an email sequence: Deliver your value and set the foundation
Your first email delivers your immediate benefit, such as the gift that attracted the customer to sign up in the first place.
This email should also set a foundation for future emails, by introducing you and outlining what you can offer. This includes a light overview of how your product or service has benefited your life and a genuine offer for the same possible benefits to your customers.
This email should not be full of sales-speak and pitches. The customer is already interested in what you have to offer, this email should reinforce that.
At least one email in your email marketing campaigns must draw customers in with your personal story
In the second email, you need to open up about your personal story a bit more. Give more insight into why your offering was so beneficial to you, targeting the challenges that customers are facing and how your offering can help them overcome that.
When writing this email, you need to hook the customer from the very opening line. You might open your email with the climax of your story. An emotional connection with your customers means they are more likely to buy, so this is a powerful tactic.
As an example, you could lead into this email by starting with: “I was stuck in a rut. Working 9-5 in a boring job, losing energy and wasting my life, while struggling to build an online business on the side. I always knew I could do more, I just didn’t know how”.
Don’t explain your solution in this email, just appeal to customers continued interest by offering to explain your defining personal moment – tomorrow.
The most import part of the email marketing campaigns: Explain your realization
If your first two emails have done their job right, then when this email lands in their inbox they won’t be able to resist opening it. In this email, you should talk about your defining realization and the benefit that you obtained from it.
“I had heard about email marketing, but I didn’t really know what it was. But as I looked for inspiration from others, I realized the power of email marketing for my own business. And not only did it help me build my own business, but it gave me so much more”.
Make sure you also hint at other benefits to maintain customer interest for your next email.
Your email marketing campaigns to work, they must deliver on what you promised
So far, you have been hinting to your customers about the benefits you can provide through your offering. This can only go for so long before your customers will lose interest, so at this point, you need to actually deliver.
In this email, you should provide the emotional benefit that you hinted at in the previous email. You should target these at the key pain points for your target customer. This is where you need to know your audience well, to ensure this email hits the right mark.
An example could be:
“email marketing increased my income to the point where I was comfortable quitting my job”.
Final email in the sequence: Call to action
Ultimately, you want people on your email list to buy what you are offering. This whole follow-up sequence is about getting customers to be intrigued by your offering and edge closer to being willing to purchase. It is crucial to get this final email right.
You have worked on creating a genuine, relatable and real persona in your email. This last email should not disrupt that by suddenly becoming just a sales pitch. Instead, you should present your offer as a call to action, with an emotional benefit. Without an effective call to action, your email marketing campaigns with not produce any results.
Conclusion
In your follow up emails, while you do need to be careful of appearing too focused on sales, you could include a link to your other online presence, like YouTube or your website. Buyers can then click to find out more information if interested. This strategy also drives traffic to your website or YouTube. Customers who feel like you want to be of assistance, and who feel they are getting benefit from your content, will continue to stay engaged. Eventually this engagement may turn into a purchase.
As with any framework, this is just a suggested approach. Getting an email marketing campaign that works for you will take some testing to get right. You may need to experiment with your email messages, structure of the follow-up email cycle, and what segmentation works best.
But if you present as someone who has shared challenges with your customers, telling them what is inspiring you and what you’ve learned, including through your own offering, then you’ll build your credibility and maintain engagement. And ultimately, this effort is worth it to build authentic connections that provide a genuine foundation for email marketing, and opportunities to grow your sales.
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