Marketing and Sales

5 Steps to Profit With Email

6 minutes

5 Steps to Profit With Email

What’s the biggest asset for a business? We are talking about something that makes more than $100 dollars for every single dollar spent.

As you might have guessed, the biggest asset is the list of potential customers who subscribe to your emails.

73% of companies said that email has delivered great return on investment. Still, it gets just 15% of the marketing budget, according to Email Marketing Industry Census 2016.

A survey by Digital Marketing Association revealed that email has an impressive 122% ROI. This means, for every $1 dollar spent, businesses made around $122. That makes sense because once you have the email, reaching out to hundreds of potential customers will cost next to nothing.

This article will walk you through the process of building a profitable list.

Step # 1: Set up a List building Funnel

Businesses spent just $1 on conversion for every $92 dollars spent on acquiring customers, according to Econsultancy.

It is important to have a list building funnel that helps you convert website visitors into subscribers. A typical list building funnel will have a landing page (AKA Squeeze Page), lead magnet, opt-in forms, confirmation page, and Autoresponder.

Let’s discuss these elements one by one.

Landing Page:

Websites with more than 30 landing pages will get 7 times the leads of a website with less than 10. A landing page has just one objective and that is to persuade a visitor into signing up.

Here’s an example:

SEO PLANNING TEMPLATE

Notice how it removes distractions like navigation menu or sidebars. Landing pages with multiple offers get 266% fewer leads, so it is important to keep it short and easy to comprehend. The landing page should simply state what they will get by signing up and be convincing.

You can use images and videos to grab their attention, according to Eye View Digital, using videos can increase the conversion rate by 86%.

Lead Magnet

Most sign-up forms simply tell the visitors to sign up for a newsletter. Most of these visitors will not even consider subscribing because they don’t see the value in it.

Digital Marketer generated 35,859 leads in 60 days by using Facebook Ad Template Library as a lead magnet. Lead magnets can be a series of tutorial videos, detailed guide, checklist, template, or any other resource that will be of help. Ecommerce stores can offer a special discount or free shipping for those who sign up.

Email Service

Using an email service will make things a lot easier. From ready-to-use templates to list management, and A/B testing to detailed tracking reports, our email service allows you to focus on your message and forget the technicalities.

You can get started with SendPulse. It’s totally free for your first 500 subscribers or up to 15,000 emails per month.

Opt-in Form

Contentverve opt-in rate rose by 83.7% after adding 3 bullet points explaining what kind of content their subscribers will get after signing up. Removing unnecessary fields can increase sign-ups by 11%, so keep it short and simple.

Eye-catching colors and design are also important. Here’s a good example:

Eye Catching Colors

Confirmation Page:

The confirmation page is where someone lands after signing up. The job of a confirmation page is to encourage visitors to verify their subscription. That is known as double opt-in and it improves the quality of your list. More than 20% of email addresses in a single opt-in list are worthless, according to a case study by Warriorforum.

Double opt-in lists have better open rates and lower bounce rates as compared to single opt-in lists.

Backlinko

Autoresponder

An autoresponder is an email (or a series of emails) that is automatically sent when someone completes the subscription process. It gives the next steps or link to the resource that was used as lead magnet.

An autoresponder is the first step towards building a long-term relationship with the customers. You can make a long lasting impression by being genuine and welcoming.

AutoResponder

Step # 2: Get Target Audience on your Website

Following are some common sources of traffic. Ideally, a site needs to be using all of them in tandem.

Optimize your Website for Search Rankings:

93% of all online experiences start with a search. SEO can help you rank the keywords your target audience will use.

During a live Q&A, Andrey Lipattsev, a senior search quality strategist at Google said that content and back links are the two most important ranking signals. Creating quality content around your target keywords and building quality link will result in a constant stream of organic visitors.

Pay-per-click Advertisements:

Pay-per-click advertisements include search ads that appear in search results or display ads like banners on another website. You only pay when someone clicks on your ad.

pay per click

Average cost per click in Adwords is $2.32 for search and $0.58 for display. As you can see, display ads are quite cheap, but the traffic coming from display ads can be low quality. Using the right targeting and exclusion settings can help you filter low-quality clicks. You can also consider using Facebook Ads.

Social Media Traffic:

Shopify revealed that Facebook is the biggest source of social traffic and Facebook visitors have the highest conversion rate as well. Companies can use share worthy posts to get the likes and shares and get more people to click on their links.

Step # 3: Convert Visitors into Subscribers

Only 52% companies test and try to find ways to improve conversions, according to Marketing Experiments. You can improve conversions by cutting down the site loading time, using mobile responsive design, and great content.

Giveaway:

Bryan Harris of Videofruit secured 2,239 subscribers in less than a week by using a giveaway. Companies need to give something of value for free if they want their customers to share contact details. It can be an exclusive discount, some free course, or anything else like that.

It is a one-time investment but provides a lot of bang for your bucks.

Content upgrade

Brian Dean of Backlinko.com used content upgrades to increase subscribers by an impressive 785%.

The technique works like this:

Create a great piece of content (or choose some of your most visited posts or pages). Create a resource that will make it easier for the visitors to act on your advice. It can be a walkthrough video, checklist, or cheat sheet. You can offer these resources as a bonus for subscribers.

Content Upgrade

Pop-ups & Welcome Mat:

Pop ups or welcome mats can be a little irritating, but these tactics are quite effective as far as conversion rate is concerned.

Fedora managrease signups 70% by using welcome mat.

Pop-ups or welcome mats work because they make it difficult to ignore the offer. Here’s an example of welcome mat:

Pop Ups

Step # 4: Build Customer’s Trust

According to Sales Force, it will take 6 to 8 contacts to generate a sales lead. Getting an email doesn’t mean you can start sending one promotional email after another. You must build trust and relationship before expecting them to buy. The best way to build trust is becoming a source of high-quality helpful information.

We conducted a survey to know what kind of content subscribers want. Special offers with a discount came on top (53%) while useful content was not far behind (30%). You can go through the complete results with SendPulse. Even if they are not ready to buy, high quality information will keep them engaged.

Blog Post Announcement:

Did you just publish a new post on your blog? Why not send a short email that makes them want to read it? It needs to be high quality article and not some 500-word run of the mill article.

Blog Post Announement

Educational or Informational Emails:

Is there some new research, case study, or some development in your industry? Why not let them in on the information.

How to Guides & Videos:

Create an exclusive guide or video and share it with your subscribers. You can also use it the guise of a webinar.

How to Guides

Step # 5: Convert your List into Profits

Online stores can send special discounts and deals to get some quick sales. Local businesses can announce clearance sale or send discount vouchers to get walk-in customers.

Convert

Segmentation:

Targeted advertisements can be twice as effective compared to non-target ads.

All subscriber lists will have users from different age groups, locations, or income level. Trying to convince all of them with the same message is not a smart idea. Sending the right message to the right people is important. Segmentation allows you to send precisely targeted emails.

A/B Testing:

Google once tested 41 shades of blue to see which shade gets the most clicks. The best way to improve your results is by testing different variations and identifying the most effective ones.

Almost all email marketing services provide A/B testing (here’s how SendPulse does it). Combine email tracking with Google Analytics and you have a powerful tool to improve on your numbers.

So, there you have it … a step by step guide of building a profitable list. If you are missing out on any of these tactics, you are denying your business a chance to build its biggest asset.

The choice is yours.

Date of publication:

14 Mar. 2017

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