Email marketing can be extremely effective for advertising products, whether through sale announcements or updates highlighting new items. But this marketing channel can also be leveraged in a number of other ways to connect with customers on a more direct and personal level, ultimately leading to more purchases.
If you're looking to expand your current email marketing efforts, it's important to explore and execute the right strategies for your business. Below, nine members of Young Entrepreneur Council shared some of their favorite email marketing strategies that go beyond just selling a product.
Young Entrepreneur Council members advise trying these alternatives to just "selling" in your marketing emails.
Photos courtesy of the individual members.1. Include Relevant Information And Advice
Nobody wants to be spammed with a hard sell through newsletters. We try to add value to our audience with content and we include a segment called “Management Minute” with tangible business advice relevant to them. Create digestible nuggets of information for them to get real value and then in every two or three newsletters, include a selling element. It operates like any other relationship. You can’t just be taking from them—you also have to give something in return. - Saana Azzam, MENA Speakers
2. Offer Free Materials
Email marketing is an essential component for any successful business. It can be used to reach potential customers, drive traffic and increase sales. However, in order for it to be effective, it needs to be leveraged correctly. In my experience, I have found offering valuable free materials such as an ebook or newsletter to be very helpful in getting readers’ attention. It's important to remember that just because someone is receiving your email does not mean they are engaged in reading it. In order to have engaged readers, you need to offer them something worth their while. - Nic DeAngelo, Saint Investment Group
3. Create A Narrative
Reel in the audience with a storyline. Create a storyline or a narrative with drips of emails. You reinforce or introduce your brand creatively, increase your rates of engagement and get them looking for your next communication. Leverage autoresponders so every new subscriber goes through this story-based email sequence. Audiences get offers and deals all day long for products, but to really stand out from competitors, you want to give them something to look forward to that is not simply you asking for them to buy your products. Start to entertain an audience, and you will sell more products and increase engagement. - Matthew Capala, Alphametic
4. Focus On Product Education
Email marketing should be used as a way to stay in touch with your customers over the long run. In fact, you don't want to advertise your products too often. Instead, focus on things like product education and helping people understand how to use your products to achieve their goals. When users know how to use your products effectively and see positive effects in their life, they'll see the value of being your customer. Email marketing, when done well, leads to customer retention, which saves on marketing expenses and helps grow your business. - Blair Williams, MemberPress
5. Add ‘Get To Know Us’ Interviews
Interview your employees. Make the interviews fun and about the hobbies, interests and professional experiences of the person you are interviewing. This will make them more engaging to the viewer. You can name the series "Meet the [Your Company Name] Team" and release a new interview weekly and send it to your customers and prospects via email. If possible, you should leverage video since you'll be able to post it to your YouTube channel. You can also post it to your blog along with written takeaways or a summary. Once you have the content, you can then share it across your social media channels, highlight it in a company newsletter and, of course, use it for emailing. - Kristopher Brian Jones, LSEO.com
6. Address Customer Concerns
Use email marketing to proactively address customer concerns, increase loyalty and reduce return rates. A lot of times, customers have questions but they might ask them only at crucial moments when they're already frustrated. With strategic post-purchase emails, you can educate them more about the products they purchased, different use cases and strategies for resolving any common issues they may come across. The more you highlight these things, the more customers are able to take full advantage of the product while also resolving their own issues. This reduces the risk of them turning around and getting upset over email or the phone, and they'll be more likely to love and keep the product. - Firas Kittaneh, Amerisleep Mattress
7. Encourage Customers To Submit Reviews
You can grow your business through email marketing by encouraging customers to submit their reviews. Online reviews are a form of social proof that can boost sales and encourage visitors to take action on your site. You can add a call-to-action button to your emails after customers make a purchase that leads them back to your site where they can write a review and insert a rating. This will help other customers make informed buying decisions so you can grow your business. - Stephanie Wells, Formidable Forms
8. Share Your Successes
Sharing updates via email marketing lets your customer know that your business is active. We send emails from time to time that tell people about the new features we've added and important milestones we've hit. Such updates build confidence in our business. This keeps people loyal to the brand because we're offering them features they want and can use to achieve their goals. For example, one of our accelerator brands experienced a milestone where its customers crossed one billion in payments received. It was a landmark event that we shared on different platforms. Such an email update builds your reputation and encourages all customers to continue buying from you. - Syed Balkhi, WPBeginner
9. Send Event Reminders
You can use email marketing to grow your other marketing channels. For instance, if you're holding a free webinar, you could send a notification to your email subscribers just in case they don't follow you on sites like Facebook and Twitter. This small gesture of reaching out will lead to more event signups and engagement. There's a good chance some of your attendees will end up purchasing a product from your business, even though that wasn't the intent of your email. - John Turner, SeedProd LLC
