I’m Kenneth Vogt, Commercial Director of Bitesize Bio and founder of Vera Claritas Inc. I play the role of Richard Roeper, Gene Siskel and Roger Ebert all rolled into one, reviewing and highlighting the webinars and video presentations found at the Life Science Marketing Society.
Today I’m commenting on the presentation entitled:
Qualifying and Closing in 90 Days with Email Marketing
It is described this way:
A recent survey by Kissmetrics identified the most effective, digital lead generation tool as email. So why are so many ignoring it, or blasting away like it was 1999?
Because they don’t understand the lead generation process, and how to match your message to your target audience over ninety days. In this webinar we’ll cover how to design, create, and distribute targeted email automations that will separate the valuable leads from the many that do not take action.
We’ll cover:
- The most important element of every email (and one most think about at the end, at the last minute);
- How to determine what content to use, and when to send the emails;
- How many days should separate your emails;
- How to separate the qualified leads from those that don’t take auction;
- How to automate email inactivity and gain more leads (this alone is the missing link);
- Why you should clean your list every six months at least of those who do not open and click, and why it may be ruining your email marketing even if you don’t know it.
This webinar is presented by Declan Dunn of Simply Responsive LLC. Declan is a pioneering insider in the fields of online education, corporate performance enhancement and digital marketing. This unusual skill set allows him to bring people together in business settings large and small, enhance their relationships, and then empower them to monetize those relationships.
I first heard about Declan Dunn’s internet expertise when I got online myself in 1997. To put that in full perspective, the internet wasn’t fully commercialized in the US until 1995. (Declan was actually there by that time, but I was dragging up the rear in 1997.) I have followed his career and influence on internet marketing ever since. So I was delighted when he accepted our invitation to do a webinar for the Life Science Marketing Society.
When we asked him what he wanted to talk about, he didn’t dither. Without hesitation, he said, “Email.” Declan is an expert on, well, everything online. So why did he pick email, the Buick of marketing, when there are Mini Cooper and Range Rover and Tesla equivalents among the more sexy marketing methods getting attention today?
Because email works. And it’s not just that it gets respectable results. It gets unrivaled results, even when compared to all the latest and greatest innovations that we all love to get excited about. So unless you find top results boring, you have to acknowledge that email is still rocking the racetrack.
But that doesn’t mean it is automatic. Email marketing has refined over the decades (and you can’t use “decades” with much else online). So what is the current state of best practices for email marketing? Declan is the guy to ask.
The one-call close is a fantasy of the sales world. And yet, so many marketing campaigns are built as if this is the norm. But the fact is, 7-20 contacts are required for your average purchase. Contacts are generally expensive, so many companies just try to wish their way around it. But email is inexpensive and readily available for implementation by non-technical people. So make those necessary contacts by email because if you don’t use email, you are probably not showing up.
Email is actually pretty good at compelling prospects to take qualifying actions, things like: opening an email, clicking, going to your website, going to your Facebook page, downloading a report, watching a webinar, etc. Those qualifying actions move them down the funnel. Why do we need to move them? Because your email list may be a gold mine, but it’s not Fort Knox, with gold bricks just laying around. Refinement will be required.
At any given moment, with a qualified list:
- 60% are still figuring out their problem (top of the funnel)
- 30% are looking for a solution (middle of the funnel)
- 10% are ready to buy in the next 30 days (bottom of the funnel)
And make that last one 2-10%, because 10% is actually pretty optimistic.
Here are five success factors you need for that refinement process. To deliver top performance from your email campaigns, consider these points:
1) Timing
People read email after work. They don’t have time at work. (Yes, it’s messed up but we have to go with how the world actually works, not how it should work.) You can check your website analytics to see what time of day people look at your website as a good “stake in the ground” idea for what times of day (and days of the week) are the most active and therefore the best times to email. Declan has found 4pm to midnight weekdays are often the sweet spot.
2) The “From” Line
You may want to draw attention to your company name, but as I have written about ad nauseum, it’s not about you. People are looking for a real person. This isn’t just a comfort factor either. It can mean the difference between opening your email and deleting it. We are dealing with a skeptical crowd that is being bombarded with emails. Only 20% of emails get opened these days. Don’t be in the 80% because you just had to say your company name out loud. Give your email every chance of being opened by comforting them this is from a real person and not just an impersonal corporate machine.
3) The “Subject” Line
The subject line is often the last thing we give attention to and the last thing to be written. Yet it is the MOST important factor in getting your recipient to open your email. Your subject line is the ad for your email itself. It needs to be alluring, enticing, exciting and trustworthy. It shouldn’t give away the punch line, it should make them want to open your email to find out what goodness is inside.
4) ONE Call to Action
Some people use calls to action like they are fishing with dynamite. But your call to action should be a focal point, not a “kill ‘em all and let God sort ‘em out” approach.
You can utilize more than one place to service that single call to action though, and more than one method. Keep in mind that buttons work better in mobile, and lots of people are reading their email on their phone. You can still have good old blue underlined text links, just make it “and” your buttons instead of “or”. Calls to action at the top, the bottom, and in the midst of body are fine, but drive them all to the same action.
People don’t have a lot of time (or at least that is what they believe). So keep your sentences short, and your paragraphs, and your emails in their entirety. Remember, you are going to make 10-20 contacts. There is lots of time to make lots of points.
5) Connect
Ultimately, you want the ready-to-buy group to connect by phone or email. Someone needs to get personally involved. Done right, your sales people are only spending their limited time engaging with that highly qualified, properly timed group.
Declan goes on to talk about exactly what emails to send when and in what order over ninety days so you can move the right folks down the funnel. He has unusually useful slides and an engaging style. Do yourself favor and experience the whole presentation here:
Qualifying and Closing in 90 Days with Email Marketing
For more analysis, observation and witty repartee, be sure to check out our podcast featuring myself and Harrison Wright, plus interesting and exciting guests. Here is the specific episode examining the presentation above.
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Photo Credit: Thomas Galvez