No email is not dead! In fact, I can probably guess that you are on a few mailing lists that you absolutely love and those newsletters might even be daily! That’s how powerful email marketing can be; once you love the person (or the content), you don’t ever want to unsubscribe.
I know first hand because I, myself, have two newsletters that I absolutely love that provide me with very different tips and inspiration that help to keep my brain thinking and my heart open.
So what is it about email that has most small business owners stumped on how to convert their email subscribers into customers? Is there a magick formula?
Over my years as an email and content marketer, I have discovered there area 7 tips that help you to build authentic connection and generate new/recurring customers to you daily just by being awesome!
STEP 1. Be Helpful
This seems basic, but there is an art to being helpful. Whether you are selling a product or a service, you must keep your newsletters informative. This means, you take your time to research what’s happening in your niche: the pros and cons, what’s new, what’s no longer working, myth busters, and more. It is your job to know more about your industry than the average person, which leads me to my next step
STEP 2. Be Seen as an Leader
At first I was thinking, you need to be seen as an expert, but that’s just not enough these day. You really need to be seen as a leader. A leader empowers and influences, rather than sells and promotes. There is actually a different kind of writing style between a leader and an expert too. For instance, an expert will share their “expertise”, where a leader will empower you to think for yourself and then take action so that you will go on to be a leader too!
A leader’s main goal is to build other leaders and if you can help your subscribers see themselves as one, you have done your job.
STEP 3. Always be Inviting
I have talked about this strategy for years, and yet it seems a lot of email marketers totally forget this one! Always be inviting isn’t just about promoting your products and services with a BUY NOW button or giving them coupons and discount codes to get them to purchase your stuff. There is actually a middle step that needs to be bridged before you ask for the sale.
For example:
Let’s say you sell holistic skincare products that are high grade, organic, and 100% toxic-free. Awesome and good for you, but actually who cares! Your customer appreciates that you care about what products go on their skin, but you’re not the first one to offer this knowledge or this product. Instead, inviting your subscribers to a tele class to discuss an urgent problem they are experiencing (like acne, wrinkles, scars, age spots, or rosacea), is over deliver and now you’ve got their attention!
Even if you’re worried you are segregating your list, the whole point of this strategy is to ALWAYS be inviting them to something! This means you can choose one topic for a tele class (Acne) one month and another topic another week (Rosacea), and so on. This way, you’re bridging the gap between being “helpful” and asking for the sell.
Always be inviting your subscribers to something is the easiest way to convert a subscriber into a customer.
STEP 4. Have a Signature System®
This might be something you’ve never heard before, but having a Signature System® is crucial to the growth of your business and to increasing your customers’ average sale! A Signature System® is the blueprint for solving your ideal customers problem from the root. It breaks down the steps you will take to solve the problem, identifies who you solve it for, and what products and services you’ll offer.
But here’s where most email marketers go wrong. They spend a lot of time promoting their products add having flash sales, they may even be hosting virtual classes to bridge the selling process, but they don’t know how to keep customers for life.
A Signature System® takes into consideration the longevity of the relationship. This means, you need to add products to your collection, but not the products you might be thinking.
Many entrepreneurs are adding new services or products to their offerings regularly, but they are often forgetting the easiest product of all to sell that will not only increase the average sale of their customer, but will make them lifetime fans!
