E-mail is used as a marketing technique by businesses for a reason: It works. This form of communication allows you to reach out to prospects quickly and easily, but you need to do it right if you are going to reap the benefits of this powerful marketing tool.
Why Use E-mail for Lead Generation
E-mail as a marketing tool has a number of benefits. For one thing, it’s a very cost-effective way to contact prospects. Rather than sending out a message by regular mail and incurring the cost of postage, you can deliver your message to a prospect in a very short time.
Plan Your E-mail Marketing Strategy
If you want to make the most of this strategy, you are going to have to do more than simply do a mass e-mail blast to anyone you think may be interested in your message. A much better choice is to target your e-mails to prospects you believe will be interested in hearing your message.
The idea here is not to do a mass e-mail blast in hope of getting a few good leads. If you do your homework in the planning stage and think about how you can make your e-mail message relevant to the reader your Return on Investment (ROI) will be much higher.
Use Your Subject Line to Create a Hook for the Reader
If you can’t get your prospect to open your e-mail, you have no chance of connecting with him or her. Get creative when composing your subject line so that the person receiving your e-mail will be curious enough to click on it.
Get to the point quickly.
Your e-mail marketing campaign is not the place to have a long dissertation. You may have a lot of information you want to share with your reader, but now is not the time to overwhelm him or her. At this point, you want to walk the fine line between providing enough information to make your reader take the next step and making the e-mail so long that your reader closed it before getting to your call to action.
Tell the Reader What to Do
If you are sending out e-mail marketing messages, make sure you let your reader know what you want him or her to do next. An effective next-step strategy is to provide a link to a special landing page where your prospect can sign up for your mailing list. You will want to give the reader an incentive for doing this, so make sure you offer a free report or a discount coupon at this point.
If you follow these strategies to generate more leads through e-mail, you will be able to continuously add new prospects to your mailing list, which will ultimately lead to increased sales for your online business.
