Email is a powerful way to reach prospects, especially when used in combination with cold calling. Your first campaign will be the most difficult one to pull together as you're starting from scratch, but the good news is that once you come up with a campaign that works, you'll be able to recycle the pieces in future successful campaigns.
The first step in launching a campaign is collecting information from your audience. You want your message to be appealing and interesting for your recipients, not something they toss straight into the junk mail folder without reading it. The best source of such information is your existing customers. Pick out a few of your very best customers – the ones who are most like your ideal prospect – and ask them some questions about what they like to see in a marketing email.
Any email marketing campaign must have something of value to offer your recipients. Your value offering can be a coupon, a bit of useful information, a link to a great website, a how-to guide on something of interest, or a combination of these items. The information you collect from your customers will tell you what type of value item(s) is most likely to appeal to your recipients.
Once you've decided on your value offerings, it's time to sketch out a game plan. Your email marketing campaign will only be the first of many, so you want to make it a lead-in that you can build on in future mailings. The more you know about your prospects, the better you can tune your campaign to appeal to them. For example, if your prospects are retailers who get busy during the holiday season, you can send them information about maximizing the holiday rush at just the time when it will be most useful for them.
By now you should have an idea of the type of prospect you'll want as a recipient, so it's time to start pulling together a specific mailing list for your campaigns. Never put a prospect on your list unless they've given you permission to send them email communications. If you include recipients who haven't requested the information, you're sending them spam, which is both unprofessional and illegal. It's not difficult to find prospects who are willing to opt-in to your list – all you need to do is give them the opportunity to sign up. You can collect names and email addresses on your website, your social media platforms, by offering paper sign-up forms at retail locations or anywhere else your prospects tend to go, and anything else you can think of. One of the best ways to collect new names for your list is by attending industry events. Not only can you hand out sign-up forms (often in the guise of a promotion) but you can collect business cards and verbally ask permission to send the prospect emails.
While you're assembling your list, your next step is to design an email template. Ideally, all your email campaigns should use the same template – it gives a coherent feel to your messages. Pick a template that reflects your brand and leaves plenty of room for images and links. Using brief paragraphs and bulleted lists makes your emails more readable and less daunting.
Your first email campaign should use the softest possible sell. This may be the first email some prospects have ever received from you, so it should be heavy on value offerings and light on selling. Use this email to introduce yourself to the list and ask them to tell you what they'd like to hear from you in the future. The more of a dialogue you can get going with your list, the better you'll be able to target future emails.
By Wendy Connick
http://sales.about.com/
The first step in launching a campaign is collecting information from your audience. You want your message to be appealing and interesting for your recipients, not something they toss straight into the junk mail folder without reading it. The best source of such information is your existing customers. Pick out a few of your very best customers – the ones who are most like your ideal prospect – and ask them some questions about what they like to see in a marketing email.
Any email marketing campaign must have something of value to offer your recipients. Your value offering can be a coupon, a bit of useful information, a link to a great website, a how-to guide on something of interest, or a combination of these items. The information you collect from your customers will tell you what type of value item(s) is most likely to appeal to your recipients.
Once you've decided on your value offerings, it's time to sketch out a game plan. Your email marketing campaign will only be the first of many, so you want to make it a lead-in that you can build on in future mailings. The more you know about your prospects, the better you can tune your campaign to appeal to them. For example, if your prospects are retailers who get busy during the holiday season, you can send them information about maximizing the holiday rush at just the time when it will be most useful for them.
By now you should have an idea of the type of prospect you'll want as a recipient, so it's time to start pulling together a specific mailing list for your campaigns. Never put a prospect on your list unless they've given you permission to send them email communications. If you include recipients who haven't requested the information, you're sending them spam, which is both unprofessional and illegal. It's not difficult to find prospects who are willing to opt-in to your list – all you need to do is give them the opportunity to sign up. You can collect names and email addresses on your website, your social media platforms, by offering paper sign-up forms at retail locations or anywhere else your prospects tend to go, and anything else you can think of. One of the best ways to collect new names for your list is by attending industry events. Not only can you hand out sign-up forms (often in the guise of a promotion) but you can collect business cards and verbally ask permission to send the prospect emails.
While you're assembling your list, your next step is to design an email template. Ideally, all your email campaigns should use the same template – it gives a coherent feel to your messages. Pick a template that reflects your brand and leaves plenty of room for images and links. Using brief paragraphs and bulleted lists makes your emails more readable and less daunting.
Your first email campaign should use the softest possible sell. This may be the first email some prospects have ever received from you, so it should be heavy on value offerings and light on selling. Use this email to introduce yourself to the list and ask them to tell you what they'd like to hear from you in the future. The more of a dialogue you can get going with your list, the better you'll be able to target future emails.
By Wendy Connick
http://sales.about.com/
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