Email marketing is the art of sending a promotional message to someone who subscribes to a specific list. This effort aims to fuse something valuable into the content so that it solves a problem while showing your business, product, or service has an appropriate solution.
It’s important to remember that you’re becoming a guest in that person’s inbox whenever you send an email. Even when someone invites you to be there, they have the right to kick you out whenever they want.
Pitching this outreach effort gets complicated because of that fact. Why invest in something that could be short-term or temporary?
Here are some of the critical points you can cover to highlight the benefits of email marketing.
1. Provide the Facts
We live in an age of disinformation. When you quote facts or statistics, it’s not inconceivable for someone to think that you’re making stuff up.
When you provide verifiable facts and statistics about email marketing that a customer can independently research, it’s harder to deny the truth of the shared information.
Although you’d want to tailor your approach to each client based on their needs, here are some of the stats about email marketing that people need to know.
- 82% of marketers currently use email marketing as one of their outreach tools.
- 65% of marketing professionals use automated emails for contacting people.
- Over 320 billion emails are sent and received each day.
- Companies that utilize email marketing can expect up to $45 for every $1 spent in this category.
- The global click-to-open rate for emails was 14% in 2020.
- Automated welcome messages provide a conversion rate above 50%.
- 73% of online users say they’re comfortable accessing their emails.
Since every marketing effort can provide similar statistics showing the benefits of this investment, it’s essential to demonstrate its highlights.
Emails provide a one-on-one engagement channel, even if a message is sent to hundreds or thousands of accounts. Each one can be personalized to suit the interests of each customer while remaining easy to scale.
How can you ensure that the information you present in a pitch gets treated as real? That process starts by paying attention to the URL and domain – and sharing that information with your clients so they can verify it.
The biography section of a website or publication should use straightforward language. If it feels melodramatic, don’t include those statistics in your pitch.
It would help if you also looked for quotes in articles describing the statistics you offer to clients. Look for studies instead of personal opinions.
2. Trackable Results
Imagine that your company just spent thousands of dollars to book advertising time on local television and radio. How do you know if people saw your content?
When you have email marketing investments to use, you don’t need to rely on unverifiable third-party information to make decisions.
You can track data from each email campaign to see what works and what isn’t with almost immediate feedback. It could take days or weeks to receive similar information about traditional advertising and marketing.
When pitching email marketing as a viable solution, it helps to show clients the in-depth reports and detailed information from these campaigns. You can take that effort a step further by creating sample accounts to let them experience real-time reporting.
You can show clients that they can find and change it right away without experiencing high costs when something doesn’t work. That fact alone can save companies a lot of time and money.
Think about including the testing options that email marketing offers. You can show your clients that this investment allows you to keep pushing for better results while using a systematic optimization approach for each campaign.
3. Multiple Choices to Embrace
Some clients have tried email marketing in the past without much success. It’s easy to feel overwhelmed by the different bounces and unsubscribe requests that come along with this investment.
Others avoid email marketing because the system they tried was frustrating to use or difficult to manage.
When pitching this asset, it’s crucial to remember that email technologies are not the same across the board. You might enjoy using an intuitive platform that generates fantastic results, but some options out there don’t have that benefit.
What can you provide your client that reduces or eliminates their pain points? Here are a few suggestions to review to see if they might resonate during your pitch.
- Automatic processes work to remove all the tedious subscribing efforts out of a team’s manual efforts to ensure people can get onto the specific lists they want.
- The reports and statistics keep track of the emails that bounce with each campaign instead of requiring individual tabulation.
- Easy design principles, including drag-and-drop options, are available to simplify the process while allowing for high-quality content production and graphics inclusion.
Email marketing delivers a personalized approach while putting specific and valuable content in front of a potential consumer. Since what you see tends to be what you get with this investment today, it’s an approachable investment that makes sense when your pitch gets tailored to your client’s specific needs.
4. Focus on the Flexibility
When you purchase print advertising, you’re stuck with the final result. That product or service copy is out there until none are left.
If you invest in email marketing, you have a lot more flexibility. You can change the message at any time, including the product or service focus of the message.
With A/B testing, you can even work to refine the message. Those benefits should all be in your email marketing pitch.
Part of this process can include some low-risk efforts that could produce significant rewards. Which of the following options would be attractive to a hesitating client?
- Emails that feature special pricing or exclusive product or service access to subscribers.
- Case studies of consumers who already use products and services under the brand’s banner.
- List segments that target specific demographics with a proven interest in comprehensive or personalized content.
- Trigger emails that provide specific messages within the context of consumer behavior.
- Holiday or seasonal promotions that rotate throughout the year to generate excitement about the brand and business.
The goal should be to create excitement. When your clients hesitate on email marketing, it’s often due to investment uncertainty or past poor outcomes. If you can address those concerns with a compelling pitch, the odds get better that they’ll come into your camp.
5. Use Working Examples
Henrik Ibsen worked as a theatre director and playwright in his home country of Norway. He’s called the “Father of Realism” based on the plays he wrote at the time.
Outside of Shakespeare, Ibsen’s works are the most performed dramas in the world. In 2006, his work called “A Doll’s House” was the most performed play globally.
He once said, “A thousand words leave not the same deep impression as does a single deed.” Over the years, that phrase has turned into the idea that a picture is worth a thousand words.
When someone receives an email about a specific product, service, or idea, they’re more likely to review the material when it is visually stunning. Your clients can include pictures, infographics, videos, and other visual elements to create an attractive click.
An email provides places for effective written content to supplement the visual materials that engage the reader.
If you’re looking for ways to improve your pitch, show people what email marketing can do instead of telling them about it. That visual image of success translates into a thought that says, “I need this for my business.”
Digital marketing concepts often feel theoretical until people see them in action. When someone can see their brand having success with an email campaign, it’s more convincing than a slideshow or graph that talks about past efforts.
6. Account for the Decision-Makers
You can research everything about a company, deliver an impressive demo, and still lose a contract to a competitor. If you’re not in touch with the decision-makers that approve this digital marketing investment, they can decide to bypass your ideas for something or someone else.
Before getting into the sales pitch, you’ll want to speak with the person who understands the business and makes choices for it. That process is a lot easier said than done with some clients.
It’s not unusual for the first person you contact to be the “screener” for the actual decision-maker. You’ve got to convince the initial contact before you can sell to the individual who can implement an email marketing strategy.
That means you might need to build trust and develop a value-based relationship more than once before earning the chance to pitch email marketing.
About seven people are now involved in the average business-to-business (B2B) purchasing decision. Each person could want an individualized relationship with you or your firm before they seriously consider email marketing.
How do you start building those relationships to get your foot in the door? Here are a few ideas to help get started.
- Show them your vision. A great pitch puts you into the role of a storyteller. Tell your clients where they are now, but then show them where they could be when following your vision. If you can get them to see problems from a different perspective while inspiring change, it can differentiate your relationship from competitors.
- Share personal insights. The purest form of sales is enchantment. It creates a desire to join a family or community that benefits from what you offer. Changing hearts and minds starts when you provide a path toward doing something better, even if it is a different approach.
- Overcome the objections. Your sales pitch needs to be ready for potential objections or rejections of the email marketing ideas offered. Most negative responses fall into four categories: time, need, authority, or budget. You’ll need to be prepared to address each one from all potential decision-makers in the room.
Many people go into a sales conversation ready to reply. Try taking a different approach by incorporating more soft skills into the process, like listening.
If you listen to what your clients are saying, it’s usually a straightforward process to identify needs because the decision-makers will tell you what is necessary.
You can also listen to the tone, speed, and volume of a person’s voice to find clues about what a person feels.
The goal should be to turn your pitch into more of a healthy conversation instead of a business presentation about individual business needs.
How to Improve Your Sales Pitch
Email marketing often sells itself, but that doesn’t mean you don’t need to put any work into the process. Your clients will have tough questions that require answers. If you can’t provide them, the results could be less than favorable.
A great pitch starts with a lot of research. Each interaction you have with a client requires your expertise to shine.
You also need to be in a place where you can be honest about the challenges you face while creating results.
Buyers are different in today’s marketplace. Many companies want a trusted advisor that ensures expertise is behind each decision.
If you were to look at the problems that email marketing solves, what results would your client want?
- Does a business need more customer retention tools to keep consumers close to the brand instead of always reaching out to someone new?
- Is there a way to track the current marketing investments, or does the brand need help understanding where it stands with its audience?
- Does your client need an asset it owns instead of relying on something that could be taken away at any time?
Knowing what questions each client asks about email marketing makes it easier to deliver the answers they need. If that information feels current, relevant, and valuable, you’re more likely to close the sale.
A great pitch closes the deal. When you consider the elements offered in this guide, you’ll find the unique path for your client that delivers the best results.
