Email marketing and lead generation is an essential part of any business. It’s a great way to stay in touch with customers and keep their interest piqued.
Email marketing might be the king of digital marketing, but it can be tough to develop new ways to acquire leads and new ideas for email campaigns, so I’m going to share what’s working for me.
These strategies can go towards developing your next email marketing campaign.
Offer lead magnets
A lead magnet is some free content that your visitors must subscribe to your email list to receive.
It’s an incentive to subscribe because the content is valuable, and it can be either an ebook, report, video, cheatsheet, or checklist.
Your lead magnet must be somewhat related to your product/service, so it’s essential to have these ready before launching any marketing campaign.
With lead magnets, you’re building an audience, which is a powerful asset to have.
For my lead magnets, I like to give away a free mini-course to my subscribers. It immediately shows them the level of value I can offer, and it’s a great way to continue the dialogue.
The lead magnet can be delivered in many ways, but I would like to email a link to them after confirming their email address.
Use lead scoring
Lead scoring is a way to determine how valuable each lead is to your business.
You can assign a score based on the action a subscriber takes. For example, if someone opens every email you send, they’re worth more points than someone who opens a few.
You can assign point values based on the level of engagement with your business.
Then you can segment subscribers into different lists depending on their value so you can send emails that are more targeted or relevant to them.
Now your email list is full of qualified leads.
Grab attention with subject lines
Your subject line is the most crucial part of an email. You should use it to grab attention and make sure your subscribers know what content they’re about to read.
If you have not working subjects, try using something more personalized or relevant so people can see why this email is worth opening.
If you mention the subscriber’s name in the subject line will help it to stand out against the rest of their inbox.
Also, using curiosity is a powerful emotional trigger.
Use a simple template
The email template you choose is another crucial element of a successful lead generation strategy.
It should be clean and straightforward.
The use of images and links should be as little as possible without sacrificing the quality or effectiveness of your campaign.
For me, plain text emails work best.
But test different versions out to see what works best for your email list.
Use a strong call-to-action (CTA)
Your Call to Action (CTA) has to be in every email you send.
It’s what encourages “the next step.”
Copywriting legend Dan Kennedy said, “there will always be an offer.” Now, you might not want to sell a product in every email you send, but there should always be something for your subscribers to do.
And that something needs to benefit your business in some way.
It could be to visit your website. Or to share a social media post, leave a comment, or like.
Use Email Marketing Automation Software
Email marketing can be automated with tools like Active Campaign or Infusionsoft.
Most marketers find it beneficial to use a marketing automation system if they have more than just one campaign running simultaneously. That way, you can set up a follow-up or drip campaign that will deliver new content to your customers automatically when appropriate.
A simple way to automate your email campaign is to create a Welcome Sequence.
Lead nurturing is essential for your new subscribers. It delivers valuable content to them and recommends helpful products.
When you schedule emails to be sent on autopilot like this, you can make passive income from your email list.
Split test everything
You should constantly be testing every aspect of your email marketing campaign, from subject lines to the time of day you send an email.
This is also where email marketing automation software can help out; it will give you a greater degree of insight into what works and what doesn’t.
Split testing allows your business to find those winning combinations that yield the best response from customers.
This doesn’t mean you should be sending the same newsletter to different groups of people, but it does allow for testing out new content with a smaller group before rolling it out to everyone else.
It’s also essential that when you’re split-testing things like subject lines and making changes to the copy, you’re doing so for a good reason.
As an example, say your subject line isn’t generating many clicks or opens? Split-test one headline against another and find out which performs best.
You should also test different CTA’s and see which one generates the most clicks.
Scrub your email list
Every email list needs to be cleaned to remove inactive subscribers and spam addresses.
Most Email Service Providers (ESP) will have tools available that let you delete those subscribers.
It’s an easy thing to overlook, but it can help your email engagement.
Avoiding using ‘no-reply email address
No-reply email addresses send the wrong message. You are saying that you do not want to have a two-way discussion with your customer, that you’re not interested in their opinion.
The practice of sending ‘no-reply emails is considered wrong because if you want to create trust and build a bond with the customer, then do not use a no-reply email address.
Use exit-intent pop-ups for lead generation
Simple exit-intent pop-ups can be powerful marketing tools in the right hands and can be a great way to convert your visitors into leads.
They should be part of your inbound marketing strategy.
Exit point pop-ups work because they show up when someone is about to leave. They then wait for the user to enter their email address or close it.
This means that you are most likely going to get their email address if they leave without following through with what they came there for in the first place.
The exit-intent pop-up is a great way to get more leads without having to invest in expensive advertising channels or campaigns. The cost for you will be the time and resources it takes to build your landing page.
Moreover, with the use of exit intent pop-ups, you can increase lead conversion rates by up to 60%. This means that if 100 people visited your website today, then after using these pop-ups, there would now end out being about 60 new email subscribers.
If done correctly, these types of pop-up screens will increase conversions.
This also means that it doesn’t matter how many times someone visits your site since using this approach; each visit has an equal chance for conversion as long as it’s not too far into the future from the last time they visited.
Exit points work best if used sparingly, maybe once per day, per visitor.
What is the lead generation process?
Lead generation is about attracting or finding your potential customer. It’s not always easy, but it can be done with patience and hard work.
The big picture overview of the lead generation process looks like this:
You attract website visitors through advertising or through content marketing. These visitors have the opportunity to become email subscribers and continue the conversation with you.
Through a series of emails, you build trust by proving that you’re an expert in your field.
This is a sales funnel that helps turn potential customers into paying ones by addressing their concerns and delivering content that will benefit them, including product recommendations.
The goal of this funnel is to move visitors from being cold traffic – someone that doesn’t know or trust you, to trusting you enough to do business with you.
The lead generation process has come a long way over time as marketing professionals refined their strategies, techniques, and approaches to make more sales leads for businesses.
Have realistic expectations
Any marketing strategy takes time and hard work.
When it comes to lead generation and email marketing, it’s easy to get caught up in all the hype out there.
It seems common in digital marketing to make big promises, so it’s sensible to tune out all the noise and stay grounded.
Having realistic expectations will help you achieve a greater degree of success with email marketing.
Build your email list will not happen overnight.
The fact is, it might take weeks, months, or even years of diligent work to build a list that offers significant value.
But when you do achieve success with email marketing, it can be quite rewarding and provide your company with many new opportunities for growth.