Raise your hand if you’re overwhelmed by your email inbox.
With so many companies blasting salesy messages out to random lists every day, our inboxes are flooded with messages that might not even be relevant to us in that moment. It can be so overwhelming, in fact, that it’s estimated that 269 billion emails are sent per year, and the average office worker receives 121 emails per day. For many of you, that number is probably much higher.
So just how does a marketer create and send emails that are able to cut through the clutter and obtain the attention of prospective leads? Here are 6 email marketing strategies to help you create better emails that will stand out and generate leads and even close sales!
Provide a Clear Call to Action
You’d be surprised at how many emails we see on a daily basis that don’t offer a clear call to action (CTA). Your prospects have to make a lot of decisions every day, so don’t expect them to have the capacity to work through cryptic email messages. Tell your readers exactly what you want them to do with the email you’ve sent them. An additional pro tip: Keep it simple and only ask them to do one thing. For example, do you want them to download a whitepaper? Request a consultation? Visit a page with more product information? Pick one action and spell it out!
Address them by Name
Or even better, by company name or role! Personalization in emails is shown to improve click-through rates by an average of 14%. But to provide personalization, you have to collect enough information to know who your prospects are. It’s essential to build email lists from people who have given you permission to contact them and include their first name, last name, and ideally a little more. For example as a fresh produce marketer trying to reach your buyers, you should know who is on your email list by name, company and job title to ensure they are a relevant prospect. Read more about personalization strategies here.
A/B Test Your Subject Line
You can never really know whether or not a different subject line would have performed better unless you actually test it. Try segmenting your email list into two separate lists and send them each identical emails, but with two different subject lines. Which one performs better? You can also try this strategy with different sending times or body copy, but it’s best to test by changing only one variable at a time.
Ask a Question to Create Connection
You open an email and are greeted with this line: “Hello, we provide transportation services to perishable shippers.” How would you feel? Let’s say instead you open the email and you’re greeted with this line: “Do you struggle with high shrink within your supply chain right now?” There’s a huge difference in these two approaches. Asking the right question to align with your prospect’s problems or goals will create a faster connection and make them more likely to read your email through to the end.
Measure Success
At the end of the day, you won’t know how effective your email marketing strategy is unless you pay attention to the analytics. Look at open rates, click through rates and even which contacts are actually opening your emails and taking action to measure success. Very generally speaking, an open rate of 30% – 40% is considered standard, and click through rates around 5% are considered good. Set a few benchmarks and goals for your own emails to determine if you need to adjust your approach or push the gas pedal for more.
Follow Up
When it comes to marketing emails, follow up looks different between a B2B and a B2C email. For the sake of this post, let’s focus on B2B emails that will generate leads for your business. To follow up, you will need to know who opened your email and who took action so you can say something to them next time you see them. For example, if you were to send an email with a CTA for a whitepaper download, you could let your sales team know who downloaded it and equip them to follow up at an upcoming tradeshow with that prospect. “Hi Bob – I saw you downloaded that whitepaper. Was that helpful for you?”
When it comes to email marketing, there is no guaranteed formula for success. Being more thoughtful around your approach and measuring success combined with the right follow through is what will turn your emails into a valuable lead generation asset! If you need help with an upcoming email approach, reach out to us and we can help.
