7 Emails You Need to Send Now to Drive Sales. Business owner Marcus Sheridan explained this pretty well in an interview with the New York Times on why he sends Q&A emails: “The problem in my industry, and a lot of industries, is you don’t get a lot of great search results because most businesses don’t want to give answers; they want to talk about their company.” He realized that answering customer questions directly in an email helped him sell customers on the value of his business without having to brag. The “How To” email Welcome emails are great. Your emails don’t have to point back to only your website. Sending out social media emails also has the benefit of driving brand awareness for those who aren’t yet subscribed. The free offer email Lots of brands will send you discounts if you subscribe to their emails. Offers like this work for both engagement and sales. A free offer could include a free sample of a product or a free-trial offer. Curation is part of a marketing strategy that PublishThis calls “Big Content:” The idea is that while personalized email marketing can help with conversions, curated content can actually turn your brand into a thought leader. Conclusion Emails are a great way of driving sales, but you have to know which type of emails to send.
Email is the great equalizer in marketing.
Everyone expects to get an email from you at some point, so there is no reason not to send one.
And for the most part, email engagement is relatively high compared to other forms of communication. The average open rate is 21.73%.
So someone somewhere is going to read whatever you send.
But the real question still: will email subscribers convert?
Email has an average ROI of 122%. But not every email you send will see that level of return.
Some emails just work better than others when it comes to driving conversions and sales.
What do I mean, exactly?
Here are a few examples of emails you should send if you really want to see that ROI.
1. The case study email
Case studies are one of the most effective types of content.
At least according to 89% of marketers.
The reason they work so well for sales is that they build trust. They’re social proof.
People can see that you have gotten measurable results for other customers in their industry, and they want in on the action.
But the trouble with case studies is that people don’t always seek them out.
The average person spends less than a minute on any given website. If your bounce rates are higher than that for whatever reason, that time could be less.
Some sites put case studies on their landing pages, which can be great for site conversions.
HubSpot, for example, lists case studies in the dropdown menu under “Software.”
But if you were just scrolling the homepage without looking at the dropdowns, you might miss it.
By sending them in an email, however, they’re much harder to miss. You’re putting your best social proof front-and-center.
HubSpot even recommends putting them in your email-marketing campaigns.
Andrew Warner from Mixergy has a great example of one of the case-study emails he sends. You can read the whole thing here.
Case studies don’t have to be long or complex. They just have to showcase how someone benefited using your product or service.
A testimonial email works just as well as a full-blown study in some cases.
You can take an existing case study and send an email with a link or put the full study in the email itself.
Try mixing up your case studies or testimonials between long and short-form, videos, text, images, and other forms of media.
Just remember to link it back to something actionable, so there’s an actual conversion.
Include a strong CTA that either links back to your site or includes an offer of some kind. The more actionable it is, the better it will be for sales.
2. The Q&A email
Customers will always have questions.
That’s why I recommend sending Q&A emails. No matter how detailed your service offering is on your website, people will always want to know more.
Now, I know what you might be thinking.
Neil, we already answer most of our customer questions on our website. Why do we need to send another email?
The problem goes back to what I said earlier – people don’t spend as much time browsing your site as you think they do.
Even if you had an entire forum of FAQs, most people wouldn’t spend the time looking through them to find the answers they want.
They would most likely just email you directly or use a search engine because it’s faster.
Business owner Marcus Sheridan explained this pretty well in an interview with the New York Times on why he sends Q&A emails:
“The problem in my industry, and a lot of industries, is you don’t get a lot of great search results because most businesses don’t want to give answers; they want to talk about their company.”
He realized that answering customer questions directly in an email helped him sell customers on the value of his business without having to brag.
There are a couple of ways you can approach the Q&A email.
You can either ask (and answer) some questions yourself, like Lauren McLeod from FlightFox does:
Or simply ask people to reply to your email with more questions, like Canva does:
This type of email not only shows off your expertise, but it’s also genuinely helpful.
If you do link it back to your site, you can also drive more traffic and (hopefully) engagement there as well.
But, ultimately, people are getting their questions answered about your brand.
That’s what really matters in the long run.
3. The “How To” email
Welcome emails are great. You probably get them all the time.
It’s a way of saying, “Hey, we see you! Thanks for signing up.”
While it’s a friendly gesture, and an email you should definitely send, you can go the extra mile toward a conversion by providing a stronger CTA.
That’s where the “how to” part comes in.
Instead of just saying “hi,” why not show them exactly how they can get started with you?
Go into detail about how they can setup an account, what they should do next, or how to find you on social media.
It could be something short and sweet, like this welcome email from Sincerely:
Or something more robust, like this getting-started email from Airbnb:
The goal is to create something more actionable for the customer.
Another way you can use the “how to” email is to include explainer videos (or articles).
A video in an email will increase the click-through rate by 96%. That’s only 4% away from having everyone click!
Wistia, for example, uses how-to videos to highlight new features.
This can be useful if you have a specific product demo or new features you wanted to showcase, either in a welcome email or a separate campaign.
The point is to give some additional value to your email recipients.
If they know you give them information they can use, they will be more likely to open your emails when they see them…
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