I have a confession to make.
As a busy, small business owner and internet marketer, I don’t always do the things I tell other people to do for their business.I know I should be doing them for my own business too, but sometimes I act like the cobbler with holes in his shoes that spends so much time repairing others shoes that he doesn’t have time to repair his own.
This past spring I knew there was one thing I really needed to be doing…
Because in a tough economy, every penny counts and the truth is I was leaving tens of thousands of those precious pennies on the table…
…this happened because I wasn’t giving my prospects and clients a second (and third and fourth…) chance to do business with me. That’s a costly mistake, especially in today’s economy.You see according to market researchers, 98-99% of the traffic that visits your website, won’t make a purchase on the first visit.
Converting even just 1-2% of those lost visitors could make a significant difference to your bottom line. For example, if 3000 people visit your website each month, a 2% bump in your conversion rate translates into 60 additional customers.
So how do you go about converting that additional 2%? Email marketing.
In fact, according to Ogilvy, who are cited as pioneers in the interactive marketing industry and ranked #1 in the world by leading analysts, “People who are registered to receive email marketing messages from your company will purchase an average of 167 percent more than those people in your marketing database who are not receiving email.”
Email marketing allows you to keep in touch with prospects as well as current and past customers.It helps you drive traffic back to your website and promotions.It gives you the opportunity to educate your customers so they can be more successful in their business.You can position yourself as a go-to resource within your emails.You can cross-sell and up-sell your products and services to existing clients.And win customers back.Of course, I knew all this, but I still wasn’t doing it.Like you, I’m busy. But the reason I wasn’t doing it went beyond that.
No, the real reason I wasn’t doing it was the same problem most businesses face when thinking about creating or actually doing email marketing …Creating content. Writing relevant content that was useful and helpful to my audience while not sucking up all my time was a real concern.
I knew I could easily create pure promotional emails—you know the ones I’m talking about. These are the emails you see which look like a sales flyer or a coupon in your inbox.
They are usually a short email which describes the product or service and is accompanied by a pitch to buy the product or service.
The problem with this type of email is they can alienate your customers, especially if that’s all you do. And that was NOT something I wanted to do.Which meant I needed to spend time creating content that creates trust and builds up a solid relationship bond with my readers — not the easy, somewhat tiresome sales emails that often damage the reputation of the sender.
The task seemed a bit overwhelming to me. And because of that (I’m embarrassed to say) I did nothing.
Finally, I decided to outsource it. It was one of the better business decisions I’ve made. My results have been amazing.
Email marketing has:
• Re-engaged prospects and past customers making them re-interested in my services
• Brought inquiries about other services I offer
• Driven people back to my website increasing my web traffic
• Educated people on how I can help them drive more traffic to their site and increase their profit
My only regret is that I didn’t do this sooner!
If you want to stay at the top of mind awareness with new “eager to buy” prospects and convert them to paying customers, consider adding email marketing to your business platform.
Done right, you’ll build relationships with your clients and prospects increasing the number of people who do business with you. And if you’re a bit overwhelmed as I was, outsource it. It’s totally worth it.
To your online success,
John
P.S. If you want to learn more about how you can stop losing 98-99% of the prospects visiting your site or want to improve the results you are getting from your current email marketing, contact me. I did lots of research when I was looking to outsource. I’ll share with you what I learned and who I am using. There is no charge for this information.
