Lead Generation Prospecting with Email Marketing
McCarthy & King Marketing is a Massachusetts direct response marketing agency helping companies create and develop email marketing campaigns for lead generation prospecting. Here is an overview of an email marketing prospecting campaign.
Email Prospecting – step by stepHere’s a quick overview of what’s involved:
For an expanded discussion, read below. For pricing information, check out Email Prospecting Pricing. |
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To discuss a campaign or get a quote, call Bob McCarthy at 508-473-8643. |
Email Prospecting – an expanded discussion[break]Changing attitudes about email marketingWhile most Email Marketing is used to communicate with existing prospects and customers, a growing number of marketers are turning to email to generate new leads, also known as prospecting. This is accomplished using rented or purchased email lists. This is a somewhat controversial application as many email practitioners consider unsolicited email as spam. In fact, most Email Service Providers prohibit the use of rented or purchased lists. Today, many traditional direct mail list companies are now offering email lists as well. And they are taking more care in providing lists that are spam-free. [break] Understand this distinctionOn this page, we are talking about email marketing for lead generation prospecting. This involves using outside third-party lists – either rented or purchased. This is very different from the more common use of email to communicate with existing prospects and customers (or donors). Click here if you are interested in our email services for internal (opt-in) email lists. These two applications should not overlap. It starts with the email listIt’s probably not news to hear that the key to every email marketing program is the list. But finding the right list for your business or marketing campaign is no simple matter. Before you start looking for lists, develop an audience profile. Take some to identify (and write down) what your best customer looks like in both demographic and behavior terms. You may find that you need to develop several profiles – your best audience, your next best audience, and so on. We can help you develop a customer profile, then research both compiled and response email lists that may be available to match to that profile. You are likely to find that there are more than one – maybe many – lists that can reach your audience. You may need to test several of these. Read our article, Mailing Lists: Should you buy, rent or build your own? |
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Your offer drives response
Other than the list, nothing will be more important than the offer. This cannot be an afterthought. Your offer requires real focus at the beginning of your campaign.
Much like direct mail, for lead generation prospecting, you’ll need free informational offers like white papers, how-to reports, industry research or Q&A reports.
This will require some thought. You may have offers already produced or you may need to create them.
Learn more about the offer in our Tutorial: How to Create a Direct Mail Offer
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Building landing pages
A key element in lead generation prospecting is giving interested prospects a way to respond. While every email will have a call to action, you need to have a destination in place for those visitors.
Many organizations simply send people to their home page, but this is ineffective because most home pages are set up for lead capture.
Instead, we recommend creating dedicated landing pages that focus exclusively on the offer and provide the visitor with an easy method for accessing the offer (in return for contact information).
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Creating your email
With your lists, offer and landing page in place, it’s time to create the email. While text-only emails can work, most organizations want to develop professional-looking html emails with photos and graphics.
We can help you create these emails with your input and approval.
Once the email is ready, we would then deliver the files to the list owner for deployment
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Testing is essential to long-term success
While many email campaigns can be successful – i.e., achieve an acceptable response and ROI – with little or no testing, some will only be successful if you test multiple components over time.
If you do test, the key elements to test will be your list and your offer. Once you are confident that you have the right list and the right offer in place, then you should begin to test smaller elements within both the email and the landing page.
Read our blog post: 9 Common Excuses for NOT Testing
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The services we offer
McCarthy & King Marketing give you a one-stop solution to your direct marketing needs. We offer a comprehensive list of services that include:
- Email strategy
- Mailing list research/selection
- Offer planning/development
- Copywriting/creative
- Deployment
- Testing strategy
- Response analysis
- Post-mailing adjustments
View our Portfolio Slideshow.
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What does an email campaign cost?
Your cost will depend on whether you do it yourself or you use a firm like ours.
Clearly you can save a lot of money if you go it alone. But the risks are higher.
If you are interested in using a service like ours, check out Email Prospecting Campaign Pricing.
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Get started or learn more
So what’s your next step? If you’re close to making a move, we’d love to talk. Call Bob McCarthy at 508-473-8643 or send him an email at bob@mccarthyandking.com.
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Of course, if you have any questions, please don’t hesitate to call.