Marketing Automation

How Newsletters Can Kill Your Future Sales

Mothernode Author — Sun, 08 Oct 2017 15:44:33 +0000

4 minute read

The newsletter: for many years, a go-to technique for marketing teams. However, a casual look at the most successful brands will quickly show that this form of communication with the customer is rarely seen in this day and age. This is by no means a coincidence; the research available to them through their deep pockets and extensive resources has shown what all marketers worth their salt are now aware of – newsletters are among the worst forms of email marketing.

Newsletters were initially utilized for internal communication within an organization, be it a company, church, recreational club, or any other such grouping of individuals. These types of bulletins proved useful in that they kept an organization’s members abreast of new developments and could be used to boost morale.

As technology progressed and the internet became ubiquitous, it was assumed that this very technique could be used through email for marketing purposes. And it was used for many years – that is, until reliable analytics came into play and revealed the fact that marketing newsletters were not only ineffective, they could actually hurt a brand’s sales and customer relations. An analysis of the newsletter clearly explains why.

Lack of Relevance

The ‘old school’ print newsletter would often consist of a single page as there were only a couple topics to cover. As such a scant amount of information would look ridiculous in an email, marketing newsletters became lengthy, bloated communique. As a result, much of the information therein will be irrelevant to most readers. Eventually, every customer will have received a number of newsletters that hold no relevance to them. Just like that, your newsletter will have found itself in the junk folder and your brand scrubbed from the customer’s mind.

Unfocused Messaging

To compete in today’s market, it is essential to accurately target the right demographic and provide the individuals therein with a focussed message that will appeal to them. It’s simply impossible to achieve this with a newsletter – in addition to being generic, they are transparent as a sales tactic as opposed to a valuable offering that helps the customer in some way.

Weak Content

Due to the aforementioned generic nature of a newsletter as it tries to be ‘everything to everyone,’ the resulting content is extremely weak. With a focussed message, you can delve into a topic as it is the sole raison d’etre of the communication. Technical content and examples can be included and will hold the reader’s attention since the topic is one they’re interested. A newsletter must be far more general, but this very attempt to avoid excluding readers ends up causing a drab email that is uninteresting to everyone.

Ease of Opt-Out

Legally, you must provide a simple and clearly worded opt-out clause in any subscription type communication such as a newsletter. As its lack of value becomes clear, readers will quickly search out and use this option. Conversely, an informative blog strategically advertised through social media posts and the like allows you to continuously reach out to customers, even in the event of a misstep.

Painting a Negative Picture of Your Brand

The negative results of a newsletter aren’t confined to the emails themselves. Readers will assume that any content coming from your organization is equally useless. As a result, your social media presences, blogs, and other content will be ignored by potential customers regardless of their merit. In the worst case scenario, your newsletter’s readers will avoid your brand altogether and advise others to do the same.

Newsletters Have Become Synonymous with Junk Mail

Due to the overwhelming majority of newsletters having little to no value, the very term immediately makes a reader consider the communication to be junk. In the unlikely event you have crafted a newsletter that provides valuable content and would be embraced by customers, packaging it as such almost guarantees it will not be read – or if it is, will not be appreciated in the same way as if it was offered via another medium.

Sustainability Is Impossible

All email newsletters are subject to the above shortcomings. However, even the ‘best of the worst’ will find it impossible to maintain even the lesser standard that they are operating on. When offering a newsletter, you must stick to the advertised schedule (monthly, bi-monthly, quarterly, etc.). Especially in smaller organizations, it becomes a chore to find new content to offer that fits the tone of a newsletter. The already mediocre content will steadily drop in quality – a change that will not go unnoticed by the reader. Again, your brand’s image will suffer.

How to exceed last year’s sales goals

Mothernode Author — Wed, 04 Jan 2017 21:35:29 +0000

< 1 minute

If you’re not using Mothernode CRM’s Marketing & Sales Automation features, you’re leaving money on the table. Period.

There are 2 ways to positively impact your bottom line. Reduce costs and increase revenue. Mothernode CRM helps you do both.

Increasing Revenue

If you’re not actively engaging customers via digital marketing campaigns or automatic follow-up sequences, it’s a guarantee that you’re losing revenue opportunities.

Reducing Costs

Reduce Costs by automating your sales and marketing efforts. Virtually eliminate the necessary administrative bourdons in the sales and marketing process.

With Mothernode CRM Sales & Marketing Automation you can

Save time; automate emails, follow-ups and tasks

Manage more sales, with less effort

Nurture longterm opportunities and increase your close ratio

Automate and improve customer service and satisfaction

Increase sales opportunities with existing customers

Without Mothernode CRM Sales & Marketing Automation you can

Work harder

Accomplish less

Lose money

Miss opportunities

Setting up autoresponders for your website visitors

Mothernode Author — Fri, 09 Dec 2016 03:32:58 +0000
3 minute read
How much time do you waste a week with follow-up emails? Probably a lot considering nearly 3/4 of website inquiries don’t lead to an immediate sale. Want some of that time back? The best place to begin? Start using Mothernode CRM’s Follow-up Sequences to automatically respond to your website inquiries.

Here’s a few recommendations to begin.

Automate follow-up responder sequences

Short Term (Sales)

Objective: Reduce and/or eliminate manual responses to visitor inquiries. Stop wasting time communicating and attempting to connect with your website visitors, especially if they aren’t ready to buy.

Action: Let Mothernode CRM automate your follow-up communication, and use multiple attempts (if necessary), to engage your prospects inviting them to connect. Create personalized auto-responses that engage your website visitors to help ignite a sales opportunity. Design a sequence based on your selling cycle. These emails usually look like personalized emails and should not be HTML email campaigns.

Long Term (Marketing)

Objective: Maintain a steady relationship with your visitors by keeping your brand in front of them over a long period of time, especially when your attempt to connect is met with silence.

Action: Create long term lead nurture campaigns that distribute relevant content to your customers and prospects to help increase your conversion rates over time. These emails are typically HTML format and should communicate value, quality and any promotions you may want to include.

Short Term Email

When writing your follow-up emails make sure to keep them short and sweet. Always request a time to connect. Here are a few pointers to get started.

Keep it Short. Make your point, don’t ramble. Your visitor completed a web form, they expect a response. You’re less likely to sell them in an email than a follow-up call.

Initiate a Conversation. Invite them for a time to call. Propose a time. Lay the ground work.

Setup Follow-ups. Anticipate receiving no response and setup a short sequence of follow-ups. Keep the emails short and sweet. End the attempt to make contact sequence after the 3rd or 4th email.

Pace your follow-up sequences.

Sample Autoresponder Sequence

To get you started, here is a sample autoresponder follow-up sequence. You can use this as a starting point and manipulate the content to fit your business. This autoresponder would be used to engage a website visitor who requested to be contacted.

WEBSITE FIRST RESPONSE

Hi %contact_first_name%,

Thank you for visiting _________________.com and checking out some of our content. I wanted to connect briefly to understand what was driving your interest and to see how I can help.

Would you be available today or tomorrow for a 5-10 minute call?

Thank you,

John Doe

WEBSITE SECOND RESPONSE

Hi %contact_first_name%,

I’m following up on my previous attempt to connect, because I saw you did some research on ________________.com earlier.

I’m not sure where your interests are specifically, but I would like to set up a time to find out, so that I can provide some relevant resources and answer any questions you may have.

When would be a good time to speak for 5-10 minutes?

Thank you,
John Doe

WEBSITE THIRD RESPONSE (FINAL)

Hi %contact_first_name%,

I’ve been trying to reach you for the past few weeks, and haven’t had much luck in doing so. At this point I’ll assume your _______ needs are no long a priority, and close out your file.

If I’m incorrect in this assumption, please let me know the best date/time for an initial conversation, and I’ll send over a calendar invite directly.

Best regards,
John Doe

Quick Tip: Create a company account in Mothernode for your business and add a couple of your users as contacts. Use this account to test your sequences. It’s a good idea to send sequences to people on your team to get their input. Also, be sure to view your emails on a variety of different platforms, like Macs and Windows as well as web mail and different versions of Outlook. Always test your customer experience.

Building an Effective Email Campaign Strategy

Mothernode Author — Tue, 06 Dec 2016 16:13:50 +0000
3 minute read
Building short-term and long-term engagement campaigns are instrumental to your lead nurturing strategy. There are an infinite combinations of campaign strategies you can create, but in this lesson we’ll focus on common types.

Short-Term Campaigns
These campaigns should be designed to convert quickly. While the autoresponder sequence is used as a personalized approach to connect with your prospect, the campaign, on the other hand, promotes your products, services, brand and expertise, and usually does so in general terms.

Long-Term Campaigns
Simply put, longer term campaigns should deliver content, less frequently, over an extended period of time. It’s purpose is to passively keep your brand, products and services in front of your buyers by dripping content to them at a low frequency. Popular content includes, promotions, new product announcements, holiday sales and seasonal related messages.

5 Truths about your Marketing Campaigns

Before you get started and if you’re new to digital marketing or building campaign sequences, there are a few things you should know before making your first campaign.

They require a small investment in time to create
Creating a campaign sequence in Mothernode CRM isn’t hard at all, but planning and designing your campaign content and messages is something that will take a bit of time. It will be time well spent! Think of each campaign template as a message you are writing to one person, except you will be able to reuse it again and again.

They will continue to evolve
Of course they will change and evolve over time. That’s because your business, ideas and strategies are evolving. The moment you begin using Mothernode Marketing Sequences you’ll be able to measure your results. What’s interesting, what’s not. As your product and service offerings change, your marketing message will change too. This is ultimately a good thing, because it shows you are monitoring the performance of your marketing campaigns.

You will see results!
How could you not? If using campaigns increases your touch points with your audience, it will increase your sales. This doesn’t mean that website visitor you engage with using campaigns will be your next customer, but what it does mean is that the increased abundance of communication increases your odds of increasing your conversion rate, because you are keeping your brand and message(s) in front of your buyers.

Content Ideas

Not sure where to begin? Need some ideas? Here are a few content ideas that you can include in any campaign. You can mix and match the concepts or stick with a consistent message, like sales and promotions.

Current Offerings

The easiest way to stimulate a sale is to make an offer. Limited time offers give your buyers a sense of urgency that can persuade them to act quick.

Sales and Promotions

Create savings offers for special occasions, such as Holiday Sales, Black Friday, Cyber Monday. Using promotions is also a great way to liquidate stock or incentive a sale.

Services | Portfolio

Nothing communicates confidence in your brand more than well put together portfolio of your work. Share your expertise with your buyers. Raising their confidence level in your brand will increase their likelihood of buying.

Customer Success

Customer service and your expertise is always a key consideration in your buyer’s criteria. Nothing can defuse doubt more than sharing testimonials and case studies from existing customers.

Quick Tip: Build at least one short-term campaign and one long-term campaign. You can repurpose content to use in both. Executing these campaigns will give you more opportunities to market and sell to your website visitors than you’ve ever had before.

Strategies for Website Visitor Follow-up Sequences

Mothernode Author — Fri, 09 Sep 2016 04:07:34 +0000
3 minute read
Depending on your business and how well your SEO is working, your products and services might be stimulating a lot of interest. That’s great! But the more interest in your content, the more questions you’ll receive.

Most often this means your visitors are completing a web form, better known as lead capture forms, to effectively submit their inquiry. For your visitor, this is their gateway to connect with you. For you, this is the way you capture their information and an opportunity to turn your visitor into your next client.

While simple responses are easy to facilitate, when faced with a volume of requests, daily or weekly, communicating with your audience can become an administrative burden. This is especially true in smaller organizations and can become a barricade to addressing other pressing needs in your daily activities. The problem is that not everyone interested in your products or services is interested in buying from you. By the time you reply to their request for more info, their interests may have shifted or they might have decided to purchase from a competitor.

There’s no magic formula to change the behavior of your visitor, but there are a few things you can do to manage your inbound requests. You could hire someone else to manage web leads, but naturally there’s a huge cost that comes bringing on another employee. The most economical way to communicate with your prospects is by creating email automation sequences that correspond with their interests.

Here are a few suggestions to help you automate your communication with your inbound leads. By automating the communication sequence, you’re staying engaged with your customer long enough address their interests and hopefully sell to them. The time savings are best recognized with prospects who never intended to buy or who don’t follow-up with their initial interest that led them to complete the web form in the first place. Automating your follow-up sequences eliminates the administrative communications required for traditional follow-up.

First Email

Your first email is the initial response to your prospects inquiry. In this example the counter-request is to engage the visitor in a 5-10 minute phone call. In Mothernode CRM this sequence can be triggered by the web form, by the type of lead or manually by the user once the lead is qualified. Increase your response rate by keeping your emails short and to the point.

Hi %contact_first_name%,

Thanks for visiting our website and checking out some of our content. I wanted to connect briefly to understand what was driving your interest and to see how I can help. When is the best time to connect for 5-10 minutes?

Thank you,

Sharon Jones

—-

Second Email

The second request is based on no response to the first email. This second email assumes a reasonable buffer that would have given the recipient a sufficient response time. It’s authored as a follow-up with the same call to action as the first, gauging the prospects interest at the same time.

Hi %contact_first_name%,

I’m following up on my previous attempt to connect, because I saw you did some research on Mothernode CRM earlier and that you’re the contact at %customer_company_name%.

I’m not sure where your interests lie but I would like to set up a time to find out so that I can provide some relevant resources and answer any questions you may have. When would be a good time to speak for 5-10 min?

Thank you,

Sharon Jones

—–

Third (Final) Email

The last email in the sequence is sent when enough time has passed from the initial inquiry and no response has been received to both previous emails. The message lets the prospect know there will be the final attempt to contact them, and gives them one last chance to respond.

Hi %contact_first_name%,

I’ve been trying to reach you for the past few weeks, and haven’t had much luck in doing so. At this point I’ll assume your CRM search is no long a priority, and close out your file. If I’m incorrect in this assumption, please let me know the best date/time for an initial conversation, and I’ll send over a calendar invite directly.

Best regards,

Sharon Jones

—

Benefits

Automating this follow-up sequence eliminated any time wasted with a prospect who wasn’t serious about buying, and allowed your sales reps to spend time working with more qualified leads.