You know that staying in contact with leads and clients is a great way to keep your funnel filled, and you’ve got a* CRM solution to help you do it (you do, right?) but how do you get started? Setting up an email marketing campaign – also known as a drip campaign – isn’t as difficult as you think.*
Here are eight simple steps to help you:
1. Have a clear understanding of your target audience
Create a profile for each of your target audiences: The more you know about a contact, the better you can tailor your communications and create a more meaningful rapport with them. Think about the prospective buyers, sellers and past clients you want to reach and consider each one’s behavior based on their needs and wants. What are the typical questions and concerns every buyer or seller has, and during what step of the process do those questions arise? What unusual comments or feedback have you received? What different information does each audience want and need to have? Is there anything in particular you want them to know about working with you? Answering these questions can help create a more complete profile for each type of contact.
2. Consider the viewing platform
With the increasing use of mobile devices for tasks that desktop computers used to handle, it’s safe to assume recipients will open your email on a smartphone or tablet – we know that more than 50% of users on our site are using mobile devices – so make sure your emails are optimised for viewing “on the go”.
3. Use visual branding consistently
Your visual branding is more than a logo. It’s a delivery mechanism for the feeling you want people to experience* every time they see your marketing materials, which includes your digital collateral as well, such as your website, newsletter and emails. It means having a consistent design, the same photography style and graphics treatment, and established colors and fonts. When contacts open your emails and visit your website, they should be able to *make an immediate connection and know both components are part of the same company.
4. Create clear, compelling and concise content
It can take multiple touches for a lead to remember and recognise you, so it’s crucial that your emails are clear in their language – no industry acronyms or esoteric jargon – and compelling enough for leads to read all the way through and realise that you’re offering expertise that can benefit them. Keep your messages short: you only have their attention for a limited time, so if you have multiple points to make, put them in separate messages. Also, get personal. Many email campaign solutions offer templates for content, but you should develop your own messages, in your own voice, as soon as you can and customise them as much as possible. Finally, every email you send must also include a very clear and easy-to-find call to action. For example, a clickable button to an interesting Internet article or to view your agency’s latest newsletter.
5. Ensure that your messages drive traffic to one place
Every email you send, regardless of the objective or recipient, should consistently direct your audience to the same, single source. Different campaigns will have different objectives – for example, the goal of one particular email might be to engage your audience through social media, and the call to action is to visit your Facebook page or Pinterest boards. But more often than not, your website is the likeliest destination for contacts and clients to learn more about you and what you can do for them.
6. Track your campaign
It’s important to track your campaigns so that you know what works and what doesn’t. One of the reasons for using a CRM solution to run your campaigns is for its analytic and attribution functions, which can help you can understand where, how and why you get the responses you do. Of the leads who became clients, how many responded – and to which campaign? How many campaigns underperformed? Which links were clicked most often? What content got forwarded the most? What weekday and time are best to send an email? Do you need to tweak the frequency rate of your emails? Tracking your campaigns reveals data and trends that can fine-tune your future activities for a greater return.
7. Respond, respond, respond!
Just like your other marketing efforts, email campaigns are designed to generate and convert leads. So you would no more ignore a contact’s response to your emails than you would disregard an incoming call. You don’t set up an email marketing campaign only to sit back and let it do all the work. Yes, it automates a great number of tasks for you, but you’re still the brains behind the technology, and your personal touch is what can win clients and keep them coming back.
8. Scrub your database on a regular basis
It might be tempting to dump anyone and everyone into your database and plug them into campaigns. You can certainly do that, but it means spending time and effort – maybe even cost – to send your communications to unqualified or uninterested recipients. If your initial database is a big one, take some time and a heavy hand to narrow it down to the most viable contacts. Be ruthless! Once your campaigns get underway, use your CRM’s analytic data to regularly scrub your database so that your efforts have the most realistic chance of paying off.