A survey conducted by Constant Contact (Nov 2010) found that small businesses have been favouring their websites (93 percent) and email marketing (92 percent) for marketing their products/services and generating new leads.
The third method of choice to attract new clients was the social media tool – Facebook (62 percent) followed closely by in-person marketing (62 percent).
Here’s a graph that summarises the overall findings. Interesting, yes?
If you are using your website and email marketing to promote your products and services, to ensure you continue to maximize exposure and increase the number of new leads, here are 7 things you must be aware of:
- People do business with brands they know, like and trust, so it’s important to build rapport and solid relationships with your prospects. Just because someone has given you his or her email address doesn’t mean that you can abuse it by constantly bombarding people with sales promotions.
Rather, follow the ‘80/20 principle’ whereby you provide valuable resources, tips and articles 80 per cent of the time and then promote your products/services the other 20 per cent of the time.
- Keep your sales copy conversational. Don’t be tempted to use corporate jargon, as this will only confuse your prospects. And, as I’ve mentioned time and again – a confused prospect says ‘no’ and will likely go and invest with your competitor.
- Get to know your prospect intimately, including the words they use to describe their issues and the solutions they seek. Incorporate these words into both your website and email marketing copy so that you prospect resonates with what you’re saying and feels you are the one to help them reach their goals.
- With the hundreds of emails people typically receive on a daily basis – to ensure your email doesn’t get deleted it’s important to use a great headline that captures the readers curiosity.
- Don’t include your entire sales copy in the body of the email. You don’t want to overwhelm people or make them feel they are being ‘pitched to’. They’ll delete your email or worse yet – unsubscribe from your list.
Instead, include information in the body of the email that tweaks their interest and compels them to click through to your webpage and your sales copy.
- Use graphics that are relevant to your demographic in your email (and on your webpage). A picture paints a thousand words and you want a graphic that sparks emotion and ‘speaks’ to the core needs and desires of your target audience.
So, were these helpful? Which strategy are you going to implement within your marketing strategy – let me know by leaving a comment below. Please share this with your friends and colleagues by clicking the Like button below.
Till next time, stay inspired!
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Annemarie,
This is such a great post. Each tip is worthy of immediate implementation. However, I've learned to work on one thing at a time. After mastering it, then I move on to the next tip.
I am going to work on my conversational sales copy, step B. I look forward to returning with results and going to the next step as outlined above.
Carla
http://CarlasTransportServices.comn
Hi Carla, thanks for stopping by and sharing your thoughts! I think your suggestion of learning and mastering one thing and moving onto the next is a great one! A great strategy for all of us to follow!
Best, Annemarie
Great post Annemarie!! List building should be on everyones agenda!
Thanks for stopping by and commenting Joshua. I am constantly surprised to learn that many business owners do not have a system in place to build, manage and nurture their list. A shame as this is a ‘must’ for all businesses. As you said, it SHOULD be on everyone’s agenda!
Great post, Annemarie. Interesting that Facebook is up in third place, after only websites and email marketing. The fact that in-person marketing would be the close 4th makes me wonder about how many companies surveyed were online vs offline. Do you happen to know?
Sharon, great point and something I thought about too.
Constant Contact was the organization who conducted the survey so I would imagine that many of their clients/survey participants would have selected email as a preferred option, being that they were using Constant Contact’s email/newsletter system.
I’m not sure whether they targeted offline users – at a guess I’d say no. It’s interesting that these people didn’t feel that face to face was a great option.
Personally, I use all of the methods in my business however am getting the most traction with Facebook at this stage.