EDM marketing is a widely popular digital marketing approach – and for good reason! EDMs (Electronic direct mail) allow businesses to provide valuable information to the masses.
Standing out in a sea of marketing emails can be tricky, and businesses can struggle to see results using a one-size-fits-all email marketing strategy.
We’ve rounded up our lead-generating secrets to guide you toward effective email marketing. We’re talking successful deliveries, conversions and open-and-click rates galore.
Capture leads with call-to-actions
How do you grow your marketing/EDM contact database? It all begins with your website. The secret here is to provide clear calls-to-action throughout your website. Prompting the reader to provide their contact details allowing you to get the ball rolling for your inbound marketing plan.
CTAs, such as to complete a form, hit a button or simply add their email address to receive something in return, are a simple but effective way to capture leads. Think of your CTAs as an invite to a date. They are going to show up, then you can win them over with your inbound marketing and personalisation, and then the complete customer experience will encourage them to stay.
Your contact us form on your website is ideal for this. It allows your audience to contact you, which they’ve obviously indicated they’re interested in. A form in your content is effective at capturing your user’s contact details and is great for tracking!
Be strategic with the questions you include on the form. Think outside of the box instead of just including the primary details required (name, email, and location). What do you want to know about your potential customers that will allow you to provide them with valuable content and personalised communications? Is there a specific product or service that they are interested in?
For B2B, what is the role of the prospect at their current company – are they a decision maker?
This will help you to segment your audiences better and provide more personalised content. We touch on that further into this article.
Offer gated content
Ungated content is information that is readily available to the user that is navigating your website, or social media platform. Whilst it is important to offer content that is not gated to increase engagement and views, gated content provides lead generation opportunity!
You wouldn’t put all your cards on display on the table during a poker game, right? So why would you share all your insider knowledge on your website? Think of valuable content as your ‘marketing cards’, you want to keep your prospects engaged and in return, learn more about their habits.
Remember, the gated content must be relevant to your audience to entice them to exchange their details. This is your opportunity to gain further insight into your prospects’ interests and needs.
An example of this could be a recruitment agency offering a gated blog post on their website, ‘Top tips for resume writing and preparing for job interviews’. This content is valuable for their potential customers and would enable the recruitment agency to retarget the prospect with additional relevant marketing emails.
When creating gated content, think how-to guides and instructional videos that are unique to your business offerings or products. Again, the prospect will be required to provide their contact details– meaning you need to make it worth sharing their information in exchange for the content you are offering.
Be strategic with segmentation and EDM distribution lists
Now that you have started to develop your EDM marketing contact database, it’s time to start nurturing your prospects through inbound marketing.
After strategically using segmentation on your CTA and gated content forms, you should now know a bit more about your prospect’s interests.
It’s time to segment your contacts into lists, categorising by interests they have in common. This will allow you to effectively structure the content you provide within the email and based on your distribution lists.
Not sure where to start with segmentation? Book a consultation with our inbound team today.
Personalisation is key for effective email marketing
If you’ve asked the right questions and gained further insight into your prospect, segmenting your audience and personalisation will come easily. This is your chance to deliver value to your audience through a tailored approach.
Provide the prospect with information on products or services they have previously demonstrated interest in and secure their interest by ensuring that the email subject line is relevant. With 121 or more business emails sent per day, you want your email to stand out in their inbox.
Step it up a notch and use personalisation tokens. Providing relevant, personalised content (e.g., addressing their company name) within the email will allow you to build trust and make prospects feel as though you are not just bombarding them with information that they may not want!
Use hyperlinks to increase engagement
EDM marketing is a great way to divert traffic back to your website and social media platforms. Hyperlink all images in the email to relevant pages on your website to increase user engagement – this can also be achieved by using CTA buttons.
Present your social media platforms in the email footer and encourage prospects to dive deeper into your brand. You want to keep prospects engaged and wanting more. Plus, by tracking where the reader has clicked, you can fine tune their needs and interests – allowing you to provide more personalised value.
Now that you know some of our secrets to lead generating EDMs, it’s time to put your knowledge into play. If this is something you struggle with, our inbound team has a wealth of knowledge in using EDM marketing to generate leads.
Ready to see more leads come through? Book a meeting with our Chief Marketing Officer today!
