~by Ashley Andrews~
You’ve probably heard that email marketing can improve your business. However, while you may know the basics about email marketing, like how to use an opt-in box and use an auto-responder to send out a newsletter, you may not know how it can improve your business.
For email marketing to be an effective way to improve your business, you first need to have three things in place.
- At least one attractive offer on your website. This could be your own product or an affiliate product.
- An opt-in page to capture visitors names and address. People will usually subscribe to your newsletter if you can offer them a useful free report, mini-course, or video tutorial after they sign up.
- A traffic generation method to bring visitors to your website. While you could use Google PPC ads or Facebook ads, you have to really understand how to use this form of advertising to get your money’s worth. If you’re not skilled in optimizing these types of ads, an easier and more useful solution is to use Horizon advertising and email lists, or a similar service, to generate traffic to your website.
Once you have these three elements in place, here are 7 ways email marketing can completely transform your business.
1. You will sell more of your product through promotional emails.
Promotional emails still work, and they work very well. As a consumer, you’ve probably noticed how many promotional emails you get. After the merchants send out those emails, they sit back in their ergonomic chairs in front of their computers and rub their hands in glee as they watch the sales come in. Perhaps less than 10% of those who receive those emails bother to open them up; and then, out of that small percentage, only 4% click through to the sales letter and only 1% buy. But when you consider that the list might have 100,000 subscribers, that’s an easy $1,000 for five minutes of work. While these are conservative estimations, imagine if your conversion rates were higher and you were to send out more emails. You will quickly see how you can make thousands a month by sending out emails alone. It’s essential that your promotional email uses copywriting triggers to get people enthused about buying your product.
2. You will build a relationship with your audience through content-rich emails.
The secret to getting higher sales from your promotional emails is to build up a relationship with your audience over time through non-promotional, content-rich emails. This way, when they receive your promotional email, they’ll know, like, and trust you enough to respond in a favorable way. Every highly informative, value-packed email you send out will build trust with your audience. They are going to look forward to receiving your emails and visiting your blog posts. When they visit your website, they may start clicking on some of your affiliate ads or buy directly from your website.
3. You will be able to increase your repeat customers by sending complimentary offers.
Once people buy your products and like them, they will be more open to complementary products or products that offer more advanced training. In this way, a single subscriber may buy many products from you over many years as you continually appeal to their core interests. As you get more people interested in what you have to sell, you can build a repeat business by offering an evolving line of products or services.
4. You will be able to increase the size of your sales by sending advanced product offers.
If you happen to sell information products, then you could create advanced level products. Since people liked your introductory level products, they will be open to trying out your more expensive advanced level products.
5. You will build your brand through repeat contact with your customers.
The best way to build your brand is not through fancy logos and bold colors and cute slogans; it is through regular contact. By sending weekly emails that offer useful information to your niche, you build up your brand through repeat exposure. These emails might even get forwarded to your subscribers’ friends because they want to share your good information.
6. You will become more of a trusted friend than a business entity.
Your emails will be a way of sharing your personality with others. Instead of feeling as if they are buying from a business, people will see you as a trusted friend who is offering valuable insights and providing useful products at a fair price.
7. You will be seen as an authority in your field because of how much valuable content you share.
You become an authority figure when you can demonstrate that you know what you’re talking about. Since you will be sending information-dense emails that improve people’s lives, you will be seen as an expert in your field. It doesn’t matter if your information has been culled from other sources and you have credited your sources. Eventually, you will be seen as the one who came up with the idea, even if all you did was put other people’s ideas together.
While, of course, email marketing is not the only way you can improve sales in your business, it is an essential component in any marketing and sales strategy. Through email marketing, you build rapport and a loyal customer base. In time, your email list might become one of your most valuable business assets.
Meet the Author: Ashley Andrews
Ashley Andrews is an entrepreneur and blogger. She now lives in San Diego, CA and is happily self-employed. She enjoys writing about anything that catches her interest, especially business and entrepreneurship.
