How Agencies Can Do a Better Job With Email Marketing
Confused by all the content on the internet that talks about email marketing? It’s kind of all over the board, especially when considering whether or not email marketing is effective anymore.
From cold emails to purchasing lists to growing your list, to best practices, and actionable strategies to get great results from email marketing, there is so much you need to consider.
Here at The Campfire Circle, one of the strongest strategies we offer is email marketing and in this post, I will cover everything you need to know from my personal experience.
Wait, I Thought Email Marketing Isn’t Effective Anymore
Did you know that email marketing brings in an ROI of $36 for every $1 spent!? I don’t know the ROI of your own efforts but I can say that email marketing brings in more leads and sales than any other strategy at my agency.
I personally think that when agencies don’t get great results from email marketing, they’re not going about it the right way. But I will cover everything you need to know starting right now.
What A Great Email Marketing Strategy Looks Like at Agencies
As I just mentioned, if an email marketing strategy is implemented and optimized the right way, you’ll start to see an ROI from your efforts that is close to or even higher than the industry standard of $36 for every $1 spent. Let’s look at what your agency should do to change your email marketing efforts from mediocre to great.
How Many Emails To Send Each Week and What They Should Contain
The first thing that makes an email marketing strategy great is that agencies send out 1-3 thought leadership emails out per week. These can be emails talking about and giving your audience access to your latest blog post, sharing useful tips, highlighting experts in your vertical, sending out case studies and reports, etc. Instead of occasionally sending a sales email, keep all of your emails educational and have a CTA at the end of each email for your audience to get in touch if they want to see how your agency can power your brand.
Segment Your Contacts
The second thing that will enhance your email marketing efforts is to segment your contacts. For example, your emails will likely be different for clients and leads. Segment your contacts further by industry, company size, revenue, etc. so that you can personalize and target each email that you send.
Grow Your List of Email Addresses
The third thing to make your email marketing great is to keep growing your list of email addresses aka leads. The best way to do this is through lead magnets and if you don’t know what they are, that’s okay, you can read all about them here and then return to this post. By promoting your lead magnets, you can greatly increase the number of new leads and new business coming in from all the email addresses you earn from your lead magnet.
Third-Party Options
The fourth thing that helps your email marketing efforts be great ones is to explore purchasing an email list or an email blast and we will dive more into it in just a bit.
Elements of a Great Email
I just went over what makes a great email marketing strategy for agencies, so let’s hone it in a bit and look at the elements of a great email. Simply consider the following:
An engaging subject line that isn’t salesy, but rather aims to be intriguing
Don’t forget about the preview text
The body of the email is short and sweet because it gets straight to the point
The email is thought leadership focused
It has a CTA at the end such as “book your free consultation with our agency today”
The email isn’t overly polished and super professional, people want a humanized connection
Hyperlinks are set up properly and open in a new window
There is an unsubscribe link at the end of the email
It’s sent from a person so that contacts can reply to the email with questions
In fact, your email should encourage your readers to reply with questions
A professional signature with the link to your website and LinkedIn profile
Purchasing Email Lists and Email Blasts
I discussed growing your email list with lead magnets but if you have the budget, I’ve had luck with purchasing email lists and email blasts. There are pros and cons to both.
Purchasing an email list from the right source allows you to get super specific for the email addresses that your purchase. Analyze the commonalities of your current clients and set criteria for the email addresses that you purchase. I personally have used Exact Data and have gotten some great results. The biggest pro when purchasing an email list is that you’ll own those email addresses and can set up a nurturing campaign and keep dripping them emails.
Email blasts are great as long as you partner with the right source. Since they are coming from the source they signed up for, the engagement tends to be pretty great. My recommendation when purchasing email blasts is that your CTA directs their audience to an asset that captures their email address so that you are growing your own list. So something like a webinar they have to register for or an eBook that they provide their email list in order to download. Stray away from self-promotional email blasts and simply offer strategic thought leadership. Pro is that email blasts have good open rates and con is that they only engage with the people once unless you want to keep paying the fee and they’re not exactly cheap.
5 Email Marketing Strategies to Supercharge Your Efforts
I do a ton of email marketing and have been for a long time. There are some unique strategies that I can offer for an email marketing program on steroids. Here are 5 strategies to consider:
Purchase a list of new businesses that have launched that also have funding. The new factor and the funding are important because these new businesses are just starting out and there is a high chance they need agency support. I use Get Prospects because it’s affordable and has great information.
I’ve mentioned it before and I’ll mention it again because I believe in it so much, lead magnets are a game changer when it comes to growing your list of email addresses to nurture.
If time and email marketing skills are an issue, hire an agency that understands agencies like The Campfire Circle so that your email marketing efforts are in good hands.
Don’t just focus on generating and nurturing leads, email your current clients as well. You don’t want to leave them out because you can upsell and retain them with strategic emails.
Implement A/B testing to learn which messages resonate with your audience. With the right email marketing platform, this is super easy to execute.
Final Thoughts: I Want to Do a Better Job With Email Marketing Right Away!
As you can see, email marketing is incredibly effective when agencies are strategic about it. Be sure to optimize your efforts by segmenting your audience, leveraging thought leadership, and understanding the elements of a great email.
I created The Campfire Circle because a lot of agency owners spend a ton of time doing amazing client work but don’t have time to focus on things that will grow their agency like proper email marketing. If you want to explore how I can help grow your agency, you can contact me here and we can do a free consultation.
Are there any email marketing tips that you have to offer? I’d love to read them in the comments below!
