Email is one of the most effective forms of marketing. According to some studies, email marketing is 40 times more effective than social media marketing. That means a lot of lost leads and missed profits if your manufacturing company isn’t investing in email marketing.
The best thing about email marketing is that anyone can do it — no marketing experience required. With a few good ideas and some helpful tools in your back pocket, you can learn how to run an effective email marketing campaign.
Here, we’ll give you a rundown of five of the best ideas for effective marketing emails, and tips for making the most of your new campaign.
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1. Welcome emails
Welcoming potential customers is a crucial first step to making a sale. Welcome emails have among the largest open rates of any type of email, so you’ll want to make sure that first message makes a good impression.
Whether they signed up for your email list from your website or gave you their contact information at a trade show, be sure to thank new prospects and give them a sense of what to expect from their relationship with you. Try including the following in your onboarding emails:
- An initial thank you
- An offer in return for the email address you received
- A soft call to action
Follow this first email with information on how to contact you, a free quote, and details about your products. Do not try to outright sell in your welcome emails — these messages are all about creating an inviting environment and giving new leads a reason to trust you.
Automating this (or any) email series makes it simple to onboard new clients and welcome new potential customers. With platforms like Constant Contact, you can automatically send out a welcome email to new leads as soon as they sign-up.
Use your welcome emails to offer value and make potential customers feel at home. Tell them what resources you can provide and what to expect from your communications.
2. Promotions and offers
Another way to use email marketing to your advantage is by offering discounts and promotions. About 60 percent of subscribers join your email list to receive deals, and the numbers show that giving them what they want can impact your bottom line.
Research published in Management Science found that promotions have a predominantly positive impact on manufacturer revenues. Your customers spend more to receive specialty or bulk products, so helping new clients stock their shelves for less money benefits both you and your customers.
Include a coupon in any campaign for returning or new customers. A one-time deal may be all it takes to create a lifelong relationship.
3. Progress updates
Many people signing up for your email list may be awaiting details about new products or an upcoming project. If they don’t get any news for a while, they may lose interest or even forget about your brand.
Progress updates keep people in the loop and pique interest over time, all while building value for potential customers. This type of campaign may even be considered part of a nurture series when you incorporate surveys and identify solutions as your company gets closer to a release or update.
4. Newsletters
Newsletters can also update subscribers on new products and services, but they serve a slightly different function than progress update emails.
While progress updates help sustain interest in a project or product over time, newsletters encourage meaningful engagement with your business as a whole. These emails can be sent more regularly as well, typically between one and four times per month.
Newsletters are a chance to release content that deals with specific needs and tugs at the heartstrings of your audience. This type of campaign seeks to build trust, using stories, tips, and even videos that show your industry expertise.
When deciding on the kind of content to include in your newsletters, ask yourself:
- Who is my audience?
- Which industry-wide problems am I solving?
- What unique solutions does my company provide?
Templates from Constant Contact can help you write and design your newsletter effectively. As with any email campaign, be sure to include a way to get in touch with you and a solid call to action. You never know what piece of news may inspire a subscriber to convert.
5. Rewards programs
Email marketing isn’t always about reaching new customers — it’s also a useful tool for keeping existing customers engaged.
By offering rewards programs, you can help encourage clients who have bought from you in the past to keep coming back. Clients that feel appreciated are less likely to leave your brand and more likely to increase the amount they order. Send an email every quarter to your best customers, to let them know you appreciate their business and to offer valuable rewards for their continued patronage.
These rewards can include insider access to company news, deals on the latest product lines, and even badges to include on their own websites, identifying them as official dealers of your products. By providing your clients cost savings or credibility among their own customers, you encourage them to keep coming back.
How to build an effective email marketing campaign
A good email marketing idea targets the core values of both your potential customer and their company. Remember that people are at the heart of any transaction, no matter who you’re selling to.
Much of the sales process is about building rapport, which means there’s no one-size-fits-all approach. You know your customers better than anyone. Before launching your campaign, think about what your existing customers need, want, and appreciate. Use that information to decide which emails to send to who and how to most effectively convey your values to both existing clients and new prospects.
That also means that your campaigns should be personalized and customized for your clients’ needs. You can use email segmentation to send the right content to the right prospects based on their responses to previous emails or their activity on your website. Manage non-openers with help from a recommendation tool and adapt your strategy based on what works.
Segmenting your email lists can lead to increased click rates of over 100%! Creating emails tailored to the right audiences helps get your messages seen by the right people.
Platforms like Constant Contact can help add this kind of flexibility to your campaigns and reduce the time you need to spend actively creating and managing your email marketing.
The takeaway
When developing your new email campaigns, be sure that your messages establish:
- A sense of appreciation
- The feeling of belonging
- A flow of useful information
- Credibility
- A personal touch
These five proven email ideas for manufacturers target factors that drive people to act. If your existing campaigns aren’t working the way you want, try capturing the attention of potential customers with promotions, news, and relatable content,
Constant Contact helps create working email marketing campaigns backed by an automated sales funnel and personalized responses. For more useful tips on selling your products and promoting your company through email marketing, check out The Download, our complete guide to online marketing for manufacturers.
