When it comes to marketing your services and finding new leads, there is no strategy that can beat email marketing. Advisors who have adopted the practice report they receive $44 in revenue to every $1 spent on email marketing. With returns like that, email marketing is a strategy that can’t be ignored.
Write Emails That Get Opened
One of the most frustrating things about starting an email campaign is low open rates. Across all industries, marketers report that around 75% of emails are never opened, and then 95% of those who do go ahead and open the email don’t click on the links they contain.
One of the most important aspects of email marketing is the email subject line. A good subject line is often the deciding factor between an email that gets ignored and one that inspires a prospect or client to take action.
Keep your subject lines short enough so that the whole line will appear in an email client. Gmail, the most popular email client, displays 70 characters. Studies have shown that the most popular email subjects tend to be just around 65 characters.
Go here to read our guide to writing a clickable email subject line.
Write Emails that Get Read
The key to writing emails that get read is to make them feel personable, applicable and actionable. One of the best ways to do this is to make sure you are segmenting your email lists and sending emails that are designed for each segment. A powerful tool for segmenting email is a customer persona.
When you understand exactly who you are sending the email to and what it is they are looking for, you are able to customize emails, so they speak directly to your prospect’s pain points. Make sure you start by addressing them by name (many automated email systems like FMG Suite allow you to add a variable that will automatically insert an email recipient’s first name).
Keep your paragraphs short and explosive. Don’t waste time on small talk, get right into the offer you are presenting and provide evidence for why they would want to take you up on it. Always write in the second person, speaking directly to the recipient using “you” and “your” as often as possible.
Write Emails That Get Clicks
After the subject line, the call to action in your email is the most important part. The whole goal of your email will be to get the reader interested enough in your offer to click the link that will take them to a landing page where you will have a greater chance of getting them to take action.
When crafting a call to action, it is important to make it attractive, crystal clear and urgent. To make it attractive make sure that the content you are driving to holds real value for the reader. This is often easier when you have customized the campaign for the audience segment that is reading. For example, if you are sending out to retirees with an ebook about paying back student loans you will have missed the mark.
The last step is to create urgency. The best way to do this is by adding a time constraint. Without some limit on how long they have to take action, many people will procrastinate clicking thinking they will come back to the offer later, which they most likely never will.
