You need leads if you want your business to grow. And one way to rake in your leads is email marketing. Thanks to its affordability and broad reach, email marketing remains one of the most cost-effective methods of generating leads. And we’re here to share some of the best email marketing lead generation techniques to get you started!
A ton of work goes into creating effective email lead-generation campaigns. But with the proper techniques, you can effectively increase your customer base, keep them engaged, and turn them into paying customers.
What is Email Marketing?
Before we get into anything else, let’s first look at what email marketing entails.
You can usually gather leads through an opt-in email form. This lets you collect customer information, including their names and email addresses. And once you have their details, you can begin nurturing them into the sales funnel.
Lead-generation emails don’t necessarily have to be cold emails. You can also send these emails to reengage with your existing contacts. The goal is to connect with prospective buyers or clients, whoever they may be.
How Effective is Email Marketing For Generating Leads?
If you think email marketing is dead, you might have to think again. According to data from Strategic, 42% of companies still consider email to be one of their most critical lead-generation channels. And for a good reason. Email marketing can give you a 44000% ROI than other lead generation tools (Campaign Monitor). That’s a massive return and one more proof of email marketing’s effectiveness.
Effective Email Marketing Lead Generation Techniques
Know your target audience.
Email lead generation all starts with a deep understanding of your target audience. Creating some detailed buyer personas can significantly help you out in this regard.
A buyer persona represents critical parts of your audience and can help you figure out what they are like as individuals and consumers. Here are some great questions to help build your buyer persona:
Where do your ideal customers live?
How much do they earn, and what industries do they work in?
How do they spend their spare time?
What are their preferred sources of information, and how do they make buying decisions?
What concerns do they have, and what problems do they want to solve?
How can your products or services help solve your customer’s problems?
Build an opt-in email list.
It may be tempting just to buy an email list to create your email marketing lead generation strategy. But you may have to hold that thought.
There is no guarantee that the recipients in the lists you buy will respond to your emails. If they don’t fit your buyer persona, they aren’t going to be high-quality leads.
Build your email list honestly through free resource offers, newsletter sign-ups, social media, and other methods that let users opt-in voluntarily. You want your email to end up in the inbox of someone who actually wants to receive it.
This may seem time-consuming, but it will be well worth it in the long run.
Organize your list into segments.
Not all your emails will work for everyone on your email list. Personalization is key to enticing recipients to open your email and read through it.
A great way to personalize your emails is to segment your list into categories like:
Customer behavior
Funnel position
Sales History
Segmenting your email listaccording to criteria like these can produce more effective results.
Crafting Irresistible Subject Lines
Around 100-120 emails are received by an average person daily. With this much inbox competition, you want your email to stand out right off the bat.
Creating catchy subject lines that intrigue the reader to open your email is an excellent way of making a strong impression and generating leads. Great subject lines are concise but informative, letting the recipient know what to expect if they open them. You can also go down the clever or funny route to provoke a person’s curiosity.
Write an Interesting Email Copy
Subject lines can only get you so far. Your email copy also needs to be interesting and provide value to your recipients. Give your readers something meaningful in exchange for their time.
This could mean offering discounts, exclusive access, product demos, educational materials, or anything else that provides real value to them. The better the content, the higher the chance people have of following through with your CTA and becoming a paying customers.
Leveraging AI writing tools is a great way to write great email copies easily. A great writing tool that’s worth trying is INK. You can use the INK AI Assistant to write excellent email copies in seconds. It also has a wide variety of voice tones that you can play with to give your writing some pizzazz.
Keeping Your Content Easy to Read
As with any form of written communication, having clean and concise content makes for a more enjoyable experience for the reader. This should be no different when sending out emails for lead generation.
Incorporating simple formattings such as bullet points, bold text, and color highlights. You can also use images will help break up long walls of text and ensure that your key messages stand out.
Closing With A Strong Call-To-Action
Make sure to include a call-to-action (CTA) at the end of your email that tells subscribers what action they need to take after reading. Depending on the offer, this could involve signing up for a webinar, downloading an ebook, or following you on social media.
Here are some quick tips to help you write a strong CTA that converts:
Ensure that your CTA is specific and action-oriented; use words like “Start,” “Subscribe,” or “Buy Now” to communicate the desired action.
Use active voice in your CTA to create an authoritative tone.
Keep it concise – avoid long sentences and ensure you get your point across quickly.
Use emotionally charged language that evokes feelings of urgency and excitement.
Offer incentives such as discounts or gifts to encourage users to take action.
Utilize Content Upgrades & Gated Content
Another effective way to generate leads through email is to incorporate gated content or “content upgrades” into your emails. These require prospects to fill out forms to access exclusive offers, helping gather contact information along the way. It’s also possible to build automated sequences around these offerings, which helps increase conversions even further.
Abir is a data analyst and researcher. Among her interests are artificial intelligence, machine learning, and natural language processing. As a humanitarian and educator, she actively supports women in tech and promotes diversity.