Email Marketing Messages: 3 Content to 1 Sales Message
You want your emails to your customers and prospects to be opened and read. After all, that’s why you send them — right?
So, it’s important to offer them what they want. How do you know what they want? One way is to watch which emails they open. If there’s a link in the email, does it get clicked?
Another way to determine what they want is with the promise that you made when they signed up. Did you give them a special report or ebook about a topic that relates to your offerings? Did you promise coupons or special offers?
When customers or prospects give you their email addresses it’s important to deliver the value you promised. If you assured them they would get coupons or special offers, they may open your emails at first, But if your offers are not relevant things they want to buy from you, they’ll start ignoring or deleting your messages. To avoid that you can segment your list and send only relevant offers of the products they want to buy.
If your customer or prospect traded their valuable contact info for an educational piece, more than likely, they’ll want more of the same type of content. Does this mean you should never sell to them or make them an offer? Of course not, today’s consumers are not so naive as to believe you will never sell to them.
It is important, though, to give them more of what they signed up for. You can do this by sending interesting articles and blog posts that will help them make healthy decisions. You can add a ‘soft offer’ at the end of the information with a “click to see how easy getting your daily dose of herb/vitamin/mineral can be” link.
When you see that your emails are getting a good open rate and links are being followed, you’ll know you’re hitting the sweet spot for your audience. If sales are being generated with the ‘soft offers’ you don’t have to worry about sending a ‘sales’ email unless you’re having a sale or other special offer.
New product emails are definitely an occasion to combine the rollout with an educational article — or series of articles if the product warrants such.
Experts abound in the email marketing arena. Some say to send three content emails for every one sales message. Others say one to one. Let your audience decide what they want from you and your company and fulfill their wishes to create a lasting and mutually beneficial relationship.
Email comes right into your list members’ homes or is carried with them on phones 24/7, so it’s a very personal medium. Use that intimacy to create a trusting relationship, and you’ll create customers for life.
Would you like to have a no cost, no obligation, discussion about your email campaigns? We can analyze your copy and timing to see if there are possible improvements. Just schedule a meeting here.