When it comes to creating an inbound marketing strategy, there are plenty of tools and tactics to consider. As anyone who’s come up with an inbound strategy will know, they all come with different costs and benefits.
SEO and PPC will get you to the top of search rankings, but the results won’t always be trusted by consumers. Social media marketing is practically essential, with only a handful of the biggest brands managing without it. It’s a crowded field, though, and getting real traction can be a struggle without a ton of spend.
No matter how you spend your inbound marketing budget, there’s one element that should underpin the rest of the overall strategy. That reliably brings in results in the short and the long term. That can be customised and automated to suit your needs.
It’s time to give email marketing its due.
Over the course of this blog post, we’ll take you through the benefits of adding email marketing to your inbound strategy. We’ll even give you some examples of how to do it with the help of ScoreApp integration.
Ready? Let’s crack on.
Benefits of adding emails to your inbound marketing strategy
Email is an extremely versatile tool, so it’s wise to think about what results you want from it before getting stuck in.
Do you want a platform to nurture relationships? Do you want to push traffic to other content? Build trust in your brand and improve sales? Email can do all of that when used right.
Here’s what it can do and how.
1. Nurture relationships over time
How it works – Of all inbound strategy tools, email is arguably the best for making sure your message reaches customers on your terms. You’re in control of the timing and the frequency of your emails, so you can use ScoreApp automation to offer value to customers at each stage of their journey down the sales funnel.
Inbound connection – The key to a strong email marketing campaign is engaging the reader. A massive 72% of people only open personalised emails. By using data from your lead magnets (such as a ScoreApp quiz), you can address concerns and include content a lead will find helpful.
That could be a video taken from a webinar with a sign-up form for the next event, or website content and blog posts. Whatever it is, content that resonates will help form a stronger relationship.
Consider – For personalised email marketing to nurture relationships, you have to segment your audience. The results of a ScoreApp quiz will feed into your CRM and segment your audience in ways that matter to you. That could be budget, pain points, interests, behaviours, or previous interactions.
Once you have these segments in place, it’s easier to create drip campaigns and email sequences that are timed and targeted for maximum impact.
2. Drive traffic to content
How it works – Email campaigns can direct the reader to specific, existing content. Think blog posts, ebooks, webinars, and videos. Alternatively, you can build interest in upcoming events and funnel readers to waitlists.
Inbound connection – Inbound marketing strategies should always come with goals. If one of those goals is driving traffic to your website and other brand platforms, then this is how you do it.
Consider – Directing traffic to gated content (content that requires a sign-up or a survey completion) will give you more data to inform your personalised content. However, be sure you have strong and direct calls to action (CTAs) in place. If you don’t tell a lead exactly what you want them to do and how it will benefit them, they’ll be less likely to click through.
3. Enhance lead segmentation
How it works – We’ve touched on this already, but your email list can be split into categories for more targeted marketing. Use the data gathered by ScoreApp to create categories around downloads, purchases, or click-throughs.
Inbound connection – Segmenting your list makes targeted emails all the more effective.
Once you’ve established your segments, you can more clearly send the right content to the right people at the right time for better nurturing.
Consider – Of course, it would take more hours than there are in the day to create and send content that’s relevant to individual segments. Integrating ScoreApp with your email marketing tool speeds things up. You can automate segmentation based on quiz results and data in your CRM, while automatically creating and sending tailored content to each category.
4. Boost conversion rates
How it works – A personalised email, sent at the right time, is a powerful tool. Especially when you use it to give warm or hot leads the last nudge towards making a purchase, booking a consultation, or signing up for the latest webinar.
Inbound connection – An email on its own might not be enough to make a sale, but it can prove the difference as part of a wider strategy. This is email as a complementary tool, converting leads teetering on a sale thanks to other inbound activities. The SEO, PPC, or social media may have brought them in, but an automated email sent at the right time will get them to click the buy button.
Consider – Include incentives and limited-time special offers in your emails to make a purchase more likely. To really sell the benefit of your product or service, include testimonials and case studies. In many cases, people trust recommendations from outside a company more than they do marketing.
5. Build trust and authority
How it works – The more emails you share that add value to your customers’ lives, the more they’ll come to see you as a useful resource.
Inbound connection – With regular, relevant emails, you’ll become a trusted authority whose communications carry weight. That appreciation will grow into a stronger sense of brand loyalty and more conversions.
Consider – If the goal is to build trust and nurture a long-term relationship, then you need to abandon the hard sell. It’ll turn potential customers off. Focus instead on value-led content, like FAQs, videos, and how-to guides, so they can get the most out of your product or service.
6. Retarget interested leads
How it works – Email can help you reconnect with leads who didn’t take the final step. These warm leads might not need much convincing, just a reminder of who you are and how you solve their pain points. That’s where re-engagement campaigns are useful.
Inbound connection – Retargeting is how you keep up with lapsed leads. It lets you nurture the warmest leads with regular, targeted content that leads them back towards converting.
Consider – As well as telling leads about new features they may have missed, or special offers that might entice them, emails can be automated for specific times. Following up with abandoned cart emails is a good example, or inviting them to take another look at the pricing or demo booking page if they’ve been there before.
7. Support post-purchase engagement
How it works – Email engagement doesn’t stop after a purchase. Not when you can harness upselling and cross-selling opportunities, loyalty schemes, and onboarding guides.
Inbound connection – The better targeted your post-purchase engagement is, the more likely customers are to become brand advocates. If they get value from your personalised content (thanks to the data ScoreApp gives you), then they’ll spread the word. That’ll give you ammunition for case studies and testimonials later on.
Consider – Creating onboarding sequences packed with useful tips and tricks will give you high-value content to use again and again. Deploying surveys to leads who have converted not only shows you value their input, but also yields more useful data for future insights.
Key elements to consider for effective email marketing
If you’re going to create an effective email marketing strategy, there are key elements to put in place first.
Here’s what you need to do:
- Build a quality email list – An inbound email strategy relies on targeting leads with awareness of, and a need for, your product. Use pre-qualifying questions in your ScoreApp quizzes to find high-quality leads to contact.
- Craft engaging and interesting content – If you start sending out boring and aimless content, people will stop reading. Make sure your content is written in an appealing style and that any videos are easy to digest.
- Personalise your marketing – The same data that lets you segment your leads into a strong list will tell you how to engage with them. Speak to their problems, their goals, their budgets, and more in your content, but speak to them directly. Show them you understand their issues and that you can solve them.
- Include strong CTAs – If there’s a desired action, let the reader know with a good, strong CTA. Guide them to what you want them to do by telling them how they’ll benefit.
- Optimise for mobile – Failure to optimise emails for mobile devices is a huge barrier to conversion. Mobile use is huge, so make sure everything you create can be viewed on smaller, reactive screens as well as on desktops and laptops.
Example email marketing campaigns for supporting inbound marketing
There are many ways to use emails to support inbound marketing. Rolling out different types of campaigns will net different results, but each has its place.
Here’s how to use some of the most effective email marketing campaigns.
Welcome series
A good welcome series doesn’t just introduce new customers to your business and what you’re about. With the data from your lead magnets, you can deploy personalised content to nurture a stronger relationship.
Use CTAs to tempt readers into engaging further by visiting your website or content.
Educational series
Even the leads who understand your brand and products won’t know all the ins and outs of how it works. An educational series is your chance to make sure they get the most out of their purchase or subscription. Insights and step-by-step guides will help unlock the full potential of their investment.
There’s also an opportunity to harvest more data with gated content. Put a survey or quiz in front of access to the content and your insights will be even stronger.
Promotional campaigns
Does exactly what it says on the tin. Emails that include discounts, invites to events, or access to webinars are always going to be popular and improve sales. Personalising the nature of the events and discounts to what you know about your segments will make your promotional campaigns even more popular.
Re-engagement campaigns
If your data is showing that a lead or a customer has lapsed, then a re-engagement campaign is your chance to get them back on side. Let them know you miss them, fill them in on the latest developments, or offer them a targeted incentive.
Some people just need a nudge and a reminder of why they signed up in the first place.
Customer success stories
There’s no more powerful tool in inbound marketing than word of mouth. Put simply, people trust other people more than they do marketing materials. This is where case studies and testimonials really shine, especially when you link the story with the needs of a particular segment.
Subtly show how specific problems can be sold, highlight particular uses and benefits of your service, and win leads over with your proven track record.
Improve inbound marketing results with email and ScoreApp
By now, you should be in no doubt as to how versatile and valuable email is to your inbound marketing strategy.
Used properly, email will help you reach lapsed customers, entice new leads, strengthen relationships, and increase conversions. And by using the data ScoreApp’s lead magnets bring in, you can personalise email campaigns to be even more effective, and automate them to work without manual intervention.
See how email marketing and ScoreApp can fuel a successful inbound strategy. Try ScoreApp for free today.
