So “How do I design an email marketing campaign for old leads?”… overview.
This post offers some potent tried and tested methods you can implement into your email marketing campaign to get those old leads to sit up and pay attention! They may be asleep now, but hopefully, by the end of this list, they will feel as refreshed as your with your marketing ideas.
Reading on – nuggets of juicy information on how to design an email marketing campaign for your old leads. Rock on!
Who are your ‘old leads’?
A good starting point, who are your old leads? Why do you regard them as old? What have they done to warrant being targeted and regarded as ‘old’. Another way to look at your old contacts and subscribers is to view them are as loyal customers and clients. The list below covers tried and tested ideas, but perhaps a good place to start is how you perceive them, and how in turn they may come to perceive you.
1 ) Most important, offer something ‘they’ want
I wanted to start with this point as I felt it was actually the most obvious but possibly most overlooked. If you are failing to get the enquiries or interest are you failing to engage the reader? Are you selling a product that they no longer want or need? Are you talking about a topic they no longer care about? If so, how can you change it?
How to do it
Make your marketing about ‘them’ and their business – not yours. Tell and show them how you can help them to grow.
Fulfil their needs first!
2 ) Offer a loyalty scheme
So they have been on board for a long time but there has been no activity from them? You could potentially offer a discount to try and coax them back to life and become an active subscriber. Give a bumper service to the loyal ones and offer a reward.
3 ) Treat your ‘old email marketing leads’ as special customers.
In the body of your email consider using wording that makes your trusty old subscribers feel special and acknowledges that they have been loyal for a long time. Perhaps, writing a message along the lines of :
“Dear (name), as a loyal customer we have decided to offer you (x service) for a limited time. The company wouldn’t be where it is today without its loyal customers such as yourself and that is why we have decided to offer you this excellent reward!”
4 ) Talk about something new
It’s a very strong possibility that your old leads are bored with what you have to say, your brand your message anything and everything – people get bored very easily, and especially the internet user. In the past, I have noticed a strong correlation in campaigns with the wording “New” generally pushing more interest. So, create something new, or talk about something new.
5 ) If you have a tidy list, address them directly
If you have a contact list with all the personal *contact names as and where they should be you could write an email campaign addressed directly to them. But this only works as well as the cleanliness of the list. For example :-
Clean List
Dear Dave Higgins
Vs Untidy List
Dear 123 at qwqwq
Why is the second example like that? Because the name field was left with a trash name or a number in the field because somebody forgot to change it or the subscriber didn’t give you their actual name.
In other words, the form – personal name – form field will pull in whatever data is in the “name” column. be it good or bad.
6 ) Change up your email design to catch the attention
Visuals do work. Have some catchy images, logos and importantly a Call to action! Click me!
My Old leads – They are still playing backgammon?
Made it this far down the list eh and your old email marketing leads still haven’t turned their heads away from their game of backgammon? Don’t worry just yet, we still have some thoughts and ideas yet that will hopefully help you in getting responses! Continue reading – How do I design an email marketing campaign for old leads!
7 ) Use stats and numbers
Analytics’ data or sales figures can be a good way or proving how good your service is – with numbers! It makes you look authentic. I also believe (my opinion) people love data and numbers as it makes information easy to digest.
Hey! don’t lie about your numbers or stats. There will come a day when people won’t believe what they read – if that day hasn’t arrived already.
8 ) Use a timed offer to encourage an urgent response from your old leads
I have mentioned this in a previous post (link) but placing a timed response or a limited offer can encourage urgent action. This approach can be a little pushy in my opinion but I can’t deny that I have seen it used effectively including by myself.
9 ) Consider who your old leads are – your message, your tone.
This is important, who are you talking to? Your messaging needs to resonate with them. It needs to talk to them and it needs to be useful to them – create good content for your quality readership. Connect.
10 ) Solve their problems, help with their pains
Companies/businesses/people have pains – not ones for a real doctor, business ones I mean. These pains can vary from: How to get more leads, how do I get people to stay on my website, how do I get people to sign up, how do I make this easier, I have no time, I’m tired, etc, etc.
So once you have identified their pains, and if you are familiar with your industry, you will be better equipped at answering their questions and helping to solve their problems. Using you, or your service will help solve their problems – or better still. Avoid them altogether!
11 ) Try to be helpful
As mentioned a couple of times in this post make contacting your email leads about them and how you can help with your experience. Answer questions create posts, try to see what types of questions your demographic ask by trawling forums and post online to give you indications or if you have a survey software use that to learn about them.
12 ) Speak their language
Try to speak their lingo. If they use industry-specific jargon use this in your email to make it sound like you know what you are talking about (oh, and check that you know what you are talking about). If your email marketing is more B2C then try to understand the demographics of your readership, how old are they, are they male, female, what are their hobbies and so on.
learn who they are.
13 ) Check you are emailing the right people
If you have a very specific few golden leads out there and they have stopped answering your emails or opening them, check to see if they are still working at the company or have moved to another department.
You can use LinkedIn to see who is correct contact and start building a new working relationship.
Summary | How do I design an email marketing campaign for old leads
I hope this post is useful. I have given you some tried and tested ideas which I have seen work first hand in the past with my email marketing experience. Many of these approaches should be useful for tomorrow and for the future as many of the tips approach geared toward what messaging is as well as how.
It is worth your while employing not just one of the tactics above for best results but many with a mix and match to see which are most useful for ‘your’ email marketing. There isn’t a golden bullet for things like this as some would like to sell to you, it requires learning and effort. I have sent out many, many campaigns over the years and have seen which works for gifting, retail, subscriptions, and general newsletters.
Setting aside the technical information, the tricks etc, it often tends to boil down to something you probably already know, and I knew but didn’t want to admit either – they weren’t interested...
So make them interested
Sell something your customer or client ‘wants’ or needs. Don’t push something onto them that they don’t want or need. It is a tired and boring struggle for both parties.
As time goes along, trial and error will show which tactics bare the most fruit – all the best in “designing email marketing for your old leads.”
About Me – A Designer
I have worked on numerous email campaigns over the years sending campaigns to 1000’s of contacts. Much of the data I have written here has been based on my first-hand experience of blood sweat and tears and also with keeping myself up to date with new email marketing ideas. You are more than welcome to read a bit more about me below.
You may find the article on the 32 tips useful for more visual design tips.
Other Helpful Posts
- 32 tips for successful email marketing
- Quick and lazy CSS snippets which you can snatch and grab
- The creative design journey
External website: my portfolio – UI project