Introduction – 16 Powerful Email Marketing Lead Generation Strategies
In this blog post, we will discuss the 16 best ways to use email marketing to generate leads for small businesses, startups, and other service-based businesses.
We will also look at using email marketing for lead generation for real estate agents.
This blog post should teach powerful lead generation strategies for business owners, entrepreneurs, and DIY marketers.
Email Marketing is one of the most effective methods of generating leads on a website or in an email inbox.
It’s important to keep your strategy fresh so that you can find new clients and customers from time to time as well as maintain contact with previous customers who may not know about all of the latest products or services you offer.
In this article, we’ll go over sixteen different strategies that can help generate more leads for your business using email marketing lead generation.
- Introduction – 16 Powerful Email Marketing Lead Generation Strategies
- What Are Email Leads?
- What Is Email Lead Generation?
- Why Is Having A Lead Generation Strategy Is Important?
- Email Marketing Techniques For Better Lead Generation
- No. 1 Use Content Upgrades and Gated Content to your advantage
- No. 2 Attract Only The Right Leads
- No. 3 Use Email Automation
- No. 4 Make Your Emails Easy To Read
- No. 5 Send Emails From A Human And Recognizable Name
- No. 6 Always Use A Single, Powerful Call-To-Action (CTA)
- No. 7 Don't Forget To Use Social Media!
- No. 8 Build A Deeper Relationship By Getting Personal
- No. 9 Split-Test Everything Before Doubling-Down
- No. 10 Capture Intrigue And Build Curiosity With Headlines
- No. 11 Only Send Valuable Content Or Don't Send Anything At All
- No. 12 Use A High-Value, Hard-To-Resist Lead Magnet
- No. 13 Use Effective And Professional Copywriting
- No. 14 Keep Subscribers Coming Back By Providing Value Every Time
- No. 15 Remove Inactive Subscribers By Cleaning Your List
- No. 16 Never Forget To Ask For Referrals
- How To Generate Email Leads As A Real Estate Agent
- Bonus: How To Get Started From Zero To Leads In Your Business Today
- Conclusion – 16 Powerful Email Marketing Lead Generation Strategies
What Are Email Leads?
An email lead is a potential customer who has given you their email address in order to receive information or updates from your company.
Every small business needs leads and the more quality ones they have, the better off they will be.
The problem for many businesses is that there are so many different sources of possible customers nowadays, it can seem overwhelming to decide which to go with.
By using email to generate and nurture your leads you will be using one of the most powerful and profitable marketing channels available to you.
You can start for free with some email service providers like Mailchimp or other paid services like FluentCRM to start growing your list.
To learn more about email to grow your business read this article we wrote that gives you one powerful and effective email marketing strategy to start growing your business today.
What Is Email Lead Generation?
Email lead generation is the process of collecting contact information from potential leads in order to market your product or service.
Put simply; email lead generation is a means of collecting leads through the use of an email opt-in form. It’s all about gathering information on potential customers, such as their name and email address.
This may be done through a form on your website, an email signature with your company’s phone number and link to a page where people can unsubscribe if they choose not to receive updates, email marketing blasts that go out periodically, or even a link on your social media profile that leads to an email opt-in form.
This is only the beginning of the lead generation journey, however.
An effective email lead generation strategy involves nurturing and building relationships with subscribers to earn their trust and business in the future.
To help you with this process we will link some resources in the bonus section of this post.
These additional resources will help you with the steps after you have acquired email leads. They will help you to nurture them into raving, loyal clients and customers and repeat customers.
As you can see, email lead generation is an essential part of any business.
After all, without prospects and potential customers to purchase your products your business would be in dire straits and could potentially dry up.
Why Is Having A Lead Generation Strategy Is Important?
Having a strategic, effective, and well-thought-out lead generation strategy is pivotal for any business.
A well-planned strategy will help you decide who your target market is, what marketing channels to focus on, and which lead generation strategies work best for your short and long-term marketing goals.
Without leads, it is unlikely that you will be getting new customers or clients. That means that generating sales and enough revenues to stay in business might become problematic.
This can lead to the death of your business.
Two of the biggest problems entrepreneurs new and old face every day, and every night when their precious sleep eludes them, is where their next customer is coming from and if they will be able to make enough money to keep the business going.
Having a strong email lead generation strategy can help to answer these questions and alleviate these fears.
Check out this article we wrote to learn more about the benefits of email marketing in your business. The article can be found at 22 Powerful Email Marketing Benefits To Grow Your Business.
Email Marketing Techniques For Better Lead Generation
Today in this post we are going to discuss 16 of the best and most effective email lead generation techniques to grow your business.
The techniques we outline here will be effective for businesses of all industries, sizes, and maturity.
That means you can use them for any type of business whether it’s a startup, small business, or mature company with thousands of employees.
Before further ado, let’s get into some effective email lead generation strategies to explode your sales and launch your business to success.
No. 1 Use Content Upgrades and Gated Content to your advantage
Gated content is content that a visitor must opt-in to receive.
These can be in the form of email courses, PDF downloads, eBooks, or other content upgrades when visitors subscribe to your mailing list.
Content upgrades are exclusive and valuable resources for customers who take time out of their day to read your blog post (i.e., they’ve opted-in).
This type of resource is especially valuable when it is relevant to your current audience.
In fact, by providing the right type of gated content and content upgrade to your website, social media, or user of any other media you might have, you will be giving them an incentive to use give you their contact information because there is something so valuable in it for them.
No. 2 Attract Only The Right Leads
All email leads are not created equal and this is true of any business.
It follows naturally from the law of business and marketing that if everyone is your customer then no one is your customer.
Begin your email lead generation efforts by ensuring that you are attracting the right leads for your business.
One of the ways you can do this is by only accepting double opt-in for your email list.
An email double opt-in is when a subscriber has to both confirm their email address and agree to receive your emails. This will filter out spam, as well as those who are not interested in what you have to offer.
Another way is by having the right subject line that attracts only potential customers for the product or service they may be looking for.
A good email lead generation strategy begins with filtering out bad matches and people who aren’t a good fit for your business.
Another way you can do this is by making special offers that are unique to each visitor.
For example, you would show an email opt-in offering a free eBook website conversion optimization that will help them to get more clients and sales from their websites to readers of your blog who are currently reading about generating leads for their business using email lead generation.
Yes, we are talking about you. Grab the free eBook below while you read.
No. 3 Use Email Automation
Using email automation to generate email leads for your business is not only an effective method in terms of time but also in terms of money.
Email automation makes it easy and cost-effective to keep in constant contact with your subscriber base, build a relationship with them, and eventually get them to the point where they trust you and love you enough to do business with you.
Email automation is defined as the process of using email software to send bulk emails to your list of contacts.
They can also take the form of drips campaigns, nurture campaigns, and other types of email marketing campaigns.
To get the best of your email automation we recommend you read the following posts we wrote to learn more about how to generate email leads using
- Email marketing: Email Marketing to Grow Your Business: 15 Powerful Conversion Tips
- Digital Marketing Strategy: 1 Powerful Digital Marketing Strategy for Small Businesses and Startups
- Nurture Campaigns: Drip Campaign and Nurture Campaign: The Differences in Email Marketing
- Drip Campaigns: 3 Effective Sign-up Drip Campaigns for Effective Email Marketing Conversions
No. 4 Make Your Emails Easy To Read
It’s important to have clean and concise email templates that are not too long.
When you design your emails, it’s best if they’re easy to read, so make sure there is no excess content in the template.
Some of the highest converting emails have always been emails that are written in plain text with little to no distracting graphics.
The reason is that when reading email people’s attention spans are very limited.
They want to be able to read the email by browsing short sentences, reading headlines, and getting the main points in a sentence or two that may or may not be bold.
After all, they have thousands of unopened emails waiting to get their attention so they do not want to spend too much time on one that was lucky enough to get their attention.
Every email you write should have exactly one Call To Action.
The more CTAs you have, the less likely that a conversion will take place. This is also because of the distraction and inability to know exactly what to do that having multiple CTAs causes.
No. 5 Send Emails From A Human And Recognizable Name
Sending emails from human and recognizable names can help build a deeper relationship with your subscribers.
Instead of sending your emails from ‘Company Name Email Marketing Team’ with a picture of your company logo, it would be more memorable and beneficial to send them from ‘Jabez from CyberDream Developers’
Jabez Roberts is the name of the Founder and CEO of CyberDream Developers and he also is primarily in charge of building relationships with clients and prospects.
All our emails are sent by him with a link to his personal email address for replies if necessary.
This helps our subscribers who read our email have a more memorable experience when they read our emails and interact with our business.
They know our Founder by his first name and even have his contact information.
They feel much closer and more important than if they had to reply to our marketing team and get a reply from three different support agents if they ever got any.
No. 6 Always Use A Single, Powerful Call-To-Action (CTA)
A strong Call To Action is the primary driver of conversions in your email marketing efforts.
Your CTA will tell your reader what action you want them to take.
Without this message being immediately clear they will most likely leave and not do anything (this is called a bounce and especially terrible in website conversion optimization) instead of figuring out what it is that you would like them to do.
Your CTA should be written in an imperative sentence. So instead of “Click here to sign up for our email list”, it should read “Sign Up HERE”
You can also add a button underneath the text like so: “Sign Up NOW”. This is particularly useful if you want your readers to click on something
A strong Call To Action in your emails will make conversion easier and faster. This can only be good for your email marketing invest returns.
No. 7 Don’t Forget To Use Social Media!
Using social media to drive email leads for your business is becoming more and more popular today.
The reason is very simple: you don’t own your YouTube subscribers, Instagram Followers, or Facebook Likes Audience. At any time these platform owners can decide to restrict or even remove your page for violation, or alleged violation, of platform rules and you would lose everything.
In addition to this, it can become expensive to market to your own subscriber base on social media after you’ve spent years and potentially thousands of dollars growing that base.
That is because organic reach on these platforms always plummets at some point.
By adding a link for email signup in return for some high-value item to your social media pages and in the description of your posts you will be able to convert some of your social media audience to email subscribers.
When this is done you will be able to nurture these subscribers more easily and effectively than on social media into becoming clients and customers of your business.
Recommended Article: 40 Genius Ways To Increase Your Email Signups
No. 8 Build A Deeper Relationship By Getting Personal
A common email marketing mistake that people make is using a generic message to everyone.
This might work for some, but it doesn’t do much in terms of generating leads and getting readers invested in the email itself.
You want your content to feel personalized so recipients are more likely to stay engaged throughout. Some ways you can do this is by :
- Personalizing subject lines
- Including the recipient’s name in email copy (i.e. “Hi, Sarah”)
- Including links to content tailored for specific interests or geographic locations of recipients
- Sending out surveys and polls via email that ask open-ended questions like “What are your thoughts on X?” or “Do you look forward to implementing these tricks into your business?
Email personalization is a powerful way to boost email conversions and build a strong and lasting relationship with subscribers.
No. 9 Split-Test Everything Before Doubling-Down
One of the best ways for email marketers to increase their open and click-through rates is to split-test.
An email split-test is creating multiple versions of the same email but changing only one variable across each version of the email. You should have a control email or a version that is without changes.
Some of the changes may be in the form of a new header, a new CTA, different images, sending the email at different times, or even using a different body.
You will then track the results of each email for one specific predefined conversion event to determine which version of the email is the most effective for generating the conversions you desire.
This will be your split-test winner.
After getting this split-test winner you will be able to use this version to the majority of your list to generate as many conversions as possible.
You can split-test your email lead generation opt-in forms in much the same way. You can do this by changing the free offer or lead magnet, the header text of the opt-in form, or even the required fields to enter.
Split-testing is an effective way of getting the best results out of any marketing campaign and can greatly improve your email marketing results.
No. 10 Capture Intrigue And Build Curiosity With Headlines
Your email subject line is the most important part of your email marketing efforts.
It will determine whether or not your email gets opened and read for even a split second.
In fact, the subject line of your email is oftentimes read more often than the body of the email itself.
To make the best of your email subject line you should make sure that the first few words are compelling enough for them to click through.
The body of an email may be skimmable as well, but you must first get them to the body of the email by using the appropriate and captivating email subject line.
No. 11 Only Send Valuable Content Or Don’t Send Anything At All
Whenever you send an email to your subscribers it should always be value-packed, educational, relevant, and current information.
This information should help them solve a core problem they are faced with that caused them to signup for your email newsletter.
It should move them away from the pain and discomfort this problem causes and move them towards a solution for this problem.
You should look to provide value in your emails at least 80% of the time and only sell 20% of the time.
Remember; building a relationship with your subscribers is the main reason you are contacting them, not to make a quick and easy sale.
To learn more about the factors that drive email conversions be sure to read these two articles we wrote. The first is Email Marketing to Grow Your Business: 15 Powerful Conversion Tips and the second is 3 Effective Sign-up Drip Campaigns for Effective Email Marketing Conversions.
No. 12 Use A High-Value, Hard-To-Resist Lead Magnet
A tip for effective and powerful lead generation is to provide a relevant offer that solves the pain points of your target audience. An irrelevant offer will not generate leads as it provides no value to the recipient.
We spoke about this briefly before but will go a little bit more in-depth here.
Your free offer or lead magnet should be something worth paying for. The higher the perceived value the better it is.
It should also be highly relevant and helpful for your target audience.
Some of the best lead magnets include:
- Free consultations
- Discount codes
- Free eBooks
- Free webinar access
- Access to an online course
- Cheatsheets, guides, and free templates
- Access code to software you might have
- Limited time, one-time offers that can’t be easily replicated or found elsewhere
You also need an attractive design with compelling copywriting so people will read it, follow the link, and visit your site or landing page.
No. 13 Use Effective And Professional Copywriting
One of the most overlooked and undervalued aspects of generating email leads for your business is the use of an effective copywriter.
A copywriter is someone who is skilled in the art of persuasion and who can create content that will motivate people to take action.
The copywriter should have an understanding of what is motivating your ideal customer, which will translate into a compelling email subject line or call-to-action for potential leads.
Effective persuasive writing is critical if you want viewers to take action on your email opt-in form, get your emails to reach their inbox and be read, and have them take you up on your offer.
Poor copywriting can result in lost email leads.
Copywriters can also be used by real estate agents to write effective copy for their website, blog posts, and other forms of marketing materials.
Copywriters can help to cover some major problems you might face with effectively communicating the value of your offer.
Some critical information an expert copywriter will help you communicate and problems they will help you solve include:
- People need to know what they should do and how you are able to help them.
- Use a compelling headline, engage the reader with your opening paragraph or lead sentence; keep it short but include important details about who you are as an expert and why people would want to buy something from you.
- Offer specific advice on a particular subject or give a sneak peek of what is included in your lead generation offer.
No. 14 Keep Subscribers Coming Back By Providing Value Every Time
Keeping subscribers engaged will be absolutely critical if you want to continue to generate leads for your business from your email list.
The best way to go about this is by using a drip campaign and a nurture campaign to build a relationship with your subscribers from early on in their relationship with you.
We have found that using drip and nurture campaigns can drastically improve email open rates and click-through rates by up to 80% compared to general sends.
When you have used a drip and nurture campaign to build this relationship it will positively impact your email open rates with this subscriber as they would have already built a strong and lasting impression and relationship with you.
You will also be serving them valuable and helpful information that will help them to solve their problems.
This increases the chance they not only open and click through your emails but look forward to them weekly.
No. 15 Remove Inactive Subscribers By Cleaning Your List
Removing inactive subscribers is part of list health and must be done.
The overall ratio of subscribers who open and click through your emails impacts their deliverability and may determine if you end up in the spam folder or not.
It is better to have a list of a few hundred people who are highly engaged and active than to have a list of 50,000 where only a few hundred read your emails at a time.
Removing inactive subscribers will not only benefit your metrics in terms of click-through and open rates but will also positively impact your overall deliverability and list health.
No. 16 Never Forget To Ask For Referrals
A great way to generate more leads from email marketing is by incentivizing current subscribers for referrals.
This can be done in two ways:
- Offer a reward, such as store credits or points on an online shopping site, when they refer friends and family.
- Offer something of value that will help their friend out with their core problems or need when they sign up.
Word of mouth and testimonials are some of the most powerful conversion tools at your disposal as a marketer.
Because the person referring your business is trusted by the person they are referring it will be easier to convert these referred prospects into customers or clients.
Are you loving these points so far and finding great value? Do you know someone who could benefit from the expertise of our professional team in getting more leads, clients, and sales for their business?
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How To Generate Email Leads As A Real Estate Agent
In this section, we are going to use the points laid out above to develop a simple strategy for real estate agents to use email marketing to generate leads.
For this strategy to work and for you to understand all the steps you will need to read this entire post plus the supporting posts on email marketing strategies, drip campaigns, nurture campaigns, and business conversion tips.
Alternatively, you can have our team do all the heavy lifting for you by getting a website and integrated 12-month marketing strategy that is fully managed by our team. To get your fully managed online presence go here.
The steps are as follows:
- Create an Instagram account where you will post listings you have available, answer frequently asked questions, review real estate trends, and post other relevant content
- Repeat this step for Facebook, LinkedIn, and maybe even YouTube
- Get a free email account set up with Mailchimp. Create your first subscription form
- Post links to this form in your Instagram, Facebook, and LinkedIn accounts
- Offer a free lead magnet in the form of a homeowners buyer’s guide for people looking for homes to buy and a homeowner’s sellers guide for people looking to sell a home
- Mention your email subscriber list and free offer in all posts
- Create a welcome email sequence in the form of a drip campaign
- As your list grows and you gain more prospects you should implement a nurture campaign for all your subscribers
- Email your subscribers three times per week with real estate news, roundups, tips and tricks, and availability
- Get a Cyber Site for only $1,200 monthly set up to have a professional website and marketing strategy at your side. This step is optional but will greatly increase the speed that you see results at
- Put your email on all the marketing materials you send out. If people are interested in buying a home, they will naturally be looking for an agent with expertise. It’s simple to do and it doesn’t take too much time!
- Build relationships with other real estate agents who may have clients that could use your services.
- Start a real estate blog and an online resource section for your local area. Link back to your lead magnets and social media profile from this resource
- Keep posting consistently two to three times each week on your blog, every day on your social media, and three times weekly to your email subscriber list. Keep this up for 6 to 9 months
- Your leads and clients will come! Selling and buying a home is a major financial decision and can take months of consistent nurturing and relationship-building to convert prospects but the commissions will be worth it
Does this all seem like too much trouble for you?
Get our team to handle all this for you plus running ads to accelerate your results by getting a website and digital marketing from our team.
You can even start with a website and 12-month digital marketing strategy for as low as $1,200 per month from our Cyber Site Online Presence As A Service offering. Learn more by visiting the Cyber Sites home.
Bonus: How To Get Started From Zero To Leads In Your Business Today
We have prepared a list of helpful resources to help you master email marketing today.
We want to help you on your journey to online success and so we have decided to link below some helpful articles and guides to help you on your email marketing journey. Feel free to use them to as much as possible.
Alternatively, if you don’t want to do all the heavy lifting you can get a free consultation from our team and we will help you on your journey to success.
Additionally, you can sign up for a Cyber Site Online Presence for as low as $1,200 per month. You will get a website that grows your business that is built with a 12-month marketing strategy for your business. It will be fully managed and marketed by our team.
You can get your Cyber Site Online Presence here.
Here is a list of those extra resources we mentioned
- Email Marketing Benefits: 22 Powerful Email Marketing Benefits To Grow Your Business
- Email Marketing Conversion Tips: Email Marketing to Grow Your Business: 15 Powerful Conversion Tips
- Digital Marketing Strategy: 1 Powerful Digital Marketing Strategy for Small Businesses and Startups
- Nurture Campaigns: Drip Campaign and Nurture Campaign: The Differences in Email Marketing
- Drip Campaigns: 3 Effective Sign-up Drip Campaigns for Effective Email Marketing Conversions
- Website Conversion Optimization: 10 Worst Reasons Your Website Isn’t Converting
- Ads Conversion Optimization: How To Drastically Improve Website Ad Conversions
- Is Email Marketing Dead? Is Email Marketing Dead In 2021?
- Marketing Tips For Small Businesses & Startups: Powerful Marketing Tips For Small Businesses In 2021: How To Get Explosive Growth
We hope you find these articles helpful on you journey to online success.
Conclusion – 16 Powerful Email Marketing Lead Generation Strategies
To sum up, email is the lifeline of your business and can be the difference between a business that thrives and one that fails..
Without a consistent stream of leads coming in through your website and social media channels, you may find yourself struggling to keep your company alive.
Email lead generation strategies will help ensure that this doesn’t happen!
We’re here to take care of all things related to generating new clients for you so that you can focus on what matters most — running and growing your business. Reach out today if we can be helpful! Set up a free consultation here.