Email marketing is still one of the best tactics a business can use to generate leads.
Not every email marketing campaign is a winner, however. Often, email marketing campaigns need a few tweaks to be successful, and even emails that are mostly effective can struggle to generate leads or convert customers. These are five essential tips for businesses wanting to revamp their email marketing campaigns and generate more leads.
1. You aren’t following cold email best practices
Cold email campaigns are typically a short in the dark, and tactics that may work for a typical email campaign may not be effective in convincing the recipients of a cold email.
Cold emailing can also be harder than similar marketing methods, like cold calling, because your marketing team doesn’t get real-time feedback from the recipient — if they start to become bored halfway through the message, the sender can’t switch up their approach like they could if they were on the phone.
In general, best practices for cold emails are similar to those for other content-driven campaigns, but you have to pay special attention to the recipient’s particular pain points and needs.
Relevant, timely and valuable emails that readers have opted into receiving are generally going to do the best.
Brief emails also tend to work better, especially if they make it clear what you want the recipient to do — like signing up for a mailing list or checking out a new deal. Personalized emails work better, and avoiding templates or boilerplate language whenever you can will help your emails succeed.
2. Your emails are getting caught in spam filters
It is 100 percent possible for legitimate emails, brand communications and advertisements to get caught in spam filters — meaning that your emails aren’t necessarily safe, even if you’ve avoided the filter in the past.
Following the right tips and suggestions will help you avoid the filter and reach as many readers as possible.
Securing permission from readers before sending will help you ensure that your emails reach their inbox. Confirmed or double-opt in (sometimes CIO or DOI) emails that require readers to click a button in a confirmation email before they’ll be added to a mailing list can also ensure you’re sending to subscribers who really want to read updates from your brand.
Asking subscribers to whitelist or allowlist your business’s address can also help ensure that your emails reach their inbox.
These strategies won’t work for cold email campaigns, however. Instead, you’ll need to focus on providing value, setting clear expectations and avoiding spammy or misleading subject lines. Specific phrases or keywords typically don’t matter, so long as you’re aiming to provide relevant and valuable content.
3. You emails have weak personalization
Personalization plays a crucial role in business communications. This becomes more true the fewer people you’re trying to reach. Limited personalization tactics that a B2C business can leverage may not work nearly as well for a B2M or B2B business.
When generating new email campaigns, take advantage of the data you have. This information can help you deliver the most relevant information possible to a reader.
Around 66 percent of marketers use email personalization to improve the quality of their emails. This means that personalization can help you both stay competitive and secure a potential competitive advantage.
Sales data, browsing history and demographics can all give you hints as to what pain points a customer may have, or what deals and offers they may be interested in. Most marketing automation and email marketing platforms have tools that make personalization easy, and will go far beyond just adding the reader’s name to the email salutation.
Dynamic content, for example, that’s tweaked based on subscriber info can help ensure that all the emails you send are relevant and highly valuable.
4. Your emails don’t close
Effective emails encourage a reader to both open the email and follow through — clicking a link to a landing page with information on moving forward. It’s not unusual for email subject lines to be enticing, but for the body or CTA of the email to fail to convert.
Your email’s design, copywriting and graphics should all be oriented towards closing, or moving readers forward along their buyer’s journey. Weak or generic CTAs may be less likely to convert. Confusing design or lackluster copywriting may not mean that readers could be tripped up or confused before they even know what you want them to do.
The landing page for your CTAs also matters. You could have excellent emails with a great layout, engaging copy and an outstanding CTA. However, if they lead customers to a confusing or ineffective landing page, you may struggle to generate leads or convert customers.
If you find that customers are clicking through to the landing page but still falling out of the sales funnel — failing to sign up for your newsletter or check out a product — your emails may not be the problem. Instead, another part of your online marketing strategy may need a revamp.
5. Customers aren’t into your unique value proposition
Like the content and design of your email, your unique value proposition (UVP) needs to be highly relevant and timely. This UVP is the thing that makes your business stand out — the argument you make for your business, or why subscribers should check out your website over all the others they could look at.
A strong UVP that demonstrates why your business is worth investigating — and what makes it different — will help you create emails that generate leads.
Tips and tricks to create email campaigns that generate leads
Email marketing is one of the best ways to generate leads and secure conversions — but only if you use the right design strategies. Personalized emails that are likely to be relevant to a reader’s interests tend to be effective. Strong CTAs and good UVP will also help your emails bring in new customers.
If your emails are relevant and provide value, but still don’t generate leads, reviewing the rest of your online marketing strategy and working to avoid the spam filter may help.
