Can't get a prospect to answer the phone? Try drip email marketing to make them call you.

The focus of this article is email drip marketing for lead nurturing campaign. In today’s busy times, potential customers rarely have the time to learn everything about your company. So this is where the drip email campaign comes in. Today’s buyers want to make an informed buying decision, so why not take advantage of this and help them out.

Your prospects are your main source of income, and you constantly have to look for new ways to approach them the right way. When you’re cold calling people the chances they’ll be interested are slim. The ideal situation is to have them call you. But that sounds a bit far-fetched, doesn’t it? Maybe not.

Drip marketing is a direct marketing strategy where you come into contact with your potential clients prior to contacting them directly. It’s called ‘drip’ because you send emails to your prospects bit by bit before actually getting them on the phone. The only difference being that you’re sending out promotional emails over a period of time to get them to call you.

Crucial flow of email drip campaigns is as follows:

Find out who is your target audience  
Knowing your target audience is the crucial part of any marketing campaign, and drip email
campaign is no exception to the rule. Identifying your audience and their profile is the key to your approach and successfulness of your campaign. If you want to spark their interest, you need to understand them and their pain points. There’s no chance they’ll call you unless you offer them something they can’t refuse. That is only achieved if you truly know who you’re talking to.

What is your offer/message/goal that you want to convey to end user 
Second most important thing is formulating the message that you want to convey. Your message has to incorporate all the important elements that will trigger their interest and get them to call you. Remember that your message will be delivered in several ‘drips’ so it makes sense to distribute the bits of information evenly so as to retain their interest.

Create a strategic plan - how many emails, what triggers you want to include in each
The third thing you have to figure out is how many emails you want to send out and what to include in each. This depends entirely on your message, of course, but also on your target audience. If you have more than one trigger you can distribute the triggers into several emails. Also, think about the timing and how long you want to wait before sending a follow up email.

Measurement
As with every other marketing endeavour - always measure. Measuring is crucial if you want to learn from your mistakes, and you’re bound to make some, especially in the beginning.

Drip marketing campaign is a great way of sparking interest and ultimately making people call you. This type of campaign allows to gradually build rapport and stay top of mind with potential prospects without being too pushy. If your content and timing is good enough, they will eventually come to you.  Here are a few more email marketing tips we have for you.

Email Marketing Tips

The internet has been around roughly twenty years. It's hard to imagine a time when this was not part of our lives. Within this time, millions of companies and customers have signed on with their own email addresses. More now than ever, companies have to push harder and stronger to get customers to shop their stores. One of the many techniques they use is email marketing. Here's some helpful tips for your first email marketing campaign.

1) First, it's important to personalize your content. While your email will always contain your newsletter, it's a great idea to personalize recommendations. You can easily do this by having them fill out a form that closely relates to their interests in reference to your content. For instance, Bill might enjoy SEO but Sally enjoys podcasting. So, on Billy's email there are SEO recommendations. This helps you and the customer in the long run. For you, it makes sure you get more clicks to your website. For the customer, it makes them more aware of what is out there.

2) Another helpful tip is to include downloads. Depending on your small business, you may occasionally have documents you need to send to your audience. These may be forms for a conference, for instance, that they can return via e-mail. It's also an idealistic place to drag in pictures to your email. Give your readers a personalized feel that your content has been created just for them. In addition, this is a platform where you can send embedded video files, such as webinars or video podcasts.

3) Do you want your readers and buyers to shop your business more often? Through your email marketing, consider what you can give away. Coupons, freebees and promotions soften the heart of your buyers. Let's say you have a new book coming out; it's priced at $9.99. If you want your readers to give you warm, honest reviews, then give it to them for free or for $0.99. Why? Because they have loyally read each book you have published; you should give back to them.

4) Lastly, consider mobile marketing. E-mail is no longer is in its infancy. It's not 1997; rather, it's 2016. We have computers, phones, tablets, among many other devices. This means your e-mail needs to be responsive. The reader needs to be able to read it whether their screen is three inches or 17 inches. They should not have to worry about zooming in to read text. On that note, files should be downloadable on all devices. The file extension .rtf (Real Text Format) usually works for most devices, as does .jpg files for images. Consider these extensions when developing your newsletter.

It's important to utilize e-mail so your customers get the most out of your company. They are the flame of the company. It's vital that you foster that light, making it stronger so that the fire doesn't go out. That's why you need e-mail marketing. You need to meet your audience where they are and they will come to you. 

Visit our blog for more email marketing tips.

Weekly Email Newsletter Keeps Your Business Top of Mind

It’s still new and I am still very proud of to have been one of the founding certified coaches in the John Maxwell Team. It’s a designation that means a lot to me because it was not easy and being a member of the John Maxwell Team means that I can bring so much to the business owners and professionals I can reach.

This is important news and I wanted all my clients and prospects to know about it. We all have things that we do or that happen in our business and personal lives that we want to share, but often they get lost as we get back to the work-a-day routine. That’s a big mistake.

New research is saying that it takes seven to 12 touches to turn a prospect into a buying customer. Now some business owners lay out those touches in a structured campaign, but for most of the rest of us, including you probably, it just sort of happens as it happens – and that’s costing you business and sales.

I’m not saying you have to plan out every touch (although that would make it automatic and easy) but

image credit: faysalfaran at 123rf.com

I do want to encourage you to consider some touches you might not have thought about – using your list and email.

You know I encourage everyone to send out a weekly email. It’s tough, I know. Believe me, I know. But it is worth every minute you devote to it. Before you start listing all the reasons you CAN’T do it, let me eliminate some of those objections right now:

You don’t have to solve the problems of the world – just help them see the problems they have that you can solve. Be specific and only talk about one problem at a time.

You don’t have to worry about not having anything to say – see below.

What can you talk about in your emails? For starters, here are thirteen ideas (That is enough for a full quarter’s writing. Rinse and repeat):

1. Problems you have solved for specific clients
2. Interesting stories about your customers
3. Accomplishments – yours and your customer’s
4. New products or services
5. Tell about the people you work with or who work for you
6. Personal stories – about your family, pets, hobbies, etc.
7. Current events and how they relate to you and your business
8. News about your industry
9. New things you have learned – about your industry or about running a business
10. Business professional to business professional – sharing insights, tips, tricks and lessons you have learned “the hard way”
11. Share what you are reading that you think others would benefit from or enjoy
12. Create a survey and ask your customers what they think, want and need
13. Share a funny story or inspirational quote

You don’t have to write a book – choose one thing to write about and let it be as long – or as short as it needs to be.

You don’t have to be a professional writer – just write like you were talking to someone over a cup of coffee or a bubbly drink – just talk. Use spellchecker. Right click on the word (in WORD) and the correct spelling will appear.

Chances are that you know enough about what you do and the challenges you face – and overcome - as a business owner to create a weekly email without the above list. You just have to make the time to do it.

With a CRM like AddressTwo, it’s easy to get an email out to your list. Once you set up the template, you just have to swap out last weeks’ text with this week’s copy and you are ready to go. In fact, you could set up several weeks at a time and just schedule them to go out. (Or you could hire a writer or VA to do it for you.)

However you accomplish the task, keep it consistent. Make those touches and stay top of mind.

To Your Success,

Jack Klemeyer, Grow Your Business Coaching

   

Mom Did Know Best: Clean it up!

It has to happen every once in a while and this is the perfect time of year to face it. I’m talking about cleaning up your list.

This realization came crashing down on a client recently and it just serves to remind me that it is one of the last things busy small business owners are thinking about, but it is just so important.

photo credit: ginasanders @123rf.com

Is your list a mess?

This client wanted to establish a monthly email newsletter. One of the steps was uploading the CSV

file of his list into the app. When the CSV file arrived and my team and I took a look at it, we immediately realized that there was a lot of work to do before it could ever be uploaded.

First off, information had been entered into the wrong fields and we had first names like Quick and surnames like Order. Then there were company names entered where the contact’s name should have been. That was just the beginning. After reviewing the file, there were lots of other changes like who the contact for the company was now and outdated email addresses.

Hey, don’t beat yourself up because there are always changes and mistakes, it’s inevitable that your list needs to be cleaned up, sorted out and purged of all sorts of inaccurate information. But the thing you have to keep in mind is that your list of contacts is one of the most valuable assets you have in your business. So you need to keep it polished up and in good working order.

Make an update part of your regular maintenance.

The end of the year is a busy time and part of the busy-ness is sending “thank you for your business this year” greetings to your clients. Take this opportunity to review your list. Make it part of the process in sending those greetings. Schedule it for fall. That gives you time to actually remove any problem entries as well as request new, updated data.

In some instances, the email contact may be the only information you have. Sending out requests for actual postal mailing addresses via email will help you sift through outdated emails as well as provide an extra touch with the client and get more information from them.

AND, while you are doing that, remind yourself of all the contacts and potential clients that you haven’t connected with for some time. Out of mind means just that – out of mind, and out of mind means a big NO SALE on the cash register.

So cleaning up is not just cleaning up, but use it for bringing to mind potential clients that need a note, call or some other bit of communication from you. Use it to re-connect and update your records. The biggest benefit is that you are ready for a big push in the New Year.

To Your Success!

Jack

GrowYour Business™ Coaching founder Jack Klemeyer is recognized as a preeminent resource for business professionals. As a John Maxwell Certified coach, speaker, trainer and facilitator of Mastermind groups for business owners and professionals, his results-driven philosophy calls for action and accountability. He and his Grow Your Business™ team are dedicated to taking businesses and their owners to the next level. Jack can be reached at Jack@GYBCoaching.com or at 317-755-6963. Learn more at GYBCoaching.com.

Holiday Email Marketing Tips

Have you started sending holiday emails yet? If not, what are you waiting for? Holidays are that time of year when people shop the most, and chances are that your small biz can benefit greatly from that. Successful email marketing is an amazing tool to reach out to your target audience and turn them into buying cust0mers.

If done right, that is.

If you’re sending emails just to send them, it won’t yield the results you need.

If you really want to impress them, stick to these holiday email marketing tips:

Plan in advance

A good marketing strategy is the first (and perhaps the only) thing you need to generate sales. A large number of marketers who know how to make a killer email holiday campaign start planning as early as August. But it’s not late now either.

Email marketing should be at your to-do list if you want results. There is no excuse – make a plan and stick to it. Let’s take a look at some of the tips on how to grab the attention of your target audience through holiday emails:

Focus on mobile

The first practical advice is to focus on mobile, and for a good reason. More and more people are checking on their mail and viewing it from the mobile devices. To put things into perspective, it has been reported that in 2014 that more that 50% traffic was mobile during holiday seasons. Below are a few tips on how to make sure that your emails are mobile-friendly:

Use an email template that is mobile-optimized

Keep it short and snappy

Three sentences on your computer may look like 6 sentences on your mobile device. So, make sure there isn’t too much text, otherwise people won’t even bother to read it. You emails need to be catchy and a bit personal, something people can relate to. Something short but powerful that will make them want to know more. 

Make it simple

The best email promotions are simple with a clear layout. If you have too many colors or use 5 different types of front people may get distracted from the main goal. And that is – to take some kind of action. 

Run a social media promotion

Prior to actually creating an email campaign, run a promotion on Facebook, Instagram etc. If you want your customers to respond to your holiday emails, first you have to remind them of who you are. Just to get their attention. So that when they receive an email from you, they’ll know who you are and they will be more likely to take action.  

Make them engage with you on social media. Engagement is the best way to get closer to you customers and stay on top of their mind. Run a holiday photo contest to make your followers engage. Alternatively, offer buy-one-get-one-free promotions to spur engagement. 

Use proper CTA

A call-to-action is supposed to make people buy something, so you need to make it catchy and simple. For an eye-catching call-to-action you can visually emphasize it. Also, you don’t have to use CTA just once – use it several time throughout your email.

The paradox of choice – stick to one

If you want to lead your potential customers to one single action, make sure you lead them with one single thought in mind. Even though you may have several products you’d like to offer, stick to just one, or to several relatable ones. You need to hack into the psychology of a buyer’s mind. Sometimes less is more, and in this case it seems to be truer than ever. People get easily confused if they need to choose between several things. 

Pay attention to the subject line

Last but not the least – make a killer subject line. Since the subject line is the first thing people see when they get a new email it’s worth investing some thought into it. How many times did you not open an email because of a crappy boring headline? Probably more often than you can remember. The same goes for your subscribers. If it doesn’t spark their interest, they won’t open it. There will be so many emails anyway, why would they waste time on reading yours? Because you have to offer them something others can’t. So express that in your subject line. You can do that by asking a question – questions resonate well with customers. And, of course, add some holiday spirit to it!

4 Email Marketing Tips to Creating an Open-Worthy Email

AddressTwo email marketing tools help you keep in touch with your database of customers and prospects. Using our email template builder and list feature, you can blast your emails to help increase sales or provide your customers with beneficial information. Email marketing can be tricky, so here are four tips and tricks to building and blasting content your customers will care about.

1: DEFINE YOUR AUDIENCE

As with any marketing content, it is important to determine your audience. You can identify contacts by zip code radius, prospective product purchasers, current customers of your business, etc. Remember, however, that email is an opt-in marketing process. Your customers must choose to receive your emails.

Whoever you choose to target your email campaign towards, know that they all have different content desires. Understanding your audience and building a list of recipients is an important first step in AddressTwo. This list will allow you to determine what you are going to say, and how you are going to get that email opened.

2: WHAT SAY YOU?

Once you know who you are talking to, you will be able to determine what to say. Are they current customers? They might want to know about a new product/service offering or an upcoming event.
 
Are they prospective customers? Offer them a little incentive to get them on board.

Additionally, personalize the email to help deepen relationships with your customers. Using our mail merge fields in AddressTwo will allow you to pull the recipient’s name into the email and help them to feel a deeper connection to your message.

3: ENGAGE YOUR READERS

An engaging subject line, email body, and a call-to-action (CTA) and/or hyperlink can make or break your email success.

Subject Lines

The subject line is the most important part of your email. Without an exciting subject line, your message may not even get viewed. It is important to note that:

• Using all CAPITAL LETTERS in the subject line can get your message booted into the junk mail folder before your audience ever sees it. Make sure you are careful to make the subject engaging, but not junk-box worthy.
• *Asterisks* are commonly used to grab attention in the subject instead of capitals, but don’t go overboard.
• Using [brackets] around offers in your subject line will help intrigue your audience to open the message.

Email Body
You want to make the body of your email easy to read through bulleted lists and small paragraphs. Brief and to-the-point emails with a little bit of humor will help keep your audience engaged, but make sure it’s appropriate. Think about how you would want to receive and read an email.

CTA’s and Hyperlinks
These will help you track the success of your email campaign. AddressTwo allows you to see how many of your recipients clicked on links in your email. These clicks will allow you to determine the success of your campaign. Be prepared to send them to a blog where you can track page views or to your website so you can determine if they are actually reading your message and taking the action you want them to.

4: TEST IT. THEN TEST IT AGAIN.

AddressTwo offers a “send test email” field in the full email editor to allow you to shoot the template over to yourself (or maybe even a coworker) for review. In any content marketing, it is important to test and retest your content. Though our email template builder is easy to use and visualize your final message, it is important for you to view the email as your recipients would. Plus, testing an email will allow you to click through your hyperlinks or embedded videos to make sure they work properly.

IN CONCLUSION

Defining your audience, deciding your content, engaging your readers, and testing your email will certainly help you to be a better email marketer. Don’t take email for granted, it is one of the most powerful marketing tools we have in this technological age.

If you can’t get enough about email marketing, HERE are some previous blog posts with email tips and tricks.

If you need help with specific AddressTwo email features, head on over to our tutorial videos to learn about how to create sender profiles, add email signatures, and insert images into your email campaigns. 

GO FORTH and send those emails with confidence!

Contact Management & Email Marketing for Small Business in Lafayette, IN

Two Workshop times: 10 a.m. to Noon - OR - 1:00 to 3:00 pm; Friday, July 19

Get excited about your old contact list. Join Nicole Gebhardt (The Remarkable Way) and Troy Hanna(Address Two) to uncover the secrets of email marketing and contact management for building a strong and steady business.

In this workshop, you'll learn how to create an automated 5-step follow-up campaign for every new prospect that enters your sales funnel. We'll cover the secrets to writing emails that get opened and how to grow your email contact list - even if you're starting with very few names on your list.

Troy Hanna from will share industry best practices and demo Address Two's features so you see how a Customer Relationship Management (CRM) tool can revolutionize your business. Mail Chimp, Constant Contact, iContact, and similar email marketing systems are good, but they don't give you access to the entire value of your contact list. 

Benefits of a CRM:

• Segment contacts by their type (client, prospect, supplier, referral partner, etc.). Send everyone the same email, or send different emails to different audiences.
• Segment prospects by their product or service interest.
• Search your contacts for people near certain cities or zip codes, or query your list for people with a certain product interests.
• Create multi-step follow-up campaigns that include automated emails to prospects and notes to staff members for appropriate follow-up actions. The system automatically emails the assignment to the right person on the right day.
• Record histories of every individual and each contact (such as “I met him at...and we talked on the phone on 12/31/12”)
• Set up task reminders for contacts (such as “Call them on June 8. Ask about their May vacation to Hawaii.) Receive reminder emails directly in your inbox the day you’re scheduled to follow-up.
• Forecast your sales. Know what income potential is in your funnel at any time.
• And best of all, store all of your contacts from all of those business cards you've collected over the years. I'll show you how to get it done.

Seating is limited to 12 participants. Grab your seat today. http://remarkableemail.eventbrite.com/

Making Your Email Marketing Campaign Landing Pages Work

Make Your Landing Page Easy


Having a very clear “call to action” is the best way to utilize a landing page that is linked to your email marketing campaign.  When a person lands on a web page you want to give them a way that they can take an action to either sign up, buy now, call today or whatever action you would like them to take.  By having an aim for that landing page you can increase your conversions and truly get an ROI from your email marketing efforts.

Keep It Simple

It is hard to not say everything about every single product that you may have to offer or the details of your full line of services.  You don’t want to overload your viewers with too much.  By keeping it simple and clean you can get a direct message across and will have a much better chance of getting a conversion or call over trying to overload them with as much information as possible.


Email Content Should Relate to the Landing Page

Let’s say you are advertising a blue sweater in your email campaign.  Create the link that will land them right on the page where they can buy it on the spot.  Many beginners to email marketing will just link the customer to the homepage of their website which is one of the biggest mistakes you can make.  Keep it simple and give the customer what they want, don’t send them on a search to find the product they clicked on in the first place!  

Use a Checklist

Have you ever made a mistake in an email or article?  Who in the heck hasn’t!  By creating a simple checklist for yourself you can quickly go over the major pieces where it is easy to make a mistake and ensure that your bases are covered. 

Things to check:

·         Am I sending this to the right list?

·         Have I spell checked it?

·         Do all my links work?

·         Do they link to the correct pages?

·         Are the images clickable?

Just by checking over these pieces you can save yourself some quick embarrassment.

By creating landing pages that make it easy on your customers and give them a clear direction you can create a great return from your marketing efforts. 

For help with email marketing or web design contact us here at Elemeno Design, we would be glad to help!

Email Marketing Tips: What Should My Emails Be About?

Credit: ballinisahabit.net

Email is so common these days, that we almost forget how powerful being in someone’s inbox can be. Email is also so common that we can often abuse the privilege and fill other people’s inbox with junk. So, here are a few ways to keep your coveted spot in the inbox and possibly get invited to the wallet.

Content Strategy

Step one for any marketing vehicle, should be to have a strategy . If there is no plan behind the content you create, then you will look like the rest of the white noise that comes in.

Also, it is important to establish value quickly in an email list, or you will be tossed out of the inbox faster than Bobby Knight throwing a chair in a basketball game.

There are a few great ways to get people involved in your newsletter, and allow you to offer a ton a value at the same time.

Most Popular Blogs List

A great way to start a relationship with a new reader is to give away your best stuff. What has been your most popular content with other readers? A list of your three to five most popular blogs will give people a flavor for your writing style, cover popular subjects and reel them in for more.

This is also a great way to find out what else people want to hear about. By listening to the feedback from the posts, you can plan another set of creative and engaging content to schedule.

How-Tos

Writing guides and how-to content are probably the most frequently created pieces of content. Walking people through tasks is an easy way to win them over and establish yourself as an expert on the subject.

There are benefits beyond the inbox of How-To content as well. These posts are often link bait to have other websites link to you.

They also give your website a large amount of SEO friendly content at one time. By covering several areas of your business all in one spot, that conveys relevance to the search engines. Neil Patel at quicksprout.com is a great example of this!

Resource List

People like to know when, where and how to do things. Giving a large list of tools and resources is an awesome way to help people out. These types of posts are often shared with friends via email and social media, and often bring new email readers to your list.

Profile

Many times people join email lists by trading their email for a valuable piece of content they wanted. Once that nugget of information has been grabbed by your potential reader, it’s important to let them know why they should stay.

Taking the time up front to tell people what your newsletter is about, and how it will benefit them as a reader is extremely important these days. A good way to do that is by sharing a small profile on a reader.

Put together a small case study around one of your loyal readers, and point out the ways they have succeeded, and the things you plan to share so that your entire audience can have the same experience.

There are plenty of other ways to engage readers in your blog. What are some of the best you have seen?

Creating Conversion Through Conversation, Content, and Curiosity

The last thing anyone needs these days is one more useless email to hit their inbox. We are all overwhelmed with the constant deluge of emails. We sign up for this or that list to get access to a great deal or some incredibly useful piece of information, and usually do not give much thought to the continuous stream of emails that will follow now that we have given our permission.

We are all given the same hours in the day, so at some point there is a choice to be made. We cannot simply open and read them all. Some must be deleted. Sometimes unsubscribing is the right choice. These choices that we are making are the same ones the contacts on our own lists are making. Our open rates are evidence of these choices. If your email list open rate is "average" you are probably barely hitting a 20% open rate, and your click through rate...well, that is another story.

So, is email marketing even worth it? Absolutely! Email marketing can be a gold mine for your business, but you have to do it the right way. Here are three keys to creating a strategy that will boost your email marketing efforts and conversion rates:

1) It's a conversation. Be real. Be a person. You have a brand, but people do business with other people. With all of the choices we have today, it comes down to how your customer/prospect RELATES to you and your team.

2) Skip the fluff. Here's a good rule of thumb: If you don't have anything valuable to say/give, then you really need to consider whether you are going to say anything at all. Your email marketing plan should not be about creating an electronic sales flyer, but rather it should be about building that relationship. One of the best ways to do that is to give them valuable content. It needs to be worth their while to spend their precious email time reading YOUR stuff.

3) Have fun with it! Create a catchy subject line--one that makes them so curious that they cannot help but open it up. It does not matter how great the content is, if it does not look like it is going to be worth reading, then they probably will not even open it to see. Give them an inkling of what you will be sharing by infusing the personality into that subject line, and you will be more likely to grab their attention right away.

The bottom-line is that your email marketing is not about the "selly-sell", as Chris Brogan likes to call it. It's about the relationship. Build a rapport with your customers by sharing more, selling less, and they will buy more.