Estimated reading time: 3 minutes
Regardless of your experience with marketing, it is easy to agree that increasing sales is the ultimate goal. This is achieved by providing more leads to the sales department and aiding in the process of turning leads into revenue. As a marketer, it is important to find new ways to increase the conversion rate of your marketing activities. But marketing can sometimes seem like an intimidating beast, and it’s easy to get lost trying to formulate your plan. It can be helpful to narrow your scope and focus on one marketing effort at a time. We’ve got a few things to keep in mind when formulating your email marketing plan, and how to better execute it.
Segment
It’s important to have a very large list of current and potential customers that you are able to email on a regular basis. Your list of customers is very important to your overall success and is one of the best resources for driving sales. Segmenting this list will allow you to know your customer better and more effectively market to them. Segmenting is the process of classifying them. Your business may need your assign a number of different categories or just a small handful. You will need to determine which customer characteristics are most important to you. Some characteristics that you may want to consider are: company size, vertical focus, location/territory, etc. When sending out email blasts and campaigns, segmenting can help to generate more valuable leads overall.
Target
Not every customer needs to see every email that you send out. A customer that provides sells into retail stores probably does not want to see your email on healthcare solutions. So now that your list is segmented, you can carefully select specific customers that you want to target. The content created will focus on the targeted customer list as the audience. You will be able to speak directly to them as a group. This makes your marketing more powerful and effective. Consider that end users in retail likely won’t open or engage with emails sent their way about warehouse management solutions. Flooding prospective clients with emails that don’t pertain to their business can often be more damaging to your brand and strategy than helpful.
Product Positioning
Now that you have segmented your list and decided who to target, it is now time to consider how you are going to market to them. The manner in which you position your product or service is critical to the success of the campaign. The email should speak to these specific customers. Speak to their needs and concerns. Quickly and efficiently explain to them how you can solve their problems. They must see that the product is uniquely designed to meet their needs. Consider design elements and balance visuals with text; the average reader will likely not sit to thoughtfully read a large block of text in your email, so you’ll need to determine more effective ways to get your point across.
Should I always use this technique?
Now there are times when these processes are not necessarily required. For example, a monthly newsletter can be sent to your entire list. However, consider how segmenting and targeting could improve these emails as well. You could create specific newsletters that speak to each segment of your customer base. Items like this are a good way to introduce them to new products and services. Know that these techniques can be tailored to your business model specifically, but they should at least be the foundation from which your strategy is built.
Laser focused content will increase your conversion rate as your customers will be more inclined to open the email once they gain trust in you. Sending emails that are designed for specific customers increases your relevance and your credibility. Your customer will trust you more because you are not trying to sell them products and services that are not applicable to their business model. Instead you are helping them solve their problems. As you grow, continue to segment and scale your efforts so your marketing is specific to each group of customers.
