Captivate and Engage Your Audience, Build Authority and Generate More Sales With Email Marketing.
"A results getting tour de force. This is simply the best book on email marketing I have ever read." Howard Lothrop
Email Persuasion: The Step-By-Step Guide to Attracting More Clients and Winning More Sales With Email Marketing
Business fads come and go, but Email Marketing has consistently outperformed all other marketing strategies. In Email Persuasion, marketing expert Ian Brodie reveals the techniques that are working right now to allow professionals and small businesses to connect with potential clients, build trust-based relationships and generate more sales through email.
Inside the book you'll discover:
The Customer Insight Mapping technique for building deep understanding of what your clients need and what will motivate them to buy from you.
6 surefire subject line models that will get your emails opened and read.
The "optin formula" for getting the right people to subscribe to your emails (and how to accelerate the growth of your subscriber list).
How to engage AND persuade with your emails so that you build a loyal 'fan base' ready to buy from you.
The advanced techniques for turning email subscribers into paying clients (and why accepted wisdom on selling in emails is almost all wrong).
"We've seen a threefold increase in leads and we've won several new clients." Adrian Willmott
Email Persuasion lays out a clear blueprint for building an engaged subscriber base, building credibility and trust through your emails and converting your subscribers into paying clients.
No jargon. No fluff. Just practical, real-world strategies that deliver results.
"Pick any one idea from this amazing collection of rock solid common sense on email marketing and just do it! Quite simply, it works!" Tony Latimer
Want to know how to build a list of ideal clients as subscribers fast? Start with the Opt-In formula on page 19.
How to get through spam filters, and "greymail" technology? Turn to page 43 for the most up to date advice.
The best format for emails? Page 57. When to send them and how frequently? Start on page 59, but also check page 83 on why frequent emailing is often more effective?
Getting your system onto autopilot? Page 95. Advanced techniques to get the right messages to the subscribers who will most value them? Page 103. Writing persuasively? Page 109.
"Ian gives you all the information you need to succeed in plain and simple English based on what actually works in the real business world today" Anna Letitia Cook
Packed full of examples, templates and clear next steps for you to do to get your own email marketing system up and running quickly and getting you results. If you've ever been overwhelmed by the complexity of email marketing or been unsure where to start to get the best results, Email Persuasion will provide you a clear path to succeeding with email.
Excerpt
Email is, without doubt, the most powerful marketing tool available in business today.
Bold claim, I know. But the facts bear it out.
When the Direct Marketing Association studied the effectiveness of various types of marketing , Email came out way on top with a return on investment of around 41 to 1. Nearly twice that of any other approach. When data analytics firm Custora published the results of their 4-year study into the online buying patterns of over 72 million customers across 14 different industries , they showed that over 40 times as many purchases came from links in emails than from Facebook or Twitter.
And when you think about it, it makes sense. You might chat with friends on Facebook. Or check out the updates from your favourite movie star on Twitter.
You might even make some initial connections with business contacts on LinkedIn.
But when it’s time to get down to business, the chances are you’ll use email.
When I first started my own business back in 2007 my goal was to become known as one of the leading experts on attracting and winning clients for consultants and coaches. I focused on my website and blog and managed to get lots of traffic from Google. Later on I started using Twitter and built a six figure following. I became known as an expert on LinkedIn and one of the top bloggers to follow in sales and marketing.
But in truth, growth in my business revenue trailed behind growth in my popularity. I was getting lots of website visitors and lots of name-checks. But not quite so many clients. My writing and my work was getting respect, but I wasn’t building a deep enough relationship and enough credibility with my audience to convert them into paying clients.
Then a good friend of mine suggested I try email marketing. I’d avoided it for years. It felt old hat. A bit cheesy if I’m honest. But he twisted my arm and I gave it a try.
Within months I saw an increase in enquiries. And I could trace them directly back to email subscribers. People started replying to my emails and telling me how helpful they’d been or how much they’d resonated with them. My engagement with them went beyond the superficial and intellectual and became personal. Today about 70% of my coaching clients come from the email marketing I do, and over 90% of the people who buy my online products are email subscribers. It’s the single most powerful marketing tool I have.
I just wish my friend had twisted my arm earlier.
Why Email Marketing Works
Email marketing is so effective for four simple reasons.
The first is simply that everyone uses email.
There are about 3.9 billion email accounts worldwide with around 25% being corporate accounts. And we send 182.9 billion emails per day3 (to put that in perspective, there are roughly 2.7 billion “likes” given on Facebook every day) with 100.5 billion of those emails being business related.
And according to McKinsey , we spend two and a half hours a day on business emails if we’re employed or run a business. That works out at 50 hours a month.
So while there are plenty of business people who don’t use Facebook or Twitter, and most consumers haven’t gone near LinkedIn; you can be pretty sure that everyone has an email address, they use it frequently, and when they use it their brain is engaged: they’re not just skimming through pictures of cats and inspirational sayings.
In fact, when you look at communication preferences both online and offline, it turns out that across all age groups, email is by far the preferred method for commercial communications. Between 65-78% of adults (depending on age group) name it as their number one preference compared to 0-4% who prefer social media .
The second reason email marketing is so effective is that when you do it right, email is personal.
When you read material on a website, blog or even on a social media site you know it’s a broadcast. You know it’s meant for multiple people and you read or watch in that context.
But emails are different. They sit in your inbox next to messages from your friends, relatives, colleagues and clients. There’s just something about receiving an email in your own personal inbox that makes it feel like it’s been made just for you. Especially if the email is skilfully written in the same style as the emails you get from friends and colleagues.
And typically the rules of play with email are that we try to read whatever comes into our inbox or we at least look at it and scan it. We feel uncomfortable if we miss stuff going through our inbox, just in case it was important. With blogs and social media, not so much.
That means that, provided you’ve got permission, email marketing is a much more certain route to reaching your ideal clients than to broadcast on the web. You can email regularly and proactively, knowing that while not everyone is going to open and read your emails you stand a decent chance. With social media you’re reliant on them being around at the time you send out your message. And increasingly with Facebook, your messages only show up for a small percentage of the people who’ve liked your page. With email you have much more control.
Perhaps the key reason that email works is that email marketing is perfect for follow up.
Let’s just forget online marketing for a moment and think about how successful businesses operate in the offline world.
For generations, successful marketers and business developers have known that the key to winning customers – especially for high value products and services – is follow up.
When you first come into contact with a potential client it’s pretty unlikely they’re ready to buy then and there. It may be that the timing’s just not right yet: they’re not feeling the pain of their problem enough, or they haven’t quite decided on the right strategy to address it.
And often, you’ll need to build up considerable credibility and trust before your client will be willing to place the success of a critical part of their business or life in your hands.
So depending on your business it may take four, five, eight, ten or more contact points before your potential client will be ready to buy.
That’s why in the face-to-face world, successful business developers follow up relentlessly. Not just to nag and ask whether the client is ready yet. But to add value, build credibility and engender trust.
And it’s absolutely the same online.
According to Brian Carroll, author of Lead Generation For The Complex Sale , “Up to 95% of qualified prospects on your Web site are there to research and are not yet ready to talk with a sales rep, but as many as 70% of them will eventually buy a product from you — or your competitors”.
So if you want to build the necessary credibility and trust to turn website visitors into paying clients, you’ve got to have multiple interactions with them. Sadly, one look at your website statistics will show you that often, 70% or more of your website visitors show up once, but then never return.
And that means that 70% or more of your website visitors are highly unlikely to ever become paying clients.
Email marketing gives you that ability to follow up. When people sign up for your emails you can then proactively communicate with them rather than hoping they remember to come back to your site.
And finally, email marketing is scalable.
There’s nothing as powerful as personalized follow up. But you can only personally follow up with a limited number of potential clients; eventually you just run out of time.
Email marketing allows you to follow up at scale. To keep in touch with thousands, tens of thousands or even hundreds of thousands of potential customers. And with some of the more advanced strategies we talk about in the book, you can make that follow-up experience really feel quite personal for them. You can email them about the things they’ve expressed interest in or taken action on.
And because you can track and measure email, you can tell who is opening your emails, who is clicking your links, and who is buying from you. That means you can adapt and improve your approach based on facts. You don’t have to rely on what experts tell you should work, you can see what really does work for you.
That ability to communicate pro-actively, personally and regularly makes email marketing an incredibly powerful tool for building relationships, proving credibility and of course, driving sales.
In fact, if you look at the websites of all the social media gurus you’ll see just how powerful email marketing is by the prominence they give it.
Chris Brogan, bestselling author of Social Media 101 and Google Plus for Business says “to me the hottest and sexiest social network right now is your inbox”. And he walks the talk, too. Prominent on every page and blog post on chrisbrogan.com is a big subscription form to get what he promises is “the best of what I do”: his email newsletter.
“Queen of Facebook”, Mari Smith does the same. There’s a sign up box for her Social Scoop emails above all the social media buttons on her website. It’s the same with Amy Porterfield, Lewis Howes, Melanie Duncan and pretty much every other social media expert. They all focus on capturing email addresses so they can speak to you directly in your inbox. They recognize that when it comes down to business, email really is the world’s most powerful marketing tool.
Professional Reviews
John Ashcroft, Chief Executive Pro-Manchester
“Email Persuasion is a great asset for any social media library. Ian brings a wealth of knowledge and practical experience to the fore. It's a must-read book and Ian ranks as one of the top international advisers in social media along with Chris Brogan, Mari Smith, and Amy Porterfield.”
Adrian Willmott, Managing Director Arcus Consulting
“The best thing about Ian’s approach to e-mail marketing is that it works! We’ve seen a three-fold increase in leads and we’ve won several new clients for our consulting work, mostly without competition. Inspiring but practical. Ian certainly motivated me to get into action.”
Hope Williams, Owner Hopeworks Design
“If you have any doubts about the power and efficacy of email marketing, this book will cast them away. Ian Brodie gives you the real deal on why email marketing is the best way to win new clients. Chock full of details, Ian lays out an easy to implement step-by-step plan to create your own effective email marketing system that works!”
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