Successful email marketing hinges on a solid strategy. Discover how to upgrade yours and craft campaigns that drive conversions.
If you have an Etsy shop or an online store or blog then you might be aware that a healthy conversion rate is anywhere between two to three percent and then there’s the 97% who don’t commit to purchasing.
So how do we increase our chances of actually getting those people to purchase from us?
If we allow visitors to leave our website without engaging, there’s a chance we might lose them forever. However, by offering a valuable giveaway, such as a PDF guide, workbook, or checklist that benefits your target audience, and having them opt-in with their email address to receive it, we create an opportunity for further engagement.
This allows us to send them emails that gradually familiarize them with our brand and remind them of our business. This process is achieved through a well-crafted email sequence.
Create a Lead Magnet
The primary objective of a lead magnet is to get more conversions or sales. Additionally, they offer the visitors timeless content that keeps them actively involved with your brand.
The higher these individuals’ engagement level, the greater the probability they will evolve into paying customers.
You do want this freebie to be a quick win for your target audience and something they really want.
An effective email magnet will consist of the following:
Call-to-Action: This is a clickable button that visitors on your website use to download the incentive you’re offering.
Landing Page: This is the page where visitors input their personal details, such as their name and email address.
Thank You Confirmation: After providing their information, visitors are redirected to a second page where they can download the promised resource. Remember to express gratitude for their subscription!
Email Series: Once they’ve been added to your email list, you can start nurturing these potential customers with a welcoming email sequence that keeps them engaged with your brand.
Automated Email Follow-Up
After that what you do is every day for the next several days you will send them your email sequence and these emails serve the purpose of warming up your audience to your brand so what you want to do is encourage engagement.
You want to do this because you want that two-way conversation going on you want to encourage them to reply to your emails because relationship marketing is a thing.
In terms of how many emails you should send and the time gap between them. I would start off with one email every other day and see how your new subscribers react to that. Then you can do maybe one every day and go from there.
The thought process behind this is that most people are being spammed constantly and if you don’t get their attention first someone else will.
I’ll go over the emails you’ll be sending in your email welcome sequence but you do want to send at least five but preferably six or seven emails within the first week because they are new to your brand. We want to ensure that we hook them from the start so they expect it the next time we send them our email.
Ultimately you want to get your subscribers in the habit of looking out for your emails on a regular basis.
Follow-Up Sequence
To successfully interact with your prospects you will need an email sequence that will basically keep reminding them of their pain points and how you can solve them.
The first email in your sequence will be sent immediately after signup and should be a Welcome email basically congratulating them for signing up to your list. It should be a plain text email instead of having some special template that all paid autoresponders have because there is a higher chance it will go to their inbox instead of their promotions tab.
Any autoresponder will have a blank template option instead of using a template so just use that. I don’t recommend putting any emoji in the subject line or text of this email. Gmail or whatever email service the person has signed up for your email might think it’s a spam email so you want to avoid that to ensure you go into the inbox.
The next email in your sequence will be sent out on the second day and will say something like how did you like the free bonus XYZ? Reply if you have any questions. Follow up by saying you have a video for them to watch that leads up to a product offer or a link that leads back to a piece of content that you uploaded in the past just to get them more familiar with your brand or website.
Email number three is going to be your story and this story is so you become more relatable to them so they can see how you have gone through something that they might be going through right now and how you came out of it on the other end.
Now you want to make sure that this story is super juicy and not boring so just make sure you leave out all the boring parts and just give them all the juicy details now here’s the trick you don’t want to tell them the end of the story you want to leave that until the next email and this is to get them excited for the end of the story because if it’s a good story they’re definitely going to want to see how it ends and in the next email you’re going to complete your story and then you’re just going, to sum up, your experience and teach them the valuable lesson that you learn by overcoming this obstacle.
Then the next and final email in your email welcome sequence is your social proof email and in this email, you’re going to talk about how you got a customer the desired result and maybe a testimonial from them and how they benefited from your service or your product.
Social proof is powerful because yes we can say all right that’s easy for you to get the result you’re an expert on x y and z but if you’re able to actually help someone else and you can tell a customer story of how you brought them from point A to point B then they’re much more likely to see you and your business and your products or service as the solution they need to get rid of their pain point.
After that, you want to continue to build this relationship because not everyone is going to buy within the first five days after signing up to your list. This is a kind of a game of being patient and persistent so someone might join your email list today but they won’t buy from you until a year from now. So you just want to treat every relationship that you have with your subscriber like it really matters.
Best Email Autoresponder
So I personally use GetResponse as my email marketing software because a lot of what I do in my business is driven by analytics and data. GetResponse is really awesome for this because you can A/B test your subject lines. You can also split test messages too.
GetResponse is a dynamic email marketing platform that offers a variety of powerful features. It enables you to build your contact list effectively, create compelling landing pages showcasing your offerings, and generate high-quality leads through signup forms. The platform also provides personalized email creation and management options along with automated responses.
One of the standout features of GetResponse is its email automation capabilities. You can easily create drip campaigns, trigger emails, and autoresponders, enhancing your overall communication strategy. It’s not just an email marketing platform; it’s also an effective webinar and sales funnel software.
GetResponse is highly recommended for email marketing due to its user-friendly design and high-conversion newsletters, automated funnels, and more. It stands out for its effectiveness in list building, sales conversion, and cart abandonment campaigns. Its built-in analytics provide valuable insights into your recipients’ demographics and behaviors, including open rates and click-throughs.
For beginners, GetResponse is an excellent choice as it boasts an easy-to-navigate interface and a simple drag-and-drop email editor for creating custom emails. Its automation feature is straightforward to set up, and the tracking and analytics tools are easy to use.
The Importance of Split Testing
When it comes to email marketing one thing you need to get comfortable with is testing. Test your subject lines first for open rates.
If your subject lines suck no one will open them. They can’t boring but they also can’t be spammy. An example of a good subject line would be something like “Only 2 spots left” or “Did you get this yet” as this builds curiosity. A bad one would be “GET PROFIT NOW” or ‘Collect Your Payment” These types of subject lines just come across as very spammy.
Email Broadcasting vs Automation
Start with a small automation sequence that will last two or three weeks then when you get your first 500 or so leads you can do lots of testing with broadcast emails.
An email broadcast is an individual email you send to the subscribers in your contact list. It’s great for testing! You will see what emails get opened the most and how many clicks you get on your affiliate links.
GetResponcse keeps track of all these stats. In order to get these leads fast to start testing what works is to use solo ads from Udimi if you’re in the MMO (make money online) niche if not you can find some top-rated solo ad vendors in Facebook groups. Doing this will also allow you to test your landing page opt-in conversion rate.
Spy on Your Competitor’s Email Strategy
No one talks about this but if you want to be a pro at email marketing all you need to do is sign up for many newsletters in your niche and see what types of emails are being sent to you from the top marketers.
You can see what subject lines they use, what offers they are selling/promoting as well as the call to action, how often they send emails out as well as the length of the email etc. You can get lots of data from your competition. Then test these strategies within your own list. It’s kind of like a hack and it’s so easy to do.
Think in terms of what does my audience need right now or how can I benefit them now. This may come in the form of a product or service. It may come in the form of free content that they need but have been unable to find.
One way to increase engagement with your list is to have them take a quiz or survey before they even sign up. Some marketers use this tactic and have said it does help generate more high-quality leads.
I have not used this strategy myself but it is something to consider. There are many services that offer a quiz integration to your landing page just Google search “quiz landing page builder” and you will find free and paid options.
Scrubbing Your List
This is not something that you will have to be concerned about in the beginning but you should clean your email database ever so often. Over time some of your subscribers may lose interest in the topic or niche of whatever you’re promoting so you want to scrub your list every six months or so. This will keep your entire list more engaged.
There is no sense in having a very large list if it’s not converting well. You can have a small list of subscribers that make you six figures a year and a large list that is barely paying the bills for you. That’s why you want to clean it every now and then, cut out the fat so to speak. Your autoresponder service no matter which one you use will charge you based on how many contacts you have in your list so this is a wise thing to do to save money. Also if you have a low open rate this can affect the reliability of your delivery. You will lose about 20 to 25% of old leads yearly on average.
Improve Your Calls-to-Action
The effectiveness of your Calls-to-Action (CTA) can significantly influence the click-through rates of your emails, and consequently, your conversion rates. The call-to-action is probably the most important element in this equation that ultimately gets people to buy. A lackluster CTA can result in fewer visitors and, ultimately, lower sales. Therefore, it’s worthwhile to invest time in refining your CTAs to ensure they’re impactful.
Consider testing both button and text-based CTAs. Concentrate on crafting enticing language that compels subscribers to engage.
In reality, you only “need” to know a little bit more than your prospects in your niche to sell to them or be perceived as an authority on the subject. You have the solution for them, you also want to end this email with a soft pitch so this is where you can remind your new subscribers about your product or service so basically, you’re telling them the next step. So the next step is to head to your shop and check out your XYZ product line to help them solve the issue then you want to nudge them with a really soft non-pushy pitch.
This is optional but it’s definitely a good idea because hey you just gave your new subscriber a ton of valuable information you built that relationship with them so why not strike while the iron is hot and just remind them that you have a product or service if they don’t take you up on it that’s okay totally normal keep loving on your email list by sending out a weekly newsletter or it could be bi-weekly or even monthly whatever works for you in your schedule.
Do You Need a Website for Email Marketing?
The answer is no you don’t.
Many email marketing autoresponders will host your opt-in landing page for you. So basically you will create a landing page or have one created for you and you can take that link and that will be the link that you will give people in order to sign up for your email list.
On the other hand, if you do have a website then most email autoresponders will give you an HTML code that you can embed into a blog post or into the home page of your website so people can sign up that way. Then after they subscribe to your email list they will receive the freebie, in short, you will add the link to your PDF, video, or whatever freebie you’ve created in your welcome email.
When your new subscriber receives the freebie email they can click the link and download it or just be redirected to it on another site.
With that being said I do suggest that you buy a domain on HostGator for your landing page because the default URL (autoresponder hosted URL) will be long and ugly with lots of random letters and numbers. It’s honestly much easier to hire someone on Fiverr to create the landing page for you.
It won’t cost a lot of money and it will come out looking really good you just need the text and images to supply the seller. I recommend looking at other landing pages in your niche and see what really stands out to you and similar titles call to action ext.
Why is Email Marketing So Important?
Email marketing is highly profitable for several reasons. Firstly, it’s a versatile tool that allows for direct, personal communication with contacts, making it an effective method to build your brand and grow your business (source: Mailrelay). It’s also cost-effective, enabling you to reach and connect with your target audience in a personalized way and increase sales at an affordable cost (source: Site-Seeker). Transactions from email are reported to be three times more profitable than those made on social media (source: Quora). Moreover, email marketing can promote other marketing channels, such as social media platforms, amplifying their effectiveness (source: Forbes). Lastly, it delivers substantial investment returns – for every $1 spent on email marketing, marketers make $42, indicating a 4,200% ROI, which is higher than other marketing strategies (source: The Ascent).
Wrap Up
Don’t be intimated this is not rocket science and you can grow an email list very quickly if you put in the work. If you combine affiliate marketing with your email marketing strategy and drive targeted traffic to your landing page you can be financially free and have fun at the same time.
Email marketing is like a hack to financial freedom that is very cost-effective. So no matter how much experience you have. You can still create highly effective email marketing campaigns quickly that will bring in passive revenue to expand your business to the highest level possible.
