4 Ways To Use Email Marketing To Grow Your Profits

How to use email marketing to improve your business's financial returns:

Email marketing is one marketing channel that always sparks a lot of discussion amongst my clients and Flight Club coaching clients, because it's one that small business owners are often hesitant to use in their business, for fear of annoying their prospects and customers.

If I had a dollar for every time I heard statements like:

• "But I never open emails, so why would my customers?"
• "But, people find emails so annoying, and I don't want people to unsubscribe"
• "I don't think email marketing is effective anymore"

I would be a lot more well off!

But despite popular belief, email marketing has not only remained the most effective channel of all marketing channels, but over the last 7 years email marketing has actually grown in effectiveness, not reduced...

It used to be that the average return on investment for email marketing was $33 for every $1 spent. But the most recent statistics show that it now gives an average return on investment of $44 for every $1 spent.

Adding to that, nearly half of all consumers (49%) say they would like to receive promotional emails from their favourite brands every week, and that email is 40 times more effective than social media for customer acquisition, and we can see that email marketing can really be an asset to your business.

Here are 4 ways to use email marketing to make more money in your business:

One of the most effective ways to use email marketing (and probably the most under-utilised) is to create structure and automation around nurturing your new/ongoing customers. This can really help you stand out from your competitors and establish deep relationships with your customers. 

But, automated email marketing can also help you significantly improve your business profits, by utilising strategies such as:

• Reminding customers when it's time to reorder 
• Telling them when a product they've previously purchased comes back into stock
• Sharing details of other resources, products and services you have that might help them 

I give some other ideas of how to improve your nurture customer pathway in my Customer Pathway article.

• What do your customers want to know?
• What do they need to know?
• When do they need that information delivered to them?
• How could you go the extra mile after their purchase, to check in with them and ensure their experience has been awesome?
• What else would your customer be interested in buying from you (this is the part which can really boost profits!)

Then, it's a matter of building out a customer nurture sequence, in your email marketing program of choice.

If you'd like some more help, we have two affordable templates available, designed to help you nurture your customers like a pro. Check out the one for product businesses here, and service businesses here.

One of my favourite ways to use email marketing is to create what’s called a Lead Magnet. If you’re new to the term, I recommend reading this article here called: Lead Magnets - do you really need one, this will help you decide.

Put simply, a Lead Magnet is a way to collect leads from your website. But not just any way (those “sign up to our newsletter boxes only convert like 0.00000000001% of people)* (ok I exaggerate a little - but it’s well under 1%). 

A Lead Magnet offers something of interest and high value to your target audience, to entice them to swap their email address in exchange for. In comparison, Lead Magnet conversion rates can convert up to 40% (I’ve seen some even higher)!

Opt-ins and Lead Magnets are really effective, because they help you convert the visitors to your website who aren’t quite ready to purchase yet, into leads that you can continue to communicate with. Once visitors have signed up for the Lead Magnet, you can then trigger an automated 'Welcome and Sell' email sequence to send highly targeted emails, and help them build trust with your company.

There are several really important aspects to using a Lead Magnet with success:

1. Whatever you’re offering for free needs to be desirable, interesting and related to your offer, so that it brings the right people into your customer pathway
2. It needs to provide people with a really quick win
3. Your welcome and sell sequence needs to be well designed, and strategic, to help you build trust with your new leads and inspire them to work with you

How many times have you been about to purchase something, then remembered your credit card was in the other room? Or, got interrupted by something and forgot to complete your purchase. Statistics show you and I are not the only one this happens to. Abandoned cart rates can vary between 65-86%!

One way you can recover some of those abandoned sales is by having a two step cart, and sending an abandoned cart email sequence. Emails sent to a customer an hour after they abandon their shopping cart have a 6.33% conversion rate. 

Because this email sequence can happen completely automatically, with no input from you, it’s a no-brainer way to boost your business profits.

How you do it, depends on your website and email marketing system. But, our 'Retarget Abandoned Carts like a Pro' email sequence can help you quickly write what to say!

You know the old saying “out of sight, out of mind”... Well, this is equally true for your business!

Studies also show that 80% of sales happen between 7-12 touch points, and regular email campaigns are a great way to create more of these touch points and keep your business front of mind. 

Most of my clients are shocked when I encourage them to send an email fortnightly at minimum.

But, with the average open rate at only 20-22%, if you only send emails every month or two, it’s pretty hard to achieve any real results. It is very easy on the other hand, for people to forget about your business and buy from one of your competitors who has made the effort to stay front of mind ;)

That largely depends on your type of business.

My rule of thumb is to consider what will be valuable and helpful to your audience. 

Consider the same questions as before, but this time apply them to people who haven’t purchased yet:

• What do they want to know?
• What do they need to know?

Then, I like to take it a step further and consider how I can combine that with my business goals:

• What am I wanting to sell more of at the moment?
• What information will help that happen more easily?

Experience tells me that most of us overthink what to send. But, as long as we focus on these really simple questions, creating content becomes a lot easier. Referring to all your frequently asked questions is such a powerful place to start.

Another time-saving and effective option is to re-share popular social or blog content.

In Summary

Automated email marketing is a valuable marketing channel for all businesses. It is the most effective of all marketing channels in terms of giving you bang for your buck, and is also one of the only channels you actually own...

There are lots of ways to use email marketing to improve your customer pathway, and grow your profits. While it may take some strategy and work to set up initially, I believe that it's well worth the effort for the financial rewards it can deliver long-term.