Email marketing is extremely profitable when a business uses it to educate their sales leads, prospects and current clients. Yet many companies procrastinate developing an effective email marketing campaign. Usually the reasons for procrastination fall into one of these three categories:
- The company is afraid of being considered spam.
- No one in the company is confident about writing the content.
- Promotional email marketing campaigns in the past have failed miserably.
While it is understandable why the company feels resistance to this way of developing relationships with current and potential customers, it is a shame. Don’t take our word for it, look at this groundbreaking study from Marketing Sherpa. It only one of many research studies that prove the ROI from email marketing is $35-45 dollars for every dollar spent.
Overcoming the “Reasons” for Delay
With the assurance that a well-crafted email marketing campaign will give you a great return on your investment, you may still feel overwhelmed and frozen at the idea of getting started. Your schedule is jam-packed and you don’t know how you can add another thing to your plate. Below you will find seven steps for moving past overwhelm and into an automated and profitable email marketing program.
- Accept your “reasons”. Whether you don’t know how to write emails that are not spam, or simply don’t have the ability to write any effective emails, the bottom line is the same. When you accept the reason why you put off this project, you are prepared to find time to solve it.
- Stop the ‘BUTs’. Starting something different in the way of marketing can be very intimidating with small to medium size business. With everything that needs to be accomplished in the 168 hours in the week, small obstacles can easily cause highly profitable projects to take a back seat with statements like:
- I would do it, BUT the last email campaign was a dismal failure.
- We could implement email marketing, BUT we don’t have anyone to write them.
- I want to get the benefits of email marketing profits, BUT hate the mountains of email I get and don’t want to be unwelcome spam.
- Set a small, specific goal. To begin, all that is required is to shift the momentum from delay –to- action. Simply make an email marketing program a destination. You may not see exactly how to get from where you are now to where you want to go right now. Instead set up some SMART goals for the short term.
- Understand the alternative. There is no doubt that your company has seen a huge shift in the way customers purchase your products and services. When done well, sales leads welcome your emails because they are receiving valuable information that makes them a smarter consumer.
If your company does not supply the information desired by the sales lead, they will do one of these two things. They will continue to browse the internet looking for the right information – or – they will get what they need from a competitor. Settling for less than the information they crave is not likely to happen.
- Schedule time for the next action. Whether you are scheduling time to create the content yourself, hold meetings with staff to develop a plan, or hire a competent copywriter…the time to accomplish the next step is not going to open up on its own. Recognize that using email marketing within your online CRM (Client Relationship Manager) will have far-reaching results in the long run. Put it on your calendar.
- Keep it up. Every time you take an action toward the goal of having a good email marketing campaign, schedule the next step. Keep your eye on the goal ahead and even enroll an accountability partner if you need one.
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