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If I neither see nor hear you, how will I know what you’re offering me? Although you may not have this question thrown at you directly, buyers need to be intrigued before any significant conversation takes place.
One of the most cost-effective tools at our disposal for achieving a purposeful outreach is email. Yet, so many companies miss the mark with this powerful medium by not utilising each opportunity to educate, engage and persuade.
Let’s take a look at some high impact approaches for using email in 2016 to boost your business.
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1. Produce quality email signatures
Depending on the nature of the mail or your business, we’d recommend using either a company logo or professional image of yourself, or both if the design affords it. For fonts, keep the majority used as plain as can be, legible and without a wide range of colours being used.
There’s also no harm in providing a links to your social profiles, so why not use icons to advertise them and potentially widen your following. At the bare minimum it allows your prospects to see more of what you’ve been getting up to.
If you’d like to get really creative, why not spruce things up with a call to action in your email signature. This will help to boost engagement or conversions for wherever you’re linking to. Whatever you decide, ensure that this doesn’t detract from your key contact info in your signature.
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2. Distribute a newsletter
If your focus is not on nurturing previous visitors, contacts and prospects, then what are you up to? Email newsletters not only keep followers in the loop with what’s happening at your company, but also serves as a tool to re-nurture and engage.
As email offers the ability to personalise content, if you have your subscriber lists segmented by your most important attributes, you’ll be able to tailor what content you share in your newsletter to encourage the best click through rates.
You should be consistent in updating your subscribers, but not too often mind you! Getting that sweet spot between staying relevant and just being annoying can be difficult. Test, test and test some more to find the frequency and broadcasting times that work best for you.
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3. Send a monthly sales follow-up
The occasional brag about your company’s achievements is a means of keeping your user base informed of its latest developments. Customers and prospects alike want to see the affinity and connection others have with your products and services.
By providing readers with trustworthy information that’s not packaged in the form of a direct advertisement, your monthly follow-up gives the opportunity to educate readers and drive sales.
A monthly follow up, just like any other newsletters is the most cost-effective means of outreach. You’re also not constrained in what you want to say and have the space to deliver multiple sales messages in various forms (e.g. testimonials, reviews etc) and layouts.
This type of email also allows you to gather valuable feedback on what is working well with your offering (and what isn’t). Think about ways to incentivise your subscribers too – from referral bonuses to prize draws in surveys, the possibilities are endless.
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4. Promotions (Returning to the "Triple P Effect")
Not so long ago, the team here at Debunc coined the “Triple P Effect”. By no means are we an organisation to shy away from our guiding principles. We encourage you to “Provide Periodical Promotions” whenever and wherever possible, and why not use your emails to help accomplish this.
Striking the right balance as to what actually works will take some testing. So, if this is your first time or you’re looking to significantly improve on past endeavours, segment your email list sending variations to each.
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5. Share inbound content
If you reached this article via email, here’s the living proof as to why you should publicise inbound content. In a push to win more and better business, you’ll need to have the content creation engine in full motion.
Whether it be case studies, videos, infographics, guides or webinars, aim to get the word out to the right people at the right time.
Should you be providing downloadable content, you can also try a gated approach to increase your subscriber counts. Ultimately, a few short details for a powerful eBook or guide is more than a fair trade – plus users will then be made aware of new content that might be a great fit for them.
If you’re using a tool like MailChimp, you’ll be able to broadcast new content being checked via an RSS feed. For example, our own setup at Debunc automatically shares new article and resources with our engaged subscribers, encouraging a much more meaningful bond with them.
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Signing Off
We trust this has been a fun read, and your able to apply at least one of our recommendations. If you’d like some further guidance around developing an impressive email marketing plan, we;re more than happy to discuss.
As much as we’ve shared our ideas, we also love to hear about what’s working within your business. Please feel free to leave a comment below, and as always please distribute this article amongst your networks.