You've heard it all before, right? Gurus shouting out the top of their lungs: The LIST! The List! The MONEY is in the LIST!
So, you sign up with one of those email services, spend hours setting up forms, and responders, and not to mention your “lead magnet”–that magical lure to give in exchange for someone trusting you with their email address.
Finally you put the form on your website, you test it, and all is working right. People who opt-in for your lead magnet get on your mailing list and the lead magnet is sent to them immediately.
You're building a list! Yea!
You dutifully write a blog every week (or two), and send out your newsletter.
Now, all you have to do is sit back and wait for the money, right?
Wait? Where is your windfall of dollars and the mountains of cash?
I tell you my friend, the newsletter is dead. Cue the death march.
What worked in the past, doesn't work now for B2B businesses.
Are all of those Marketing Gurus wrong? Well, not necessarily–you're just missing a KEY piece of information. There IS money in the list and you do need to build a following; however, just blindly sending a newsletter to everyone on your list is a bit like nailing Jello to a tree. You don't know who is really interested in what your core offering is–and who has the money to spend on your service.
The missing components in “The List” strategy are:
- Trigger marketing – the ability to respond instantly with a targeted message based on someone's shown interests.
- Marketing automation – a back end processing system that can segment your visitors automatically and send those trigger marketing response messages, based on someone's behavior. (Hey, those first two go hand in hand!)
- Asking for readiness and the sale – the art of gaining a buy-in because you've proven to them with actionable , beneficial content (not just told them) that you have the solution to their problems. You can and will make a positive influence on their lives.
Trigger Marketing
First off, you have to get over the “Big Brother is watching me” factor of trigger marketing. Frankly, we're all being watched/tagged/categorized by billion dollar entities by the mere fact of being active on the Internet. Case in point – have you ever visited a cruise website, then gotten on Facebook or checked your email, and now you're seeing a billion cruise ads everywhere you look? Targeted marketing at work.
Let's say your business is a dog grooming service. You've got two pages on your website, one for small dog grooming, under 25 lbs. and another page for large dog grooming, 25 lbs. and up. By using a marketing automation software, such as ONTRAPORT, you can tag people appropriately when they visit the small dog or large dog pages. And you can setup an exclusive offer for each, maybe a free collar with a grooming for the small dog page with a sign up form, and a free bottle of organic dog shampoo for the large dogs. Each offer is setup with a different form, going to a separate list, campaign, or sequence.
Two separate offers (lead magnets), made exclusively for that particular audience. Congratulations, you've just segmented your list! Make sure your lead magnet offer naturally leads into a larger offer like a grooming service package.
Now you can send emails to each list, customizing the message based on dog size. Can it be closely related content with just slight tweaks, why yes, it can. Can it be vastly different content? Of course!
You're not nailing Jello to a tree anymore. You can send the right message to the right lead.
Marketing Automation
Do you need a high-end system to accomplish this? No, list segmentation can happen with systems such as MailChimp and Aweber. You have to have people double opt-in on these “new” or additional lists. Two of my favorite marketers, Tara Gentile (MailChimp) and Jeff Walker (Aweber) use this strategy and run million dollar empires. It can be done.
If you're ready to leap into an all-in-one system, like ONTRAPORT, it does make it the process easier. People can click a link in an email, and be signed up instantly for a webinar, or their lead score is updated, or they are moved from one funnel to another or tagged with a certain interest. All in one click initiated by that lead/prospect. The system reacts to their wants and needs. It's a beautiful thing.
Does it take careful planning, building, and execution to build out a marketing automation system? Absolutely. Rome is not built in a day, neither will your empire.
One of the golden rules of marketing is test, test, and test again. Test your message, test your headline, test your graphics, test your call to action. We call it A/B split testing where you change one component and measure the effectiveness of that test.
Systems like ONTRAPORT allow you to split test on a granular level, automatically. It's pretty amazing.
Asking for the Sale
If you never ask for the sell, all of your hard work leading up to this point has been done in vain. I am just as guilty as any other business owner on all of these accounts. We get focused on list building, we forget to turn our attention to list segmentation.
It's never too early to start segmenting. The key to successful list segmentation is making sure (as mentioned before) your lead magnet offer naturally leads into a larger service offering. If it does, and your lead magnet has actionable, valuable content, when you ask your audience for the sell, it will be a no-brainer.
How do you re-energize a stale list? Offer them something new they need to opt-in for on one of your speciality topics. Re-engagement campaigns can and should be the jumping off point as you make the switch from newsletters to trigger marketing. Make them an offer they'd be crazy to say no to.
The Newsletter is dead. Long live Segmentation through Automation.
Let's all wave a sincere goodbye to blind email marketing and start sending the right message to the right audience.
Are you ready to move to the next level with your marketing? I'm ready when you are, and I'll be there to help you with flexible, innovative solutions to your ever-changing business needs. Let's talk today!
