More than 50 percent of buyers and consumers in the U.S. check their personal email account more than ten times a day–wow! This buyer habit shows you just how important it is to be one of those emails in a potential customer’s inbox.
The ROI of email marketing is far greater and provides higher conversion rates than social media and simple searching techniques combined. Email marketing strategies, like marketing funnels and email automation, help position you in the path of potential customers and ideal clients while building likeability, trust, and relationships.
You don’t have to be a whiz in all things email, but you can set yourself up for success by learning simple information that will help you begin to see actual results.
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As a wedding, catering, and event business, you have to ask yourself a few questions: Who are you trying to reach? Who is your ideal client? Do your ideal clients know who you are?
Each of these questions can be answered with email marketing automation.
Email marketing automation is “the ability to send time or action-triggered emails to subscribers with relevant information.” This email method is one of the most efficient in communicating with future customers or social media followers interested in getting to know your brand and business more.
What you need to know
If you already utilize newsletters and one-off campaigns, you’re one step closer to email automation. This marketing tool works based on simple action-and-trigger sequences without doing anything on your part, making email automation work for you!
You may be wondering how automated emails can fit into your marketing approach. Here are a couple of examples:
- Welcome emails are a great way to get newcomers to subscribe to your list. As a business owner in the wedding and events planning industry, this kind of automation is necessary as you won’t always be able to send single emails each time someone signs up to learn more about how you can help them. Instead, a sequence of personalized emails welcomes your new subscribers and creates a foundation to continue establishing trust and a relationship that will result in efficient sales.
- Personalization is one of the best ways to make email marketing automation work for you. 91% of consumers are more likely to spend money with businesses that offer personalized recommendations and offers. With email automation, you can create and categorize emails to help develop relationships between you, your customers, and your businesses.
- Time management is one thing all business owners strive to perfect. With email automation, you will have more time to focus on other aspects of running a catering and events business. According to Mailchimp, “69% said [email] automation could help reduce wasted time,” With marketing automation platforms like Mailchimp, Constant Contact, Mailerlite, and ConvertKit (just to name a few), you can start automating emails today using their free or paid versions.
Attracting your ideal client
Email automation may sound new, but it is something you’ve probably already incorporated on some scale. With this kind of marketing, taking time to understand your customers, their needs, and their wants will set you and your business up for success.
When you know your ideal client and their needs, you can position yourself as an expert resource in your field. To attract the right client, make sure your website aligns with your ideal client’s needs to motivate them to subscribe to your email list and receive more relevant information.
Once you’ve attracted your ideal client and you’ve captured an email address, you are tasked with the great opportunity to turn this recipient into a customer. This doesn’t have to be immediate; it may be gradual as you are still building trust with this new lead who views you as a helpful expert. Sending out weekly emails from your website or blog that are relevant to their needs is an easy way to build rapport.
Start simple &be consistent
Consistency matters when it comes to email marketing, especially when implementing automated solutions. When a potential client trusts you with their email address, make it worth their while! Continue to organize, update, and keep up with your lists.
Even with automated emails, it is crucial to stay up-to-date with your lists to check for duplicates, clients who have unsubscribed, and more.
What will bring you guaranteed success
Closing the deal becomes easy when you have a relationship. Converting your email list to paying customers involves shifting from weekly nurture emails to emails with stronger calls-to-action and promotional content.
It is important to remember that success isn’t about how large your email list is but rather how well you know your client and optimize that list. Don’t be fooled into thinking that you need more subscribers if you aren’t sure how to use the email list you already have.
As you begin your email marketing journey and discover more about making automation work for you, start simple, get to know your clients, and have fun! Once you have an email list, you continue the work you love with clients who trust you to lead them in the right direction. So be patient and have fun on the journey of email marketing!
