Traditional sales organizations tend to think of email marketing in terms of nurturing client relationships, newsletters, etc.
Especially for B2B sales pros, emails seem to be superfluous and run the risk of annoying valued prospects and customers.
Of course, there are plenty of good reasons to succumb to these fears but, in a world where customers’ attention is their scarcest resource, wise sales teams take advantage of all the communication mediums they can.
What makes and email marketing campaign effective?. There can be plenty of answers but, there should be two core goals of any campaign.
•Motivate the right prospects or customers to take the desired action
•Build a relationship of trust with prospects and customers
No email marketing campaign will yield 100% success in motivating the desired behavior (request a quote, schedule a demo, talk to an account manager or make a purchase) but, even those that choose not to act should be left with a feeling they were treated with respect, their needs were understood and a respect for the expertise of you and your company.
A simple formula for creating a strong campaign that achieves these goals and more is to start with the end goal in mind – what is the desired action of the prospect? – and work backwards from there to develop copy, content, subject lines, etc.
Create a call to action that speaks to the inner needs or pain of the prospect – use “Click here to Relieve Back Pain” instead of “Set an Appointment Today”.
Then write your email with that “pain” in mind – highlight it. For more complex products and services. Ask yourself “Do my prospects typically already understand the type of service we provide and it’s ability to address the “pain”? If not, then the email should focus on the pain, highlight how it’s costing time, money, energy, etc. and make the call to action an educational report or whitepaper or a video – “3 ways to stop overspending on Internet service”.
If deciding on the desired action is the obstacle, ask yourself what most commonly motivates customers to contact your customers?. What do they want or need badly enough to call and ask to talk to a sales person?. That’s the pain your call to action should correlate with.
If there are more than one answer to that question, write several emails. Now you have a campaign!
Remember, not communicating with emails is a missed opportunity. Your sales team has limited time and resources. Leveraging email to allow the most qualified prospects to “self-identify” can maximize the productivity of your team.