According to recent data, the average cost of generating leads through inbound and content marketing ($143) is about half the average cost of generating leads through outbound/traditional marketing ($373).
Of all inbound marketing tactics, email is perhaps the most powerful; recent data from Direct Marketing Association has shown that “email provided $39.40 in sales per dollar of advertising this year, followed by $22.38 through Web search, $19.71 from Internet display ads and $12.90 from social networks.” In other words, email is not only effective, it’s significantly effective compared to other forms of online marketing.
If you’re looking to get more results from your marketing efforts, here are a few tips on how to use email to increase sales.
1. Start Building an Optin List of People Interested in Hearing from You
They don’t always have to be customers; you could build an email list of people who failed to complete an order, people who are unwilling to order from you but will still like to hear from you or an email list of active customers.
Having different email lists for different category of subscribers makes it extremely easy for you to send targeted emails and increase sales; you don’t have to advertise a certain product to a customer who just bought it and you can also effectively create special offers to get non-buyers to become buyers.
While there are several ways to build an active email list, here are the most effective ways:
Blogging: Start a blog on your website where you consistently publish relevant articles, share tips and occasionally run giveaways to encourage people to join your email list; a major advantage to blogging is that over time, after your content has been shared and linked to, it gradually starts to rank well in the search engines. Gradually, this will result in thousands and tens of thousands of visitors to your blog, which presents an opportunity to capture subscriber details and further connect with them in the future.
Giveaways and Special Offers: This is especially effective if you run an eCommerce store; people can subscribe to get the latest discounts and offers not available anywhere else. Not only does this encourage more people to buy through the discount, you’re also building an active list of people you can connect with on the long run.
Webinars and online events: Partner with bloggers and other influencers in your niche to do an informative webinar or a kind of online event with their audience; make it a requirement for people who want to participate in the event to sign up with their email address and name.
The right way to do email
While there are a lot of things to consider when effectively sending emails, it’s important to ensure you don’t make these two common mistakes:
- Don’t collect customer emails and forget to email them for months; they’ll eventually forget you and it’ll be as if you never had them. From the day they subscribed, train them to know and expect your emails by sending them regular emails. If possible, send them an email every day.
- Don’t send emails that make it look like you don’t care; unless people are subscribing to get coupons and special offers, make sure you don’t only send emails with pitches to buy your products. This will quickly send you to their spam folder and most of them will unsubscribe.
2. Make Your Emails Exclusive
Don’t send the same information they can find on your blog or anywhere else online; when your emails are exclusive, people will value them and look forward to opening them.
3. Develop an Email Campaign for People who Abandon their Shopping Carts
An effective way you can leverage email to increase sales is by developing a special email campaign for those who abandon their shopping carts or who are hesitating when it comes to purchasing from your website.
The average shopping cart abandonment rate is 67% according to data from the Baymard Institute, and data from Rejoiner.com has revealed that an email campaign aimed at those who abandon shopping carts can increase sales by up to 15%.
Sending an email to potential customers who abandon the checkout process 24 hours after they abandon your cart as well as another reminder 48 hours after can go a long way to boost sales. Data from Internet Retailer revealed how Movies Unlimited, a site dedicated to helping people find hard-to-find films was able to boost sales by 1.5% just by sending emails to people who abandon shopping carts.
By sending emails to people who abandon their shopping carts on your website, you can increase sales on your website.
4. Take Advantage of Special Days
Another great advantage to having an email list is that it helps you get in touch with your users during special events or holiday periods; for example, two big events online merchants can capitalize on is the Black Friday and Cyber Monday; this presents an opportunity to significantly increase sales by making a special offer to your subscribers. Make sure you inform them about your offer in advance and then send a few emails to them during this period to increase sales.
