3 powerful email marketing strategies you probably aren’t using

How many emails did you read today? Most of us have a love-hate relationship with email. Although we might want to rid our daily routine of email, it remains one of the most common elements of business in nearly every industry. Generating and engaging leads is a critical element to your business and email follow up is one of the most effective ways to engage a new customer—when it’s done right.

So how do you harness the power of email to grow your business? Below are three email-marketing strategies you probably aren’t using today. These ideas will position your emails to stand out in your customers’ inboxes. Put them to work and watch your business grow!

3 Powerful email marketing strategies

• The Big Subject Line Hook
• Message Distillation
• WIIFM

I know it’s cryptic, but trust me. Read on.

The Big Subject Line Hook

Here’s the big takeaway of this article. If your customers (or potential customers) don’t open your email, it’s a wasted investment of your marketing dollars. So the subject line is often a determinant of whether or not potential customers click to open. The goal is to create a dynamic subject line that engages, intrigues and ignites curiosity.

Think of your own inbox. One of my inboxes has 6,954 emails sitting there—frightening, I know. The point is, I may be your target customer and I have to weigh the value of opening each of the emails within the huge volume of emails I receive every day. Unless I know the sender, the subject line is often a major determinant as to whether I open—or delete—a new email.

Strategy #1: Create a big subject line hook that encourages your potential customer to open your email. Without an open, your content has no chance of surviving the ‘next round.’ Below are some recommendations for big subject lines.

• Craft language that makes viewers want to ‘click’
• Create incentives that invite action; ‘Join us,’ ‘You’re invited,’ ‘Premier event’
• Personalize; ‘I thought of you,’ ‘Need your expertise,’
• Mirror the subject line in the first line of the email to clarify and engage your viewer.

• Subject line: John, I thought of you
• 1st line of email: John, I thought of you because you’re an avid fly fisherman and I know our lures will up your fly-fishing game. Let me tell you why.

Message Distillation

Here’s the reality -- we’re all just too busy and information overload is real. So, no matter how valuable the product or service your company is offering, if your ideal consumer doesn’t open your email, she won’t even know how wonderful you are. The key is message distillation; or ‘say it in as few words as possible.’

What is the most essential element of your message, the essence? That’s the part that you must extract and include in email communications to engage today’s overloaded and highly informed consumer. Keep these guidelines in mind as you craft your email strategy.

• Keep it short and simple
• Craft a clear and conversational message
• Make your Call-to-action (CTA) clear
• Pay attention to the optimal times to send an email to your target audience

WIIFM

WIFM (What’s In It For Me) is an old sales technique that remains equally valuable today—maybe even more so for the highly informed, discriminating consumer in today’s high demand marketplace. Essentially, WIIFM is a reminder to qualify and quantify how your product or service will provide genuine value to your prospective customer. Below are some tips for communicating personal value in your emails.

• Understand your audience and personalize the value
• State the value clearly and upfront; WIIFM as an opening line in the body of the email is ideal.• Quantify the value to your individual customer and what’s your product or service worth in dollars or time to your potential customer?
• Qualify the value to your potential customer; although it may not be a financial savings, how does your product enhance your customer’s life?

Email marketing remains one of the most valuable options to connect directly with your potential and current customers. This is the only platform that goes directly into your prospective customer’s inbox; create a customized message that conveys exactly why your product or service will help make your customers’ lives better. Make the most of this medium by harnessing these powerful email marketing strategies to make meaningful connections with people. Remember that the leads of today become valued customers of tomorrow.

The Keap app comes preloaded with an extensive library of flexible, functional email templates for a variety of opportunities. Check out how Keap can help you create powerful email communications.