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5 email marketing myths you shouldn’t believe…

email-marketing-myths-you-shouldnt-believe

Well, just as any other marketing strategy and methodology is important and it works, the concept of email marketing is equally important. Email marketing is sending emails to a group of subscribers promoting your product or services.

In fact, most marketers don’t realize that email marketing is one of the major components of marketing.

But just as everybody has myths about web marketing, there are a number of myths in email marketing too. If you want to make this strategy flawless, you can consider 5 email marketing myths you shouldn’t believe.

  • If you think unsubscribing is bad for your business, then it is time you think again

Yes, that’s correct. Unsubscribing has a far wider concept than you think. The audience who subscribes aren’t necessarily focused on knowing about your product or services. They may have done it in the spur of the moment or to get the information about your product for their own use.

That does not mean they are going to buy it from you. And unsubscribing speaks volumes. First, not interested and the inactivity of the user are about not being very much indulged in reading what you present them in your emails. And then unsubscribing saves you from the trouble of including them in the list of recipients who never respond or express interest.

  • Email is dead

If you think that emailing has lost its charm, then you are absolutely wrong. There are hundreds and thousands and millions of organizations that are making huge sums of money with email marketing.

In fact, email marketing is a major component of traffic for most websites.

  • The length of the subject should be less than 55 characters

If you think you can make a better and the intriguing subject line that exceeds 55 characters, and then feel free to do so, because content is the KING.

It is true that if you make subjects that are shorter, it will of course result in higher rates of opening, but it is never said that it will also result in higher clicks or higher conversions.

  • The best time for sending emails to subscribers is either the Monday or the Tuesday

Yes, it is true that everybody gets back to work on these days. But that is not necessarily true that the subscribers are more open to reading emails on these days only. There are millions of people who read their mails on everyday basis, no matter if it is a weekday or if it is a weekend. So you make sure that you send them emails on everyday basis. Weekends are the two days where the people get enough time to take a detailed look to their emails.

  • If that you send with a trusted automated responder, there is no reason to worry

Organizations like Aweber, Infusionsoft etc. changed the meaning of how marketing is done. There was a while where you must be uncertain about giving your email address online because you could open the ways to interminable spam. Then, some big email marketing names ventured up and led the pack so you would know whether you hit “Unsubscribe,” you would be allowed to sit unbothered.

These myths are the perfect signs that email marketing isn’t bad and can result in the increase of sales and business in ways you wouldn’t think of.

There are companies all over the world that are experiencing the rise in business with the help of email marketing only. They are consistent in sending emails to their subscribers, draw their attention and ensure that on receiving the subscriber responses will take care of their queries and answering their concerns.

So do not take these myths into account and make your email marketing more effective.

Author – Charlie Robinson

(He is a marketer and interim VP of Marketing of multiple tech companies. He is currently heading marketing at Adling, a digital agency in Cupertino).

 

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A Recipe for Selling a Product Globally from India

iSPIRT regularly organises Playbook roundtables to help startups succeed by learning from successful entrepreneurs. One of such roundtable was conducted at GS Lab in Pune on 10th Oct 2015.

This PlaybookRT was focused on Product startups (B2B) who are keen to sell to the global market. The PlaybookRT was facilitated by Samir Palnitkar, President of ShopSocially.com. Samir hosted a highly interactive Playbook Roundtable for Product Startups and shared his journey of building ShopSocially globally.

Being a serial entrepreneur with over 20 years of industry experience, Samir’s passion is startups and new ideas. He is a founder of four successful startups which include I2P acquired by Lattice), Obongo (acquired by America Online), Ingot Systems (acquired by Synopsys) and AirTight Networks (category leader in secure, cloud WiFi). He is also an active early stage investor and advisor. His expertise includes social media, strategy, productization/execution, and business process setup.

Samir has authored two highly acclaimed books and he also holds 5 US patents.

In this highly intensive session, attended by over 12 Pune-based startups, Samir shared his insights on the strategies, techniques, team and the infrastructure required to sell a product effectively from India.

I was one of the attendees who were immensely benefited from this workshop. Here is a brief summary of the topics that we discussed.

Most of the early stage startups face following challenges:

  • How do we find customers?
  • How do we reach them?
  • Should I build a team abroad?
  • How much money do I need to a sales team abroad?

Samir not only shared how he solved this challenges but he also provided some actionable steps that can help to build a sustainable sales process.

Sales Process

Most organisations look at marketing and sales as two different departments, and most often there is little or no communication between these two. Samir strongly suggested to integrate these functions closely with each other for optimum results.

Since startups have tight budget, they tend to rely more on inbound marketing to generate the leads. Samir suggested to have a right mix of inbound & outbound marketing.

This is how it works at ShopSocially – Marketing team generates the leads through various channels, these leads and then filtered and after qualification, passed on the experienced Sales Executives who conduct a demo and close the deal. Finally, Customer Success team nurtures the clients and ensures minimum churn. Sales-Process

List Building

Samir shared some innovative ways to build the list of potential prospects. First step of building a list is to create buyer personas. We must know who is our target customer, which industry he belongs to?, what’s his title?, what’s his geographical location? how much is the revenue?, etc.

Once we identify the attributes of our potential customer, we can start hunting for the contacts. Sites like BuiltWith, Hoovers and Data.com can help you find the right fit based on the criteria you mention. Even if you get the website of the company, you can find out the contact details of your potential prospect. If you are short on time, you can outsource this activity and get someone to do it for you.

Key here is to find ways to consistently build the list and nurture it.   

Email Marketing Flow

Now, once we have our list in place, we need to contact them. It may sound like an easy thing to do but most companies get it wrong and end up spamming the email list.

Here are some of the tips –

  • Use text instead of large images in the email as most email clients block images.
  • Keep it short and to the point. Best to have maximum of 5 sentences.
  • Use only one link
  • Message should appear as a personal note rather than a marketing text
  • Send the email from an individual account instead of a generic email ID.

There are few bulk email software’s that can help you send automated emails at a predefined internal. For example, you can send 2nd mail automatically after 15 days and so on. With these tools, you can create an automated email marketing flow and send emails based on user behaviour.

Cold Calling Flow

So we have built the list and sent the emails. Now what? Should we start calling all of them now? Definitely not!

Cold calling random contacts does not help anymore. Once we send the first mail, we need to monitor the email opens, clicks and most importantly replies. If any of this action occurs, sales team should immediately call the contact.

This way the response rate will be much higher as client will be aware of the product and its offering.

Important things to keep in mind while making calls:

  • Create a short and precise calling script
  • Practice the script multiple times by doing mock calls
  • Track the response in a good CRM software

Setup A Meeting

Samir advised not to try selling your product during the first call itself. During this call, we should qualify the lead and setup a meeting to showcase the product. Depending on the product, it could be an online demo or an in-person meeting. This will be handled by a more experienced executive as discussed above.

Simplest way to setup a meeting is to use Google Calendar. You can quickly get the lead to accept the meeting after that call. Details of the meeting can be updated later.

Follow up & Closer

Once the meeting is over or demo is done, next step is to follow up. Based on the feedback you get from the meeting, you can setup a predefined follow up schedule.

Follow ups should be polite, non-intrusive and should not be spammy. You can share marketing collaterals like case studies, testimonials or webinar recording to make the decision making process simple.

Samir advised to create high quality marketing collaterals that have visual representation of your product. Once the prospect is in final stage of the funnel, you should aim for 10 to 30% closer rate. Focus should be on improving this close ratio.

Building A Right Team

To execute your plans, you need a good team. Based on the number of leads you can generate every month, reverse calculation can be done to estimate the number of resources you will need.

Samir suggested to use Linkedin and Employee Referrals to hire new employees. He strongly suggested to have mock sales calls with the candidate, no matter how experienced he is.

Its also important to design a good incentive plan to keep the sales executives motivated. Salary structure should have a fixed component and a variable commissioned component.

Tools & Infrastructure

In order to run the entire sales process smoothly, we must invest in a good infrastructure. Based on his years of experience, Samir recommended following tools:

  • Novanet for VOIP calling
  • Grandstream GXP-1400 – 2 line IP phones
  • Vonia headsets
  • Separate 2 Mbps Leased line for voice (for about 18 reps)
  • Separate Broadband Internet of 50 Mbps speed for data
  • Microtik Router to do traffic routing
  • Pardot software for email marketing
  • Suger CRM for lead tracking
  • ClearSlide for sharing presentations online

It was indeed a great learning experience for all the entrepreneurs who attended this PlaybookRT.

Guest Post by Harshal Katre founder at ProfitBooks – cloud accounting app designed for non-accountants. He loves everything about running a startup and often writes about it on the ProfitBooks blog.