This is the second part of the How to Write Engaging Emails that Sell series. You can check out Part One here.
In Part Two, we’re going to go over how best to nurture your leads to sales, using effective email marketing to get results. I will discuss how to tell engaging stories that connect with your audience, and how to create urgency and remove hesitation to convince your audience to buy.
Side note: You can also watch a masterclass on this topic, if video is more your jam:
WATCH THE MASTERCLASS ON HOW TO WRITE ENGAGING EMAILS THAT SELL
The only way to nurture is by building sequences
Just like the only way to grow a business is by having systems in place, the only way to sell to your newsletter subscribers is by having email sequences in place.
Salesforce data shows that you need to ‘touch’ a customer six to eight times before they buy from you.
This doesn’t mean you become a pushy sales person. In fact, if you think emailing your list multiple times a day is being spammy, then you need to change your mindset. Believing you’re acting like a spammer if you are connecting with your audience multiple times a month will only hold you back and prevent you from achieving sales.
If you are delivering VALUE each and every time you send an email, then you are not being spammy at all. Think about it for a minute – you are potentially giving your clients valuable information, offers, first access and discounts – who wouldn’t want that?!
For me, there are certain businesses’ emails I actively look forward to receiving because they provide so much value.
You want to be like these companies.
Not only will your customers love you for the value you are providing, but it will also enable you to position yourself as a thought leader within your industry so customers think of you first when they need someone to deliver that product or service.
So what sequences should you create to deliver this value? Here are two that are good to start with:
- A welcome email sequence for when a subscriber signs up to your list.
- Specific sequences leading up to a sale / course opening / new product offering.
Email marketing should be a cup of tea!
What is a welcome sequence and what should it include?
Let’s deep dive into the welcome sequence a little more, and discuss what it is you need to include. Basically, it is a series of 3 to 5 emails that your customers receive when they sign up to your list, normally after they download your lead magnet.
Read more about lead magnets in Part One of this blog series.
Here is a guide for what to include in a welcome email sequence:
1. A thank you for signing up to your lead magnet and an introduction to you and your business.
2. An email full of value with tips and tricks for success.
3. Tell a story about your business – it could be a win, how you’ve grown, how you failed and what you’ve learned. Or you could provide more tips and link to further education on your website, such as a webinar or a workbook.
4. A testimonial from a happy customer. This is extra special if it’s a video testimonial. Or you can tell a story about how you worked with a certain client and the results you got them.
5. Another story / added value and then link to the main call the action. Eg. Book a call to learn more on how we can work together.
Segment your audiences for more targeted email marketing to get results
When your customers journey through a sequence, it’s important that you segment them so you know who is interested and a ‘warmer’ lead. For example, if you send out some information about a new course coming up, and 50% of your list clicks on the link to learn more about the course, these would be considered ‘warmer’ leads, as they are expressing interest.
Of course, those that join the course waitlist are even warmer leads!
The good news is that emailing software like ConvertKit and Active Campaign already have some automation sequences built out that you can copy and tailor to suit you. The hard work is done for you!
Remember – you need to be consistent. There is no point having an epic welcome sequence and then never emailing that list again. Your customers will forget about you!
Try and send your email on the same day each week. There are some emails I actively wait for and I would notice if they don’t arrive in my inbox. You want to be so memorable people notice when you’re absent! (But don’t be absent.)
Best practices for nurturing leads
The main things you need to remember when nurturing leads through your email marketing:
- ALWAYS provide valuable content with expert insights – in every email.
- Don’t sell in each email, but ALWAYS have a call to action.
- Focus on one relevant topic per email and keep your paragraphs short and to the point.
- Use photos for visual purposes, but make sure they are small in size but high in quality. This is a good tool to use to resize images.
- Test your emails and track key metrics. Repeat what works and delete what doesn’t.
- Use A/B split testing with your subject lines to evaluate what your audience engages with more frequently.
- Personalise your emails, as mentioned in Part One.
- Stay consistent with your brand’s tone of voice and write directly to your ideal customer. (We discuss this in greater detail in Part One.)
How to tell engaging stories
People love to hear HUMAN stories, and have done since the dawn of time. The key to telling engaging stories is to make them relatable. Talk about something that happened to you – how you failed or how you overcame some hurdle – and your audience will connect as most people love underdog stories!
Embrace storytelling in your email marketing to get results, and when you’re selling something, make sure you position the subscriber as the hero of your story. Too many businesses portray themselves as the hero, which causes the subscriber to disconnect.
Instead, talk about how you guided a customer on their business journey and aided them in achieving success. Subscribers want to hear how you’ll assist and guide them on their own journey, not from an ego-driven company that’s all about its own success.
Finally, it’s important your stories progress naturally:
- Start with educational emails about your product or service (providing value as well, of course).
- Move on to testimonials to prove your authority.
- Give the customer a chance to experience your product or service with either a free trial (for a service) or a great returns policy (for a product) so they can buy with confidence.
- Follow up after the sale to ensure the customer is happy and to see whether you can help them further.
Whatever you do, don’t forget a call to action (CTA) with every email you send. This could be to simply download your podcast or register for a webinar – the point is that you encourage the subscriber to stay in touch with you and keep the audience engaged for as long as possible so they remember you.
Email marketing to get results – create buyer urgency
One way to practice email marketing to get results is to create buyer urgency. This is why ‘limited time’ offers work so well.
It makes sense – when there’s a deadline, consumers make buying decisions faster than when there isn’t a deadline.
Whenever you are selling something within your email marketing, you need to put a time limit on the sale so your customers purchase faster.
When we had our blogging course, we had the cart open for two years. When we put a time limit on the cart closing we made more sales in the final two weeks before the cart closed than we did over the entire previous two years.
You need to automate the whole sales process and connect it with your systems so that when the cart is closing, or the sale ending, it shuts off on your website so customers can see the deadline in effect.
If people want to buy outside of your cart opening period, you can put them on a waitlist.
Many email marketing software now enables you to install a countdown timer so customers know just how much time they have left before the sale ends or the cart closes.
Remove hesitation from the buying process
One of the main reasons people fail to make a sale is that they don’t follow up. You need to follow up with whoever expresses interest in your product or service, as it’s often this final effort that gets you the most sales.
This is all the more important the higher the price point is for the sale.
For example, sales and marketing coach Ellie Swift recently held a free live masterclass over three days and then followed up with everyone with a personalised DM to speak to them directly.
Consider offering a free call to your interested leads because once you get someone on the phone you are much more likely to close a deal.
A phone call allows you to suss out what the clients’ objections are so you can actively solve their pain points around the purchase over the phone.
Common objections to a sale include, “It’s not the right time,” “I can’t afford it,” “I don’t have the time,” “I’m not sure I trust you or your product or service.”
If you brainstorm ways to answer each of these objections then you will feel confident over the phone and will be able to refute any objections with strong examples.
Remember to give the prospective customer buying confidence by offering a good returns policy or a free trial. This will make your product or service seem irresistible.
When you are coming to the end of a closed cart period or the end of a sale, make sure you are emailing more frequently so you have a higher chance of closing the sale.
Don’t make the mistake of thinking that you’re emailing too much, and remember that your audience probably won’t open every email. Also, if you are providing value, they won’t mind opening your emails. And those who do unsubscribe probably aren’t your target market.
Email marketing to get results
I hope this series answered a lot of the questions you might have about email marketing. And that it showed you how important it is for nurturing leads into sales.
Do you have any questions? Please don’t hesitate to email me directly or jump on a quick call so I can help you with any email marketing queries you might have.
Remember – EVERYONE has an email address, but not everyone is on social media which is why you should be focusing your efforts on your email marketing lists as much as, if not MORE than, your social media.
Good luck and happy email marketing!
