It’s not a new phenomenon to use email marketing to increase web traffic, customers, and revenue.
But even if you have a decent-sized email list, how do you make it work for you?
If you’re looking to maximize your email marketing strategy this year, there are numerous ways to turn your email list into cold hard cash.
Now that you have a following of people that are ready and willing to hear from you, the key is to focus on building relationships, nurturing your list, and providing value through the content that you share.
When you combine this with today’s best marketing tools, you position your company to experience the fruits of a fully engaged email list.
These are 4 ways you can turn your email list into cold hard cash – and it’s simpler than you think.
Cold hard cash tip #1: Invest in growing your email list
Obviously, you can’t make money from an email list that doesn’t exist, but don’t be satisfied with what you have. Email marketing databases naturally degrade by about 22.5% every year. It is pertinent to continuously refresh your list in order to convert your viewers into paying customers. There are several approaches you can take to add more members to your e-mail marketing list.
Utilize social media to offer new content with bonuses, such as free eBooks or whitepapers. Create a social media campaign to promote these offers, but be mindful that before you ask your list to buy, create a connection that’s built on trust and credibility. Provide your list with value well before you throw the proverbial “right hook” as Gary Vaynerchuck would say.
If you want to grow your list quickly, you might have to invest some money upfront. The good news is that the cost is often minimal. For example, the fitness site Erika Volk Fitness gained 1,892 targeted subscribers with Facebook ads at only .26 cents per subscriber.
Erika had a specific story to tell that many women could relate to, and learn from how she overcame her obstacle to becoming pregnant. By hyper-targeting those women through Facebook ads, Erika could keep her cost per click extremely low and engagement high.
Once your Facebook audience is interested, it’s imperative that the traffic turns into subscribers that ultimately become customers. Use landing page software like Unbounce or LeadPages to convert Facebook traffic for optimal results.
Consider the placement of your opt-in forms. Is your opt-in form prominent and impossible to miss? You can include the form in places such as the sidebar, or use a pop-up subscription form using a tool like HelloBar.
Cold hard cash tip #2: Offer exclusive, high-value content
Let’s face it – it takes a lot to grab the attention of your customers today. With the average attention span coming in around 8 seconds, this doesn’t leave you a whole lot of time to engage with your list.
Pinpointing the type of content that converts clicks to customers can be tricky. This is where exclusive content can help convince your customers to take the next step, and possibly convert those clicks into cash when you offer the right content.
What counts as exclusive content? It’s content that would typically cost your customers money. While many of us aren’t overly excited about giving content of high value away for free, it’s an effective way to show that you truly value your customers and your product or service is worth the price.
Neil Patel uses this exact strategy on his Quicksprout blog by offering a course for free that would normally cost $300. His only price of admission is your email address.
A free webinar is another excellent option for exclusive content. While webinars can be a little time consuming to put together, the payoff can be quite rewarding. You can host a webinar in a simple format such as a Facebook live broadcast, Google+ hangout, GotoWebinar, and more.
In order to boost your chance of success in this area, consider asking if your customers would like to be on your exclusive content list. This will potentially help weed out those who truly aren’t interested in your services, so you can concentrate on investing time on those who care.
Consider using an email automation tool like Campaign Monitor to segment your list and deliver highly personalized emails. Campaign Monitor allows brands to slice and dice their lists by subscriber data points like age, gender, geo-location and transaction history. This information can be used to personalize email messages dynamically which is shown to increase revenue from emails by 760%.
Cold hard cash tip #3: Make it engaging and personal
In this case, looks do matter. Now that you know how to grow a list and offer the right type of content, make sure that you are sending a good-looking email that’s specific to each segment of your list. Luckily, you don’t have to be a graphic designer to develop a visually appealing email. There is plenty of easy to use software that does that for you.
What’s the sweet spot for e-mail frequency? Shoot for two to four times per month. In other words, weekly or bi-weekly. This is often enough to keep your name on the top of customers’ minds without bombarding them with email overload.
Subscribers are more likely to unsubscribe to your emails if they experience “email fatigue.” A survey conducted by TechnologyAdvice found that almost 46% of email recipients flagged a business spam because they were being emailed too often. Being respectful of subscriber’s time is an important element to building a personal relationship that leads to more conversions, and when it comes time to make a purchase you can just ask.
Don’t forget to personalize your emails. Personalized emails improve click-through rates by up to 14%. Throughout your email funnel, you should be collecting as much personal information about each subscriber as possible. This can include age, gender, birthday and a myriad of personal preferences. Survey software like Survey Gizmo is a great tool to incorporate into emails to collect all kinds of personal information and preferences that can be later used in personalizing content.
Cold hard cash tip #4: Track your stats
If you aren’t tracking the results of your e-mail marketing campaigns, you’re likely losing money right down the drain. You need to know who is opening your emails and what content is being viewed by your customers. When you discover content that is particularly popular, you can use it as a springboard to create more content or even repurpose it.
For example, a popular blog post can be turned into a webinar, slideshow, or even an in-depth eBook or white paper. By monitoring how subscribers are engaging with different marketing messages around each piece of content, you can make informed decision to generate the best possible ROI.
Wrapping up
If you’re serious about making money with e-mail marketing this year, these are the top essential tools and techniques to use moving forward. Be sure to always offer value through your e-mail, ask questions, and offer solutions with your content. This is a surefire way to generate traffic to your website and turn clicks into cold hard cash.
Guest Author: Megan Totka is the Chief Editor for ChamberofCommerce.com. Chamber specializes in helping small businesses grow their business on the web while facilitating the connectivity between local businesses and more than 7,000 Chambers of Commerce worldwide. As a small business expert, Megan specializes in reporting the latest business news, helpful tips, and reliable resources, as well as providing small business advice. She has significant experience with the topic of small business marketing and has spent several years exploring topics like copywriting, content marketing and social media. Connect with Megan on Twitter and LinkedIn.