How to nurture PPC-generated leads using e-mail marketing
“Your e-mail, PPC ads, blogs and social media accounts should all overlap, so that calls-to-action are driven home as you create a feeling for your clients of getting caught up in the buzz.” – Yael Warman, Leverate.
Have you been investing in PPC and are not yet seeing your conversion rates rise? That is not because PPC isn’t working for you, but because users don’t always convert on the first visit. Research shows that a visitor who clicks on a banner of a forex brokerage visits a page an average of three times before converting.
When a user visits your landing page for the first time, they may be at the early stages of researching a company to do business with, but once they return, your chances of conversion increase by twofold. What you do between that first visit and the next visit is what determines your success at conversion.
Have you ever considered email marketing as a means of nurturing those PPC generated client leads? Email might be one of the oldest methods of online marketing, but it is also one of the most tried and true methods of maintaining the interest of prospective clients.
PPC and email marketing works well hand in hand, it improves the cost-benefit equation of investing money on pay per click advertising, as you can be more sure that your e-mail marketing campaign is going to turn those leads into customers.
Email is free and versatile, you can send out however many you would like and create different emails to your PPC leads. With some emails you may want to focus on developing a deeper rapport with your audience, while other emails may be primed for pushing a sale. Either way, the aim should be to engage effectively with your audience and you can do that by strategically planning your email content and delivery.
Formatting
Give as much thought as possible to the format layout of your email. Make it eye catching with good pictures and designs. If you are going to include a lot of content, make sure to break it up into blocks of text with bullet points and subheadings.
Like all of us, your clients are not as likely to read your content as they are going to scan it, so that they can quickly identify what interests them. Of course, good formatting also means making sure your email design looks good on whatever interface it is being opened; from desktop to all mobile devices.
Be Bold or Go Home
Stemming from the earlier point, that clients do not read their emails as much as they scan them, make your content stand out by being bold and dynamic. The stickier the campaign, the more likely a viewer is to follow through on a PPC lead. Clients are also more inclined to open subsequent emails if a bold and lasting impression of your brand has already been made.
Run Tests
By all means we encourage you to experiment with many different strategies, but one strategy to accompany all other strategies is to run tests. Part of the process of optimizing your e-mail campaigns is to identify what works best for you and your client group. To do this, use an email marketing solution that will automate your tests whilst segmenting a control group. This will allow you to measure the impact of the new strategy and identify successful patterns.
Cross Promote your Emails
E-mail may well be the standard bearer for individualized marketing, but if you’re using it to enhance the value of your PPC generated leads, the advertising message needs to be consistent across all platforms, and this includes all your social media channels. Your e-mail, PPC ads, blogs and social media accounts should all overlap, so that calls-to-action are driven home as you create a feeling for your clients of getting caught up in the buzz.
In your emails encourage your readers to like your Facebook page and follow you on twitter, or go one step further and give them a reason to do so. Reward your readers with access to a new e-book should they connect with you on Twitter or encourage your readers to share their thoughts on a hot topic that is trending on your Facebook page.
Compelling content
Too often e-mail content follows a predictable pattern of advertising offers and promoting calls-to-action. However, this runs the risk of alienating readers, as future e-mails are seen as a disruption, rather than useful or interesting. Try to understand who your PPC leads are as much as possible, and then craft your content to piqué the interests of those email recipients.
Mix up your style, if necessary, so that it never feels tedious at any point. At the end of the day you have to consider what would my clients want to read about? Think: tips, interesting stats, latest market figures and facts etc. Or think of it this way, only send an email that you yourself would want to read.
Countdowns
With a sense of irony fully intended, our last and final point is the value of doing countdowns. While it seems all too simple, a countdown builds a sense of urgency. Perhaps imbued with the classic countdown of a spaceship ready for take-off, if you don’t act in time, you might miss the explosion, be that a fantastic offer that is only available for a short time only.
Create a countdown for hourly deals, deadlines to buy-in or get access to a live broadcast. If you do decide to create a countdown continue to promote it on your web page as well, so that the time sensitiveness of the campaign is not lost.
