Email is one of the most powerful marketing channels, but this also makes it intensely competitive. The average office worker receives more than 100 emails per day, leaving them with less than 15 seconds to read each individual message.
With that in mind, it’s critical for email marketers to find ways to stand out and attract the recipient’s attention quickly. In this article, we’ll cover five tactics that can help you optimize your approach to email marketing and generate even more leads in your next email campaign.
1. Confirm everything—no exceptions
It’s easy to assume that your emails will go through without a hitch, but the reality is that even minor mistakes can completely derail an email marketing campaign. If a link in your email doesn’t work, for example, you’ll miss out on every lead who wanted to click through and learn more about your brand.
With that in mind, it’s absolutely critical to verify every element in every email, even if it seems superfluous. Of course, you won’t find anything in the vast majority of cases, but it’s better to spend a little extra time checking than it is to have something go wrong with a vital message.
2. Keep your emails concise
As mentioned above, the average user probably won’t look at your email for more than ten or fifteen seconds unless something catches their eye. If you want to generate leads through email marketing, you’ll need to develop messages that get to the point almost immediately.
You should think carefully before adding any element that makes an email take longer to navigate—every word in your message should be worth the time it takes to read. In email marketing, every second counts, and one of the most common mistakes is simply overfilling messages and losing the reader’s interest before they even get started.
The easiest way to make your emails more concise is to design them for scanning rather than thorough reading. While you can include more details in the fine print or on your website, your messages should be limited to the most relevant information. That starts with the subject line, which should draw the reader in and motivate them to open and read the rest of the email.
When it comes to the body, there are a few ways to trim down your messages without cutting too much. For example, you can use subheadings to break up large sections of text and make the email easier to scan quickly. Where appropriate, you can also turn paragraphs into bullet points or numbered lists.
Finally, make sure that the call to action is easily identifiable. If you want leads to click through and use a promo code, for example, that should be obvious as soon as a reader opens your message. Recipients should never have to scroll down to see your call to action—most people spend the majority of their time reading above the fold.
3. Create a dedicated landing page
Getting users to click through your email to your website is a major step in the sales cycle, but you still need to keep the lead warm. Another common mistake in ecommerce email marketing is to send email recipients to a regular page on your website—for example, you might simply forward email users to your site’s homepage.
While some users will complete a purchase from your homepage, this may not be the most efficient way to generate leads or sales. Instead, consider creating a dedicated landing page for your email users. This will be the first page they see when they click through a message to access your site.
Since your landing page will be exclusive to email clicks, you can tailor it to that point in the customer journey. In contrast, your homepage is more of a general starting point for users who find your site in other ways. A lead who found your site through a Google search, for example, will likely respond to different tactics compared to one who clicked through on a marketing email. Effective digital marketing is all about recognizing these trends and developing strategies that respond to the unique needs of different users.
4. Respond to their concerns
Digital marketers want to generate a sale on every message, but the reality is that leads often have to engage with a brand seven or more times before they’re ready to make an order. This largely comes down to trust and familiarity—most people are far more likely to spend money on a brand, product, or service they’re already familiar with.
While repetition is a necessary element in lead generation, you can also improve audience trust in a few other ways. Refunds, guarantees, and samples, for example, provide the peace of mind that comes from knowing that they aren’t risking any money. Even if the vast majority of customers will be satisfied, simply knowing that they’ll be able to get their money back will make them more comfortable with the idea of making their first purchase.
5. Run Gmail ads
Gmail ads can’t replace organic email lead generation, but they can help you generate leads more efficiently by putting your messages at the top of the Gmail interface. While Gmail ads come with a small “Ad” message, they generally look and feel like any other email, and Google offers a deep set of targeting tools to help you narrow down your audience.
The “Audience keywords” option, for example, allows you to target users who are interested in relevant keywords. You can also show your ads to people at particular stages of life such as getting married, graduating from college, or moving. Furthermore, Google makes it easy to run retargeting campaigns via Gmail, helping you re-engage leads who have already shown an interest in your brand. With the right targeting strategies, you’ll be able to generate low-cost leads through Gmail ads.
Generating leads can be an unpredictable process, but these tactics will help you turn your email marketing campaigns into a reliable source of engaged leads. Of course, every audience is different, so it’s critical to consistently evaluate your results and fine-tune your approach based on the latest trends. A/B tests, competitor research, and customer feedback are a few of the best resources for identifying your strengths and improving on your weaknesses.
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About the Author – Marouane EL BAGHATI
Marouane is an SEO specialist at Omnisend – a marketing automation platform for e-commerce. Preferred hobbies apart from blogging are reading about philosophy, latest e-commerce and technological innovation news.
If the idea of creating and sending email that generates leads seems overwhelming, know that you don’t need to go it alone. We’re in this with you. If you need a little help, just drop us a line, anytime.