The power of email marketing can be illustrated with a couple of quick statistics. According to studies released by Monetate 4.24% of people who subscribe to an email marketing list will buy something. Of those who find the product through the search engines only 2.49% will buy and if they find your product through social media the number drops to .59%. The simple truth is that if you want to be maximizing your sales you need to be email marketing.
However while email marketing may offer a higher ROI (Return on Investment) than any other form of marketing, most marketers could still improve their sales conversion numbers with a few simple changes. The fact is that consumers are becoming increasingly savvy about which emails they will open and which they won’t. Here are the top 3 ways for you to increase sales with email marketing.
#1 Improve the Subject Line
There is an old saying in copywriting that 80% of people will read the headline but only 20% will ready the body text. In terms of email marketing the headline refers to the subject line of the email. If you have a poorly written subject line then people will simply not open your email. However a great subject line can greatly increase the open rate and your resulting sales.
Studies have shown that headlines which have 1 -2 words gain the highest open rate. Also headlines which have 14 or more words also have higher click through rates than average. When writing your subject line think about how you could make it more concise or if there is anything you can remove. One of the best ways to write a subject line is to create a sense of mystery. Don’t give everything away in the subject line. Make sure that they have to open the email to find out what’s inside.
Finally if you want some good ideas for your subject lines here is a quick trick. Create a new email address which you will use only for this exercise. Then using that email address sign up for emails from some of the best marketers in the business such John Carlton, Eben Pagan, Frank Kern, Bob Bly and Dan Kennedy. Every couple of days check your inbox. See which subject lines jump out at you. You can then use these as the basis for your own subject lines.
#2 Include a P.S.
When people open an email they will typically look at two places first. The opening paragraph and the bottom of the email. A large percentage of those who read the email will never read through the entire text. That is why the P.S. that you add to the bottom of your email is so important. By including an offer in your P.S. you will pick up sales from those people who don’t want to read your entire email.
#3 Provide Free Information and Case Studies
In order to maximize your sales you must be perceived as an expert who can deliver results. The two best ways to do this is firstly to give away free information and secondly to demonstrate results that other customers have achieved. Free and useful information helps to elevate you to the status of expert.
It will also help to improve your open rate because people will know that they aren’t just going to be sold to. Case studies, where you talk about the results that other customers have gotten are another great soft selling technique. When you talk about previous customers results the implicit assumption is that they achieved them thanks to your product.
Email marketing is still the best way for you to market online. However the market is becoming more competitive and so it is important that you stay at the top of your game. And finally, remember you can always improve open rates, sales conversion rates and click through rates so keep testing.
photo credit: Social Biz Solutions, https://flickr.com
About the author:
Eric is a blogs regularly at EricWelke.com where he recently wrote a Pure Leverage review. He has been in the industry for almost a decade.
This is very good information. I have been involved with email campaigns in my past life and this was a very good (hit on the head really) reminder of what I need to do. Thanks for that my friend. 🙂
Susan I think with social media marketing and networking being all the rage, we often forget that it is still the more direct one to one contact that is most effective. Thanks!
DITTO what Susan said. 🙂
These are all great points you’ve made.Headlines really do make a big difference and there are lots of tried & true ways to approach it. I think people often feel their product is different & try not fall into a sales pitch approach but the fact is we respond to things that catch our eye. Connecting in the myriad of ways you’ve mentioned are all key. But if they don’t read past the first line… Thank you for the post.
Headlines are as crucial as blog post titles! Thanks A.K.
Jeri so happy for the good timing. I’ve just queued up another guest post, as helpful, for making your SIGNATURE line better.
Thanks for the info. I just started using MailChimp for my new newsletter and I’ve been looking for ways to make it better.
I agree that Email marketing is still the best way for anyone to market online. Its critical that network marketers use products to help them build a solid qualified double opt-in list. Good luck to all! – Derek