Email is an old communication channel, but that doesn’t make it any less powerful in the modern business world. In fact, over the years email marketing has become one of the most powerful digital marketing methods, a way to generate, nurture, and convert leads into paying, lifelong brand advocates.
Today, we are going to talk about how you can achieve higher customer acquisition and retention using email marketing. But we are going to cover some of the more refined tips and tactics to give your email strategy a boost.
Assuming that you have already done your audience research and have established your value proposition and other fundamental elements, let’s take a look at the more advanced tips to generate qualified email leads.
1. Organic ways and tips to build your email list
Without a doubt, you could just buy large email lists and start blasting the recipients with promotional emails, which would be a great way to drive your reputation into the ground. You probably already know that buying email lists can be dangerous and ruin your brand’s reputation, email deliverability, and even penalize and freeze your email accounts.
That’s why it’s important to grow your email list organically with a dedicated tool like Hourly – to inspire and incentivize people to willingly give you their email address. Fortunately, there are many great ways build a huge email list for your business, including:
- Creating top-notch, shareable newsletter content
- Posting quality content on social media
- Promoting your newsletter on social platforms
- Enabling opt-ins on your website
- Using exit pop-ups to catch customers before they leave your site
- Run contests and giveaways with an email opt-in to enter
- Create engaging quizzes with an email opt-in at the end
- Offer deals and discounts in exchange for an email address
- Create valuable loyalty programs
- Offer free educational products like eBooks, courses and guides
- Host live events and workshops
2. Optimize your email marketing funnel
Once you have built a sizable email subscribed base, you need to start optimizing your email strategy. If you are to structure and execute a powerful email marketing strategy, you need to build and optimize an actionable email marketing funnel.
Your email marketing funnel is a representation of your customer’s journey, or the steps a customer takes from the moment they come in contact with your brand to the moment they become a loyal customer. To become loyal customers, your leads will go through:
- Awareness
- Consideration
- Conversion
- Loyalty and advocacy
To optimize your funnel and the tactics you use in your email communication for each of these stages, you need to take user intent into account. User intent describes the intent with which a potential customer is interacting with you – browsing your site, inquiring about something, reading your blogs, etc.
The primary types of user intent are:
- Navigational – a customer is trying to reach a certain site
- Informational – the customer is looking for educational content
- Commercial – the customer is comparing options and looking at features and price comparisons
- Transactional – the customer is ready to buy
You can only deliver an effective email strategy if you optimize your emails for specific user intent and the customer’s position in your email marketing funnel.
For example, if a customer is just getting to know your brand (awareness stage) their intent is most likely informational. They are not ready to buy, but if you push sales-oriented emails their way, you risk losing them for good.
Likewise, you need to send out price comparisons and sales-oriented emails to customers who are in the consideration and conversion stages, with transactional intent, in order to close the deal. After all, they are ready to buy.
3. Use the right tools to manage your funnel and leads
Managing and optimizing your email marketing funnel can seem a bit daunting at first, but it can be a straightforward process if you use the right email marketing tools. Without a doubt, a robust lead generation software such as Attrock will come with a built-in CRM foundation that will allow you to sort all your leads and manage all contacts effectively.
Using a comprehensive tool to generate, manage, and capitalize on your leads is a great way to minimize your financial waste and maximize the potential of every new email address you acquire. One of the most popular, comprehensive tools are HubSpot and Nimble, but you can also use dedicated opt-in tools like OptinMonster or WP forms.
These and many other tools offer free trial periods that you can use to get familiarized with the system and find out if it’s the right fit for you. Whatever you choose, having a dedicated tool for lead generation and customer relationship management will help you optimize every aspect of your email strategy.
4. Create compelling lead magnets
A lead magnet is any type of product or service you offer for free in exchange for contact information. Above, we mentioned some of the best ways to grow your email list and some of the biggest mistakes in digital marketing such as buying email lists in bulk. Now we’ll talk about what it takes to create truly powerful lead magnets in a competitive online world.
Because unfortunately, it’s no longer enough to publish a blog post and ask people if they want to get similar stories in their inbox. Nowadays, you have to get creative, you need to have a clear structure and purpose, and you need to offer something truly valuable to your audience.
With that in mind, you can use this lead magnet checklist provided by LiveAgent checklist has the following to help you build powerful lead magnets:
- Research your target audience to identify their goals, aspirations, values, and core drivers
- Identify the things they care about and consider valuable in their personal and professional life
- Determine your brand’s unique value proposition and what sets you apart
- Identify the tools you need to use for lead magnet creation and email marketing
- Identify the lead magnet type and create an outline
- Determine the main points you want to cover in your lead magnet
- Create your lead magnet, analyze, iterate, and optimize
- Create a landing page on your site that you can link to in your emails
- Promote your lead magnet on relevant digital platforms
5. Make your emails visually appealing
Long gone are the days of those boring email templates with nothing more than some plain text and a call to action. Nowadays, people respond to and want to see captivating email designs that will grab their attention and guide them through the content within.
Generating email leads is not just about getting people to sign up for your mailing list, nor is it enough to just send them an email when they subscribe. Rather, it’s about seizing the opportunity to make a lasting impression by adding color and brand elements to your emails.
You need to nail your visuals in email marketing to stand out from the competition, but also to leverage visual elements to inspire people to take action. Here are some of the visual elements you can include in your emails:
- Images
- Infographics
- Illustrations
- 3D images
- GIFs
- Collages
Using visuals, you can guide the user towards the CTA. You can position the call to action in your emails at the end and in the middle to create a natural pivot point and allow the customer to seamlessly transition to a dedicated landing page on your site.
Over to you
Email marketing is one of the best ways for SMBs to generate and nurture leads until they become paying customers. That said, it’s also a great way to ensure those customers keep coming back for more by building customer loyalty and improving their lifetime value.
WIth these more advanced tips in mind, you can optimize your email marketing strategy and generate more qualified leads to take your small business to new heights in 2022 and beyond.
About the Author
Sara Novicic is a seasoned writer and storyteller, Sara does her best to share her experience with the world and help brands as well as entrepreneurs find their voice. She loves the learning curve that comes with writing, so she gladly takes on new topics that will expand her own knowledge and expertise.
