What is lead generation and email marketing?
Lead generation means finding people who aren't clients yet and distributing information that builds the know, like, trust factor through email. By delivering relevant content that resonates with them and addresses their needs, it helps them understand how they can work with you.
Why is lead generation through email marketing important for small businesses?
Generating leads through email marketing campaigns is important because email marketing is the most direct line to your potential clients. It's the easiest and least expensive way to reach your potential clients and to build a relationship with them. If done well, it can literally make you money overnight or in your sleep with very little effort. If it's built well, it will deliver results with very little effort or input on the front end.
It’s really important that you feed your sales funnel with quality leads through your use of email marketing. This may involve lead scoring, the use of landing pages, and a quality lead generation strategy.
What is the best way to generate more leads for your business?
The best way to generate more leads for your business is to really focus on building your audience through your email list. The first step is creating the foundational structure that I call your Lead Machine. By having that lead magnet/freebie content and the technical structure set up so that you can capture those names and emails, you can stay in touch with them.
The second step is considering how to feed the machine. This means actively engaging in practices that continuously bring people into your machine and add email subscribers such as speaking, networking, direct outreach and virtual summits, social media, writing blog posts, digital marketing, and joint ventures.
What are some email lead generation techniques?
A great technique is to think about your ideal client and the service that you want to offer them. For example, a digital course that you want to offer to your list. Consider what your ideal client will gain from participating or taking that digital course. Draft the email in a way that addresses the problem the prospect has that the course will resolve and map out what results will be generated by them taking that course. You must spell things out and have a call to action at the end that encourages them to sign up for the course.
How do I write an email to get leads?
By stepping into the shoes of your ideal client avatar, thinking about the problem that your client has, and the solution you offer through your services, you can make that the first step in the journey of lead generation. When you reflect to your clients that you understand what they need and address that in your email, you build the know, like, trust factor and they want to work with you.
What are email marketing best practices for lead generation?
One best practice is to, first of all, be very clear about your client avatar. Tune in and clearly identify your target market, AKA your ideal client avatar, because you want to make sure that you're tuned into what they need, what problem they have and how you solve that with your product or service.
Next is to ensure that people are permissively added to your email list. This is an often overlooked step. People tend to take the approach that more is better and they should put as many subscribers as possible on their list. When people are focused on that, they aren't focused on whether someone has chosen to join. The best way to do that is by having a great lead magnet/freebie that will encourage people to sign up for your list.
Another best practice is to ensure you’re regularly connecting to your audience via email. This looks like having a regular interval. I recommend at least twice monthly and sending content to your audience on that interval. That way, they start to build that know, like, and trust factor. They know who you are and they want to continue to engage with you and ultimately become a client.
How do I write a good subject line for email marketing?
I recommend writing the email content first, then writing the subject line. You want to make sure that the subject line is relevant to the content that you're writing.
Second, put yourself in the mind of your target audience and think in terms of what will entice them to open the email. What will they be curious about? What will peak their interest? What will have them say, “Oh yeah, I really need some of that.” I like subject lines in the form of a question or an interesting statement.
Sometimes people don't have great subject lines because they're very utilitarian: Expert Interview from Susie Smith versus How to Get a Guy's Attention in Six Seconds, which is Susie Smith's topic. The second one is much more interesting, enticing and will make someone say, “Ooh, I'm curious about how to do that.” So they'll open the email to learn about it. The first one is just not going to drive very many opens. The cool thing about subject lines is they're very fun to test with. Depending on your email platform and the size of your list, you may be able to do a split test in order to test which subject line will draw more opens.
What contact information do I need to get from leads?
I recommend getting a name and email address only for prospective leads. The highest converting email opt-in forms request the least amount of information. Once you ask for three or more pieces of information, your percentage of conversion goes down. The more information required, the less likely someone is to give that information and thus get on your list. Keep it short and concise.
What are best practices when using email automation?
Best practices for email automation include first thinking through the journey that you want to take email subscribers on. Think through what makes sense in terms of those steps. Lay out those steps in a way that will connect with the reader.
Second, make sure that all of the content is evergreen. Ensure nothing speaks to a particular season, day, or moment in time. Exclude anything that is current or would seem dated if that email were sent in three weeks, months, or years. Be sure it's timely in the sense of speaking to what you need to speak to and it doesn't have references to things that will seem dated after a certain period of time.
Common email automation techniques include drip campaigns, trigger emails and the use of gated content.