Have you ever filled in your email address on a subscription/opt-in form for a freebie like a pdf, or an online workshop, or a coupon, pass, etc.? If yes, then you’re a ‘lead’ for that business.
You may also have wondered, why, despite social media proliferating deep into our lives, do businesses seek email addresses of their target audience? Because an email lead is more valuable than a social media follower. When you send an email to the prospects, you have their complete attention and permission to be in their inbox, which creates brand trust. All you have to do next is send such an immaculately designed and impeccably drafted email that your email marketing works like a lead generating machine.
Here are eight tips that you would need to induce in your email marketing to generate valuable leads.
1. Include attractive subject lines to boost open rates
To keep your readers interested, you must first get them to open your emails. If your emails are not even opened by your readers, all of your email marketing lead-generating efforts will be for naught. That’s why having a catchy email subject line is key.
The following are 10 best-performing Subject Lines from Sumo:
Source: AppSumo
2. Have a good connection between your emails and landing pages
Navigating to different pages for information is not a good idea. Rather connect a specific page where visitors will get crucial information to the email. This would aid email marketing initiatives in increasing conversion rates and generating leads.
3. Create incentives and referral awards
Intelligent marketers always take into account the importance of referral bonuses and incentives, and so include them into their email marketing. Referral programs have the capability to multiply leads, which means they can propel your email marketing lead generating initiatives to new heights.
Take the following example of Airbnb, where the host would receive $25 and $75 in credit for referring:
Source: Airbnb
4. Create responsive and mobile-friendly emails
More than 50% people read emails on mobile devices. This clearly shows that users prefer to read emails or any other type of content on smartphones and tablets rather than on laptops and desktop computers. Marketers must, therefore, create an email template and put buttons that are compatible with mobile devices and tablets.
5. Utilize your social media presence
Social media can be a great way to boost your email marketing efforts. You may not only establish a dynamic company profile using social media, but also build a following of devoted fans, and in real time, you may interact with your industry and community. And, most of all, you can collect data on the people who are most likely to interact with your business. You may even reach out to your email subscribers to encourage them to engage with your social media profiles after they’ve subscribed.
In your lead generation plan, the confluence of social media and email is a synergistic relationship you can’t afford to overlook.
6. Have a formidable CTA
Every email should include a call-to-action button so that readers may easily take the desired action. In order to draw the reader’s attention, you must use catchy and creative, but concise and short phrases.
By implementing great CTAs, you may increase conversion rates by adding excitement and urgency.
7. Perform A/B test to improve your KPIs
A/B tests allow you to optimize your strategy and the overall email content. No matter how well and carefully you design your email marketing campaign, there will always be some room for improvement. When you test the different versions of your emails, you can improve your conversion rates considerably by going forward with the ones best performing.
The best thing about A/B test of emails is that you can decide specifically which parts or aspects of your email you want to test, like subject lines and preheader text, or layout, or copy, or even CTAs and font, color, the shape of buttons, to name a few.
8. Select the right time to send emails
When it comes to sending emails, the day and time are critical. There are some days of the week that are better than others for launching email marketing campaigns to produce B2B leads for your company.
While some believe that “Tuesday” is the ideal day to send emails, others believe that “Thursday” is the best day to send emails that are clicked and opened. However, you should not rely solely on statistics. Your company has its own set of target audiences, with their own set of tastes, habits, and choices. As a result, what may work for your organization may have the exact opposite effect for another.
So, the best thing to do is research your customers and determine the best time and day to send emails to get results in the form of leads. Similarly, there are many differing viewpoints regarding time of the day, i.e. whether one should send emails at 8 a.m., 10 a.m., or 1 p.m.? It all depends on who you’re trying to reach and when they’re most likely to read their email.
The Bottom Line
Adapt these 8 tips in your email marketing strategy and bag leads in great numbers as if they are being generated from a lead-generating machine. In the end, however, results matter. Therefore, encourage salespeople to follow up immediately with the leads to not let them slip away.