‘I’m not a Spammer, I’m a Marketer!’ 5 Keys to Better Email Prospecting

By: Amber Bullis

You and I both know it: you’re not a spammer, you’re a marketer! Those emails you’re sending? They promote a product you love, a product those prospects need. Plus, sending out emails is so easy! Why wouldn’t you send them in bulk as often as possible to see what sticks? And if you don’t ask people to purchase or schedule a demo, how will they find out more about your company?

See where I’m going here? The line between being a spammer or a marketer can be extremely thin and fuzzy. 

Reaching out to prospects with the goal of turning them into loyal customers is not a new concept to sales or marketing, but the best way to do so continues to evolve. No longer do we live in the days when salespeople hold the keys to the kingdom, selling door-to-door, through snail mail, or only using face-to-face meetings. Instead, sales and marketing rely heavily on email campaigns to reach potential new customers.

As consumers become savvier and the number of emails in their inbox continues to skyrocket, using best email practices is more essential than ever. Here are five ways to ensure you’re truly behaving like a marketer, not a spammer!

   1. Understand who you’re targeting.

Your email message should be specific to your audience. Do your homework! Discover who these prospects are, some common pain points they may have, their goals, and even their motivations.

At PR with Panache! we help members of our client family create buyer personas to provide a detailed understanding of a client’s typical or ideal customer. By putting in the time and research to create buyer personas, you’re able to better understand the messages your prospects are interested in seeing.

   2. Be valuable.

When developing a prospecting email campaign, the best way to avoid being flagged as junk is to provide value. Once you’ve created your buyer personas, you’ll have a good understanding of what your prospects find valuable. Perhaps it’s a piece of content, like an eBook, that will help them in their business. Maybe it’s a webinar that will address a common pain point. It could be an infographic that provides them with interesting statistics about their industry.

Remember, you’ll want to start a relationship with these prospects before you ask them to purchase your product. Show your value as a partner before you ask them to buy something.

   3. Look nice.

Just as you wouldn’t roll out of bed to meet a prospective client, you don’t want your emails to look haphazard or unprofessional. Check your grammar. Check your spelling. Make sure your emails align with the rest of your organization and brand. No matter how well you understand your market or how great your email content is, it won’t get much traction with distracting errors or poor design.

Looking for some help here? This email marketing toolkit could help!

   4. Listen to the data.

One of the best reasons to create strategic email campaigns is to learn more about your prospective customers. Traditional marketing simply can’t offer the same amount of data. Don’t ignore what your prospects are telling you through their behavior.

High click rate? Sounds like you are offering valuable content. Keep it up! High unsubscribe rate? Perhaps you’re tiptoeing a little too close to the spam/marketing line. Rethink your messaging and make sure you’re following tips 1–3.

You’ll need to test different subject lines, copy, designs, and offers to learn what works best. Once you have a good idea of how to reach these prospects, you can continue to apply this knowledge to future campaigns.

Here’s an example: For one member of our client family, all it took was some simple email testing to see a 15% increase in opens and 5% more clicks. One test group received our email campaign in an HTML format, the other in plain text. The winner? Plain text! By using this data for future campaigns and sending emails in plain text, we know we are delivering information the way this audience likes it, leading to more opens, more clicks, and more business.

   5. Have a strategic plan.

The ease of sending out an email is both a blessing and a curse for marketers and salespeople. It’s great to have the opportunity to connect with prospects en masse with little more than a click of the “send” button. Unfortunately, this ease often leads to emails with little strategy, research, or plan for follow-up. It’s tempting to send a quick email to advertise your product, ask for information, or promote a demo. The problem is, these emails don’t produce great results and you’ve used up your first impression looking more like a spammer than a marketer.

Think through how you will follow up with these prospects after your initial email. Did they open or click your email? Engage them in a second! Have they not opened anything from you after several attempts? Put them aside and try again in a few months or when you have something new to offer. Creating an email campaign that includes several emails based on prospects’ behavior will get you further than sending a “one-and-done” email.

Make sure your other marketing efforts are tuned into your email campaign, as well. For example, if your email campaign is driving prospects to your website but you’re still struggling to turn them into customers, consider using Google AdWords to target these prospects in a new way. By showing ads to website visitors, you have another avenue to get in front of these prospects. Learn more about how we use Google AdWords in our blog post “5 Reasons Why AdWords Should Be an Essential Part of Your Marketing Strategy.”

An email prospecting strategy that puts your prospect’s needs first and your organization’s wants second has the opportunity to develop long-lasting relationships. By following these best practices, you can start your relationship off right: as a marketer, not a spammer!

Thanks for sharing!