Electronic Direct Mail is a great way to warm a prospect up to some great event, but warm up means warm up, not blast them with too much heat. Let me explain how to warm up your prospects.

In B2B, there are all sorts of events that we might want to warm a prospect up to using electronic direct mail or EDM. Some fairly common examples are a physical event itself or a webinar, maybe some kind of launch of a product or service that’s new for you or new for that market.

It could also be that there’s some special offer you want to make. Maybe it’s price-driven. Maybe it’s about what’s being included, whatever the case, some kind of special offer. For each of these, we need to warm the prospects up and there are some tricks to doing that in EDM.

Here are my four tips for using EDM to warm up to an event:

  1. Warm up or build to a crescendo
  2. Keep a little secret, a little something to the very end
  3. Tell them exactly what you’re doing, that you’re going to go to a crescendo and that there’ll be a special little something at the end
  4. Make your e-mails short and mobile responsive

1st tip: Warm up or build to a crescendo

Building to a crescendo is partly about timing and partly about tone. Your intent is to start from not that interested to ready to act right now. You probably want the cadence to change. It might be, for example, weekly and then, every four days and every two days and every day, for example. You work out what your own cadence is but certainly, the timing is going to get more urgent, but tell them that that’s what you’re doing. Don’t surprise them.

Also, tell them the date that they’re building up to. You don’t want to have 17 days’ worth of daily e-mails. It might be that if 17 days is your window, that you’ve got an e-mail and then four days later, another e-mail, three days later, another e-mail, three days later, another email, then two, then two, then one, then one, then one. I’m making that up. Work out your own cadence but build a timing but also tone. Make the tone of the e-mails progressively more respectful that we’re about to hit a deadline.

2nd tip: Keep a little secret, a little something to the very end

The second tip related to keeping some kind of secret for the end. It’s all about having some reason for them to stick around and to read each of your e-mails. You’re going to tell them that at the end, there’ll be some sort of special… maybe it’s a secret. Maybe it’s a special offer. You need to work out what that is and I kind of don’t care what it is. Whatever it is that’s going to work for your audience but keep some kind of secret to the very end.

3rd tip: Tell them what you’re doing

Tell them you’re going to build to a crescendo and tell them constantly that there’s going to be a little secret at the end.

4th tip: Make your emails mobile responsive

The final tip is just about getting your e-mails read. Make them short and make the mobile responsive. If somebody’s in the back of a cab flicking through their iPhone, they need to be able to read that email there and then and get it. Don’t make it so they have to get back to the office to make it legible or expand it to read it. That’s really annoying. Make your e-mails short and mobile responsive.

Remember that the event and the eDMs are just 2 tactics

The electronic direct mail or email and the event that it’s leading to are just two of the tactics that you’re going to use. You also need end-to-end tactics to find prospects and to earn the right to serve them as customers.

All those tips need to be mapped out, sales and marketing need to agree and often, finance and operations as well and that’s the job of the Funnel Plan. Now, if you have a Funnel Plan already, you know what I’m talking about. If you don’t, check it out. Go on to funnelplan.com  and get yourself a plan. Build out all the tactics with sales and finance and marketing and ops.

This is email number three in a four-part series. Now, I do my blogs every week, but I’m just focusing for a four-week period just on EDMs, Electronic Direct Mails and I’ve already covered nurture and trigger campaigns.

 

 

Our thanks, this week to:

  • Jane Tyquin  for blog production
  • John Ang  for video production
  • Hugh Macfarlane  for scripting and presenting this week’s show