Email marketing is a segment of content marketing. Content marketing describes marketing that uses information and content to inform, engage, and persuade your audience to act. Content includes text, visuals, and audio information that sends a message to your audience.
To be successful with content marketing, you’ll need to plan your marketing based on your audience’s needs and your goals for them.
1. Know and Maintain a Consistent Brand Voice – If you want your audience to read and enjoy receiving email messages from you, make sure you know what your brand voice is. This includes the terms you want to use, the tone you say them in, and your values and principles.
2. Create Targeted Lead Magnets – When you develop lead magnets to build your list, make sure you target each freebie toward a particular member of your audience. Casting a smaller net will result in higher conversions.
3. Craft Meaningful and Persuasive Messages – Every message you send them, whether email or in your blog, or even on social media, need to be meaningful to them so that you can persuade them to act.
4. Use Content to Segment Your Subscribers – The content you publish on your website and in email can be used to further segment your audience based on their behavior. The more segmented they are, the better you can communicate your value to them.
5. Ask Subscribers What They Want – Send surveys and questionnaires to your list members, social followers, and blog readers to find out what they really want to know about. For example, under a blog post, you can post something like “want more content about this topic” and let them check yes or no and sign up for your list to be reminded of new content about that topic.
6. Encourage Subscribers to Share Your Messages – Even when you send an email, with the exception of private information, you should encourage the recipients to share with their friends.
7. Conduct A B Testing Regularly – You don’t know for sure if the content is doing what you want it to do unless you test it. Try changing headlines, subject lines, and subtle information to improve each interaction.
8. Send Valuable Actionable Messages Often – While you do want to send valuable and actionable messages to your email list, often make sure each message really does have a reason for existing before sending.
9. Focus on Audience Delight – When you focus on delighting your audience, you’re going to see a massive difference in their engagement with you. Find ways to make them say “wow” to the content you deliver to them.
10. Remember the CTA – Don’t bother sending even one message without a call to action based on the reasons you are sending the message. The CTA doesn’t have to be about buying. It can be about sharing, liking, replying, and so forth too. Tell your email list member and reader what you want them to do next, and you’re going to get a lot more results.
Content marketing will help you improve all aspects of your marketing and advertising by helping you keep top of mind at all times. Every message you create for them needs to have a reason for being and a goal in mind. If you cannot figure out the goal, don’t create it.
To use content marketing and especially email marketing efficiently, it’s always better to have a plan. To create and develop your content marketing plan, there are some things you need to do and know to get it right. Let’s explore the ways you can set up your content marketing plan effectively.
* Set Your Goals – Before you produce one piece of content, you really do need to understand the purpose of it. Set different goals for each promotion and for your business overall to help you figure out what to publish and where.
* Know Your KPIs – The key performance indicators that help determine if your actions produce the results you want need to be spelled out. For example, if you publish a sales page for your freebie, who is it for, and what data will you use to determine if it’s working or not? Be specific.
* Know Your Audience – You have seen this a lot, but it cannot be stated enough. Knowing your audience isn’t a one-time research opportunity. It’s ongoing. Remember that audiences change slightly over time. You would not market today to the same demographics the way you did in the 1950s or even the 1980s.
* Understand Your Competition – How and when your competition does things is just as important as what you’re doing because it can help you identify gaps in coverage. This is the only way to make sure you stand out. Know them and find ways to differentiate yourself.
* Know Where You Stand Now and Where You Want to Go – Studying where you are now in your goals is the best way to figure out how to get where you want to go. Use analytics to help you set the standard you want to achieve.
* Determine the Best Channels to Publish Your Content – The act of creating your plans will help you figure out a lot of information like where you’re going to need content published. For example, your blog, your email, social media platforms where your audience hangs out, and maybe some industry sites where you can guest blog might work for you.
* Know the Types of Content You Need to Publish – When you create a plan to publish content, you’ll be able to choose the right messages to get your point across. It also helps identify areas you can repurpose content.
* Find and Earmark Resources – Planning in advance also helps you budget better and find the resources, monetary and human, that you will need to be successful.
* Create a Content Calendar – Once you have figured out what you’re going to do, don’t just have it in your head. Instead, create a content calendar so that you can follow a plan that gets a little done each day.
* Create and Publish the Content – Once you have the plans, start creating and publishing the content. As you move through your plan, note the results, and keep going.
* Advertise and Market the Content – Publishing isn’t enough today. You also need to actively market the content you’re going to create. Share it more than once via email, your blog, social media, and so forth.
* Measure the Results – Data is your friend. Use it. Use whatever analytics you have native in your email marketing software and on your website to determine if what you’re doing is working or not.
* Adjust and Repeat – Once you start implementing your plan, use the metrics to help you adjust your plans. Repeat what works. Let go of what doesn’t.
Content marketing, whether your business is online or offline, or both, is an essential component of any marketing plan today. You’ll need content in every aspect of your business from the external obvious sales pages, blog posts, and so forth to the internal information such as email messages, social media promotions, and even internal training for employees, contractors, and affiliates, or other stakeholders.
When you are trying to build a strong list of hungry buyers, it’s important to understand how everything works together. Email marketing is part of content marketing. To be successful with content marketing, you should not try to do it blindly. You need a content marketing plan. Let’s go over the reasons you need to plan things out. Hopefully, this encourages you to create a comprehensive content marketing plan going forward.
* Keep Your Audience’s Attention – When you develop a plan for the content you’ll create and publish for your audience, it’s going to ensure they are interested enough to pay attention to it. It’s easy to get off track, but if you have a plan to look at and you know why, for example, you’re publishing today’s blog post – the point of it or the CTA for it – you will be more successful.
* Establish Trust with Your Audience – When you produce content that looks cohesive, it helps build trust. If you’re not planning content, you may get off track, speak out of voice, and confuse the audience. Even if it’s subtle, it can cause a lack of trust.
* Build Stronger Social Media Communities – When you’re consistent with your messaging, you will build more robust and more engaging communities for your audience. When people are more engaged, they’re happy to share.
* Generate Higher Quality Leads – When your content is on point, the quality of the leads you generate from that content will be a lot higher. They’ll be much more likely to become prospects that buy from you and become customers.
* Improve Your Conversion Rate – Good content simply leads to more conversions because you have a reason for the content you publish. If you don’t know why you’re creating it, you may end up with gaps that lower your conversion rate.
* Enhances Your Search Engine Optimization – Content is the food that feeds search engines. When your audience types in their search query or asks Alexa to give them information, the search engine locates the content you have published to deliver it to them.
* Build Subject Matter Expertise and Authority – If you want your audience to see you as an authority on a topic, you need to publish extensively on that topic.
* Ensure Subject Matter Cohesiveness – The plan helps keep everything in order so that it makes sense. If your content isn’t planned, it may seem unorganized in a way that is distracting to your audience.
* Establish Your Brand Identity – Your brand needs a voice, a tone, a personality, and yes, an opinion about the topics you publish about. The topics you choose and how you talk about them, whether text, video, or audio, will establish your brand identity far beyond your email list and website.
* It Keeps You Accountable – When you have developed a content marketing plan that includes information about what you will publish and when you will publish it, and who it’s for, you’re going to be more likely to accomplish your goals.
* You’ll Get Better Data – If you try to create a content marketing plan based on your goals for your audience and your business, the truth is the data you generate will be more useful to start with.
* Your Return on Investment Will Be Higher – If you really care about investing in the right places, creating a content marketing plan will ensure a higher ROI that is consistent.
Understanding how the content you produce, both public-facing and private, affects your audience is essential to creating the right content marketing plan for list building efforts. When you know the goals and match the content with the goals and the right audience, building your list with hungry customers who need and want your offers, paid and free, will become simple.
Once you have created your freebie, you’ll want to create an opt-in page. This list of things to include on your freebie opt-in page will help you make one that gets your ideal audience’s attention so that you can help them solve their problems.
A Compelling Headline and Subhead Line
You have to hook your ideal audience in from the moment they land on your opt-in page. If they aren’t compelled to keep reading, you’ll lose them within seconds of their arrival. A good headline speaks directly to the solution’s benefits for the specific person you created it for.
A List of Benefits Associated with The Freebie
To get started making a fantastic opt-in page, try writing down a list of the benefits associated with the freebie you’re trying to get them to download. It can sometimes help to list the features from your view and then attach benefits to each feature that you think is important.
The Sign-Up Form That Works
Depending on your goals, you’ll want a sign-up form that is simple and fast to use. Ask for the information you really need to qualify your leads, no more, and no less. For example, if you want to work with companies that hire at least 100 employees every year, you’ll want to include a field asking your audience to tell you how many employees they have before they get to download the freebie. This will ensure you are working with the right audience.
A Call to Action That Speaks to The Right Person
When you create CTAs, think about the exact person you want to sign up and talk to them. A CTA should be action-oriented and benefit-focused on the right people. The right people are your ideal audience members who will be hungry to use your solutions because they need them.
Attractive Visuals That Your Audience Loves
Every audience has different ideas about what looks good. Don’t trust yourself to know. Instead, study your audience and try different types of images and visuals. You’ll want the page to be uncluttered and the reader’s eyes to be directed in the right places for it to work.
Social Proof to Help Build Trust
Don’t forget to add information that helps build trust, such as social proof. Social proof can appear in the form of testimonials, product reviews, and even a simple statement about how many people have downloaded the freebie and seen results.
Remember that you need to use your freebie opt-in page or landing page and form to attract a specific portion of your ideal audience. Therefore, use your words, visuals, and information wisely. Know your audience, know your offers, and understand the point of building your list with a hungry audience who wants what you are offering.
When it comes to lead magnets, you want your landing page to be very focused on the people who need the freebie you’re promoting and the freebie itself. Don’t try to appeal to everyone, and don’t get off topic about the benefits of the solution you’re offering. It can help to use software to create landing pages such as Leadpages.net to make it all work seamlessly together.
Also, follow these tips to create landing pages for your freebies.
* Hook Your Audience Early – If you want your audience even to notice your freebie, you need to use the right words, images, and information to attract them. Learning all you can about your audience will help you know the right words and information to use.
* Keep the Focus Narrow and Only About Your Lead Magnet – You know that you have other products you want your visitors to buy from you, but don’t talk about any of that on the landing page or opt-in form for your freebie. Be focused on only what the lead magnet does for them.
* Speak Directly to Your Target Audience And No One Else – Not only do you have a general audience who needs your offers, but you also have buyers who are in various places on their buying journey. For example, the person in the awareness stage needs a different freebie than someone who is in the decision stage.
* Highlight the Benefits of Your Offer – Like any sales page, you want to remember to only talk about the features of the offer in terms of the benefits it offers your audience. They need to know what’s in it for them as plainly as you can tell them.
* Remind Your Audience What They’re Avoiding – Adding information about what the audience segment is avoiding helps too. Some people call this “poking the bear,” but it really just means that you bring up the pain they’re trying to avoid in the sales copy.
* Include a Call to Action – If you’ve not clued into the fact that you need to include a CTA almost every time you communicate with your audience yet, let me help. Include a CTA on your landing page within the opt-in form that describes the benefits of the solution in a way that resonates with the targeted audience member.
* Add Social Proof – If you have it, including information that builds trust, that helps too. Testimonials, quotes from others about you and your solutions, and even showcasing the number of people who have downloaded the freebie can help provide that additional push.
* Keep it Short and Sweet – Your landing page for a freebie doesn’t need to be long-form and should not be long-form. Save that for your paid products and services. Ideally, you want them to see your offer and sign up within just a couple of minutes.
It can help to look at popular examples of landing pages for lead magnets on popular websites. Many of them are in the form of a pop-up or pop-under, not an entire page, and they work great. The shorter the landing page and form, the better for lead magnets because you want them to get the freebie, get on the list, and start using your solution fast so you can move them through your product funnel efficiently.
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