Email Marketing & Lead Generation Blueprint

Email Marketing & Lead Generation Blueprint

Email marketing has been around for as long as email has been around. It has evolved into a powerful tool which can be utilized for various purposes. Since email is such a dynamic system which can be molded according to specific needs, it is important to understand its power, scope and tools. To begin with, email marketing includes sending across emails, mostly in bulk to targeted demographics. But it is actually a very strong and powerful medium which can increase profits tremendously if used well and methodically and can also create havoc if misused or not used properly. It is important to keep the following points in mind before starting an email marketing campaign: Designing the right email for the right segment Sending the right email to the right segment Following up religiously Creating brand awareness Staying away from spam Generating leads Users spend 51 seconds reading the average newsletter The email takes the shape of a business document, a marketing letter, promotional ad campaign and many other such tools. These messages have evolved over the years into highly specialized and highly targeted instruments which do their job when they are fully loaded. Email marketing is not just about promoting a brand, service or a product. Today, the internet has reached homes like never before. The number of people using web based services has ballooned over the years. Hence, email marketing is more about building relationships with prospective clients. More and more brands are vying for the same space. Hence to use email marketing wisely is an understatement. Lead Generation For an email marketer, sending emails in the thousands does not mean he will get business immediately. To do this, there are certain practices which he has to adopt. Lead generation through email marketing can be a potential gold mine only of the hard work is put in. Of utmost importance are the following factors: Personalization of lists Management and segmentation of lists according to various criteria Utilizing in-house lists to the maximum An email marketer's weapon is his email list. To generate quality leads is not an easy task. Using the above mentioned strategies, one is able to bring down bounce rates, increase visibility, and avoid spam traps and so on. Hence it is vital for any email marketing campaign to adhere to these. In a recent survey on email, 74% of survey respondents check their email daily and 22% check 3-6 days a week. Across all age, gender, education and other demographic groups, 58% believe Spam has increased. When an email is sent to a prospective client, he has to be interested in reading it. Making an email campaign suitable for easy viewership is one of the top priorities. After that the next best thing to do is not send bulk mail. It puts off any client in the long run. 30% 25% 20% 15% 10% 5% 0 0-1 1 2 3 4 5 Open Opt-in leads are those which open the emails, read them, and opt for the offer that you have put forth. These offers may be different for different clients. Opt-in leads are very strong means of ensuring that your lead gets converted to business. When a prospective client wishes to receive further communication from you, he will subscribe to it. This means that he is giving you explicit consent to email him. This is a quality lead generated. To reach this level, it is necessary that we use the above mentioned features. It makes the process easier, economical and more target oriented. Click Months Subscribed

Honoring opt out requests also ensures CAN-SPAM compliance. 73% of retailers sent no more emails after receiving an opt-out request. Some of the key pointers to email marketing and how it generates quality leads Emails can be designed to generate interest in product Email deliver ability and open rates can be monitored to a certain extent Specific emails can be designed for specific services and offers Customized email lists can be used to further increase penetration and visibility Email lists and their significance Today we have many service providers which provide clients with ready made email lists. These email lists contain millions of email addresses of prospective clients. Each email address is a scope for a sale. This multiplies your chances by millions. This immense opportunity is why email marketing is such a popular tool today. Email lists can be derived through various means like: Crowd sourcing Purchasing Leasing Inventory clean up Spam One of the most common issues which come into the picture when it comes to bulk email lists is the issue of spam. Spam is the most hated word in the email marketer's world. It needs to be controlled and eliminated. Being spam listed is death for email marketing. Hence necessary precautions need to be taken to ensure that spam is not part of the program. It is essential for a list sourcing company to ensure that they do not provide the client with emails which can have potential spam traps. Hence research and data cleansing is of vital importance. All records in the email list should be valid. They should not be outdated; spam trapped and should be valid. These are the few basic needs which are essential for better lead generation. Today, email marketing has progressed a lot. To generate quality leads, all email listing sites provide these services as basic features. Some provide certain niche offers which are attractive. They include the following. Keep Spam at Bay Here are a few tips that will help you keep the most dreaded SPAM at bay: Get Whitelisted Each ISP has different rules in place to detect SPAM. It is a good idea to get whitelisted with major ISPs like Yahoo, Hotmail, AOL, MSN etc. Whitelisting will prevent the filters from blocking any message from your email address. Most of your emails will get through the inbox and this will help unnecessary filtering of legitimate emails. Follow The Laws Make sure your campaigns are fully CAN-SPAM compliant. If you send to other countries, comply with their SPAM rules, too. Keep yourself abreast with the latest regulations and laws. 1out of 3 ISPs consider SPAM complaints as the #1 factor in Hire A Vendor This will make your task several times easier. Most email campaign vendors have deliverability specialists that are capable of taking care of SPAM and deliverability issues. Even if you carry out a campaign yourself, consult the experts when you encounter deliverability issues. The service providers are technically equipped to identify deliverability issues and fixing them. Implement authentication methodologies while executing a campaign. Also, meet your ESP's deliverability team regularly to discuss data and metrics. Adjust To SPAM Filtering Rules Mark your email campaigns against the filtering rules. This process will show you where exactly you need to tweak your campaign. Seek good relationships with the ISPs to understand their filtering policies better.

Use Double Opt-in Lists Also, known as confirmation opt-ins, double opt-in lists are a safe way to execute an email campaign. Here the recipients receive an automated response from the list service prompting them to click on a given URL to confirm their subscriptions. They will be considered optins only when they click on that link. Pay Heed To Spam Complaints Pay utmost importance to the spam complaints received by you. Firstly, delete the email addresses that have reported spam against you. You can also create an exclusion list and put such addresses into them for future reference. List Services These services are usually an add-on to the basic list services that they provide. List appending is a very essential tool. This feature is utilized well by email marketers. The company providing the email list ensures that all the contacts in a database are verified and accurate. This enhances your chances of being noticed a lot more. Having a precise and up to date list ensures high email deliverability rates. In-house lists are also beneficial. You are one step closer to having a qualified lead when it is an in house lead. This is because when a company has its own email list; it is highly specific to its business. This is a very strong asset. Combining it with a strong email marketing tool, can create magic. All the email marketer has to do is design the right pitches, and sends it to the right client at the right time. Spam free lists are highly cleansed lists which do not contain any sort of spam traps. This ensures that there are no issues with email deliverability, open rates and click through rates. Prepackaged lists are tailor made customized lists which are made according to specifications. This can be used immediately without any sort of editing or testing. Custom list is another type of prepackaged list which is delivered to a certain client specification. Geographically segmented lists are important when the brands are not global. If they have a strong local presence, it makes sense to send emails to local emails, rather than to a global list. Lists which are restricted to certain professions are also available. This is a sure shot means of reaching the segmented demographic. It saves time and does wonder when it comes to click-through rates. These features are assured means of achieving higher click through rates. It has been tried and tested and results have been achieved across the board. The more segmented and more specific the list is, the more it gets opened and more traffic goes to the website. Specific Landing Pages A recent study of major B2B marketing companies and their strategies have thrown some light on landing pages and their significance. 44% of landing pages are home pages and not specifically designed pages. What this does is increases the amount of effort that the visitor has to put in order to navigate through the home page and then address the call to action. In layman's terms it is lost business. The visitor will lose interest rapidly if he is made to search for matter. Hence designing specific landing pages which back up a very strong call to action, placed at prominent places in the email is a serious task. A lead will remember you for the ease with which he could find his way through the website and not how attractive the home page is. When a doctor receives a marketing email from a company which specializes in hospital diagnostic equipment, the chances of click through and open rates are surely high. If this same mail reaches a restaurant owner, it is almost nil. Hence the more the personalization of the list, the more the client will click through and have a look at the services on offer. Through personalization, it is possible to send across specific deals and offers to customers who will actually use them. This decreases the amount of emails sent, increase the click through rate, decrease the time spent on avoiding spam traps and increase the ROI. By segmenting the list, we are able to keep a keen eye out for the performance of the email campaign. This is because there is lesser number of mails sent. It becomes easier to track the response, hence making it easier to see what the results of the campaign are. Measurability is a very important tool here. If we are able to quantify the amount of traffic that the email campaign has brought to the website, then half the work is done. This is possible only through a systematic approach to list building and segmentation.

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