For many business owners, 2021 is all about setting the stage with a fresh perspective and determining what marketing activities you should invest in. It’s a great opportunity to learn which marketing best practices can help you stand out from the competition.
In a recent chat with industry expert Elizabeth Calzadilla of Business 411, our team talked about the value of email marketing and how it continues to be a pillar of most marketing plans in the home services industry. While so much emphasis is often placed on other types of marketing techniques such as social media, email marketing offers unique opportunities to have regular touchpoints with your customers and prospects and provide regular content that is relevant to their needs.
Why Email Marketing?
- It helps position you as a local expert and allows you to reach out and demonstrate knowledge of your trade
- Building trust among homeowners is key, as they need to feel comfortable about those they invite into their home. Your recurring communication can help develop a sense of familiarity over time.
- As a direct form of communication with your prospects, email marketing helps you get more conversations, which lead to more wins. Two-thirds of customers make purchases as a direct result of email marketing. (HubSpot)
- To get ahead of the competition in responding to a bid request, you can use email marketing to gain recognition and ensure that your prospects think of you first, when the need arises.
What Should You Write About?
- Throughout the year, maintenance tips can be very helpful. Many homeowners are not aware of what can happen without proper maintenance, and showing real life stories with pictures of problems that result of poor maintenance can be a powerful tool. By sharing tips on how homeowners can extend the life of their roof, appliance, or other high-ticket investment, you can position your business as a trusted local experts.
- Creating practical checklists for your prospects establishes expertise and builds a sense of urgency. The checklist can help owners diagnose or solve problems in simple, easy-to-follow steps and encourage them to proactively seek your services.
- You can inspire your prospects to consider upgrades to their home as a cost-saving opportunity. They may not know about possible insurance reductions or tax credits available to them or be aware of ways to reduce maintenance costs.
- Seasonal communication can include helpful information about home inspections and can help educate homeowners about how they may need to look for wear in hidden areas or damage after storms. Other seasonal content ideas may enable you to cross-sell your maintenance services, such as gutter cleaning or HVAC tune-ups.
Tips for Content
Must-Haves
- Subject lines – Include your recipient’s name if possible. Keep it short, close to 40 characters so that it’s easily readable in different devices and email systems. Include emojis and create a more personal tone.
- Personalization with city or other pertinent information – Personalized subject lines increase the likelihood of your recipient opening your message by up to 50%. (MarketingDive)
- Timing – Morning isn’t always the best time, as once thought. Consider scheduling your messages for a lunch time delivery.
- Length – Keep content short and to the point, as most people tend to skim messages and important information can easily get buried.
- Clear Call to Action – What are the next steps? How do your prospective customers get in touch with you?
What NOT to Do
- Don’t buy a large email address list and send the same message to the entire list — It will get it marked as spam!
- Don’t send generic content that doesn’t relate to your customer. Not only will they delete it, but they may also unsubscribe to your email list if they feel like your messages are clogging their inbox.
- Don’t skip proofreading and allow typos or broken links to slip through. This reflects on your professionalism and may leave your audience wondering if you miss other important details on the job.
What Makes a Good Email Campaign?
In this day and age, sending an email and hoping that someone reads it is not enough. Business analytics tools are available to measure key performance indicators and help you compare results to other email campaigns and determine what works best. There are a number of factors to measure success, but these are the most common:
- Open rate– How many people have opened your email? The average across all industries is 20.94% (Hubspot)
- Click through rate- – How many people have clicked on your content in the email? The average across all industries is 2.5% (Campaign Monitor)
- Unsubscribe rate -How many people have exited your list? The average across all industries is 0.10% (Campaign Monitor) This emphasizes the need to have relevant content and consider frequency of messages as it is appropriate for your type of audience.
How We Can Help: Signpost Newsletters
Signpost Newsletters help you stay top of mind with your current and prospective customers with little effort. They are pre-written with industry content, which saves you the time you need to run your business. The newsletters help you put your best foot forward. Your customers will learn how to maintain a happy and healthy home with your services, build trust in your expertise, and be alerted of new products, services, or maintenance programs you’d like to offer.
With just a few clicks, you can automatically create your own customized newsletter using the best practices discussed here to:
- Increase Engagement – Keep your business top of mind with existing customers and create new opportunities for them to respond.
- Share Expertise – Show homeowners how to save money and build trust among prospects.
- Boost Future Sales – Alert homeowners to new products or services, maintenance or warranty programs or other key events.
To learn more about how to create an automated email campaign for your business, request a demo today