How to Create New Business with Email Marketing
Every time a person visits your web site and leaves without taking
action, you have lost a prospect. The easiest way to capture that
prospect and lead them into your sales funnel is through the effective
use of email marketing. Building an email list through your web site is
a crucial element of keeping in touch with your prospects and
increasing your sales.
Once visitors reach your website, they’ll do one of three things.
They take action (make contact, sign up or buy something), bookmark you
or click away. If someone takes action, great! If they click away,
there’s not much you can do. And don’t count on those bookmarking you
to come back anytime soon.
Fortunately, with a smart email marketing game plan and the right
invitation, you've got your best shot for capturing their email
addresses. And that can only mean one thing; more business.
Step
1
Utilize a professional online email marketing service that
provides the tools and support you need to be successful. There are
several options depending on the size of your company, but I’ve been
most happy with Aweber over the past five years. If you have a webmaster, ask what they use.
If you don’t have a webmaster, go with Aweber for their simplicity and
service. Email marketing services start at less than $20.00 per month.
Step 2
Create the form (simple) at your email marketing
services website and paste the code for that form into your web pages.
This is not as hard as it sounds. The email marketing service will have
a simple way to create the form, and you or your webmaster can just
paste it right into your web site.
Step 3
Create a compelling offer why a visitor should join
your email list. Best ideas include a special white paper or special
report, a helpful top 10 list about your business or industry or even a
coupon for toward their first purchase. If you want the best shot for
getting those email addresses? Offer all three for signing up.
Step 4
Create a thank you or autoresponder message. This is
the email your new subscriber will receive after they’ve signed up on
your web site. This is a great place to introduce yourself, provide
them what you offered in your invitation and let them know how you can
help them any further.
Step 5
Stay in touch with your subscribers every couple of
weeks. What should you email your list? Well, anything that would
interest them as a potential customer.
- Think about the
frequently asked questions people ask you about your business or
industry. Each of those answers could be a future eblast (email
broadcast).
- Send them other interesting articles or blog posts you come
across. No, you can’t just copy and paste an article you found and
treat it as your own. But, you can make an opening statement or provide
some tips surrounding an article, and then include some of the
article’s text, as well as a link where your subscriber can read the
rest. Commenting on other articles or blog posts of interest to your
prospects is a great way to stay in touch with little work on your part.
- Sales and special offers are perfect for email marketing. You can
notify your subscribers about anything you need to promote. You can
pre-schedule your emails weeks in advance.
These days, it’s all
about building relationships and making an impact with those that visit
your site. Email marketing is one of the most effective tools you can
use to connect with your web site visitors and stay in touch until they
become a new client or customer.
