Email marketing is still a very useful marketing strategy, but if you want it to work, you need to create a high-quality email base. Sending emails to random recipients is not just ineffective; it’s also illegal. In this post, we will show you how to build such a base so that it can be a vital source of leads in your business.Email marketing is still a very useful marketing strategy, but if you want it to work, you need to create a high-quality email base. Sending emails to random recipients is not just ineffective; it’s also illegal. In this post, we will show you how to build such a base so that it can be a vital source of leads in your business.
Your email marketing base starts with your current and previous clients, but that’s rarely enough to grow your outreach and get more clients. So, you need something more as you need to acquire more brand-new leads to your base. In a moment, we will show you how to do this, but first, let’s answer a question that oftentimes arises in similar situations.
Should you buy a ready-made email base?
The answer is no, and there are three good reasons for that:
- First off, it is impossible to assess the quality of the database you purchase (in most cases, it’s not great)
- In nine out of ten scenarios, such an action is illegal, as, usually, these people never signed up for the list you bought!
- And finally, if you have a list of emails that have nothing to do with your company, you risk being labeled as a spammer. When people don’t expect any communication from you, and they suddenly get it, it can be bad for your online reputation, especially when you’re trying to sell right out of the gate.
There’s one more thing. Such email bases were never built with your company in mind, so there’s no way of knowing whether these people represent your ICP (Ideal Client Profile) or not. All in all, you may end up buying an email base that will not produce one good lead for you.
The verdict: Forget about ready-made email bases. Build one on your own.
The key to success – lead magnet
What you should do is use your website and social media profiles to promote your website and encourage people to sign up for your email list. But why would they do that? The lead magnet is the answer. You need to offer them something in return. Then, you make it a transaction – your prospects are paying with their emails for something valuable you can offer.
WHAT A LEAD MAGNET SHOULD BE?
Typically, it’s one piece of content that gives more value than what you have on your website or blog. A lead magnet can be:
- An ebook
- A webinar recording (if you have time and resources, you can create multiple webinars and even host them live and invite people to join them in exchange for their email addresses)
- A cheat sheet or checklist
- A free trial access to your platform even
The idea behind lead magnet is to give people something valuable so that they can trust you. It’s a good start for building your relationship in the future using email marketing.
WHERE A LEAD MAGNET SHOULD BE?
In general, in at least two places – on your main page and on a dedicated landing page. This way, people coming to your business from different sources can see the lead magnet and opt for it. When it comes to the main page of your website, you typically need just a short section encouraging people to leave their email.
Here’s a good example:
Source: https://www.ptiplus.ca/
As you can see, there’s a graphic showing the “physical” form of the lead magnet, a short explanation of what the reader can get (notice the green “free ebook” box), and a short sign-up form. That’s all you need; don’t overcomplicate this and focus on specifics.
Your lead magnet must be valuable and interesting to your target audience. You’re not selling here; you’re just providing value to build trust and future relationships with your prospects. That’s how you should approach creating a lead magnet.
And what about a dedicated landing page? You can devote more room to talk about your magnet and why it’s important to get it. But again, don’t go overboard; a free lead magnet subpage should also be concise. But you still need it because this way, you can direct new traffic straight to this landing page, e.g., from Google Ads or Facebook Ads.
HOW TO PROMOTE A LEAD MAGNET
The short answer is that you can do so with all the marketing tools and channels you have. Companies typically promote their lead magnets through social media (both organic and paid posts) and Google. You can also try and use your lead magnet as a conversation-starter, e.g., on LinkedIn.
I have a lead magnet; what’s next?
You put it on your website and start promoting it. If it’s not going the way you imagined, the problem likely lies in wrong communication or the fact that your lead magnet is not relevant to your target audience. That’s why it’s so important to take some time to analyze what kind of content people in your audience really need and are interested in.
On the other hand, if you did your homework, and the lead magnet, as well as the way you talk about it, is good, you should soon start to see new email addresses rolling into your database. Take a look at some of those emails, especially their domains. If you like those websites and they are good potential clients, then you did everything great!
Now, it’s all about starting and maintaining communication with your prospects, but that’s a story for a different article.
Automate your email marketing
Sending emails and newsletters manually takes a lot of time and is simply ineffective. Marketing automation is a far better option, especially if you have over 100 addresses in your email database. With iPresso, you can automate almost everything relating to your email marketing, including:
- Collecting and storing new leads in a contact database management system
- Creating captivating emails and newsletters (we have hundreds of templates to choose from)
- Automating whole communication flows using marketing automation scenarios
As a result, you can stay in constant contact with your leads without spending a lot of time on this task. Would you like to see how this can work in real life? If so, we want to invite you to a free 30-day trial of our platform. All you need to do is send this short contact form, and we’ll take care of the rest.
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