How to Turn Your Personal Emails into a Lead Generation Channel
People send dozens of emails every day. Even though most of them don’t go outside a single company, any employee could, and probably is, sending some messages to potential customers.
So, why not use every opportunity your colleagues have to promote your company, product, exclusive deals, pretty much anything?
As a marketer, you could, of course, try and tell all your colleagues to mention your offers in every email they send. But would it be a great idea to spam the recipients with things they might not want to learn yet?
Let’s take a look at a more native and convenient way to promote your marketing offers in employees’ emails. This would be using email signature software.
What is an email signature?
An email signature is everything that goes after the “Best regards” part. Originally it was just the sender’s name, but as it turns out, you can transform it into a much more informational thing.
Signature photo
Nobody likes receiving a message from “Support” or “Info”. Personalization is actually key to getting clicks and replies in your emails. People need to see a human face to treat an email as something important and aimed towards mutual benefits.
So, adding your professional photo to an email signature can help any team member generate more leads.
PRO TIP: if you want to save the friendliness of “Best regards, John”, you can add a draw signature to your email footer.
All contact information. Or not
There are a few things that any email signature SHOULD contain. These include your name and position, at least two ways of contacting you (i.g. email address and phone number), your website.
You might want to add more stuff, and it’s completely up to you. However, make sure your signature has no more than five contact info fields.
Relevant social media icons
The more people see your brand, the more chances you have at converting them into customers. So, sharing links to your corporate social media accounts means sharing opportunities for people to see your brand.
An email signature is arguably the best place to add social icons. It’s only obvious they should be there.
Make sure you have only relevant social media listed in a signature, though. Adding a personal Instagram profile to a corporate signature is irrelevant. Also, share up to five icons but not more. Otherwise, your signature will be oversaturated.
Marketing calls-to-action
You can create distinct messages in your email signatures that will lead recipients to convert through a certain action. Adding a CTA button to a signature, think of what you want your future customers to do or how can they go to a buying decision the fastest.
For example, if you have to explain how your software works in order to make people buy it, add a demo CTA button at the bottom of your signature.
Banner campaigns
An email signature is more than just some personal info. Nowadays, people use them as marketing messages and run whole advertising campaigns through them.
You can create and upload any kind of banner to your signature. Unlike other elements in a signature, banners can update regularly, changing one another every month, week, or even day.
So, with banners, you turn your email signature into an ad platform. Much like Facebook Ads or similar. You can test different creatives (banner designs), variate messaging, change what kind of banner you send to whom. All of it requires some time and marketing skills. In turn, you get a practically free tool to promote your offers to email subscribers.
In addition to banner campaigns, there is analytics.
Email signature management and metrics
Talking about that lead generation, a single email signature works perfectly for a personal brand.
BUT does it make that much difference for a big company? Hardly.
If you want to promote and advertise your company’s marketing offers, you should update all employees’ signatures. The trick is creating similar, branded email footers that share the same style.
Every email your colleagues send can contain a marketing message. Even if it’s just a webinar follow-up.
Email signature software like Newoldstamp or MySignature allows creating multiple email signatures inside a single account in a few clicks. You get a department-based dashboard where all the employees’ signatures are stored.
Analytics
Similar to emails, your signatures bring results in impressions and clicks. So, tracking the amount of clicks your logo, banner, or social media icons got is really important.
You can even run A/B tests according to signatures’ performance. Or see which department is getting the most engagement in email communication.
Email signatures that drive conversions
So, in order to make sure your signatures do generate leads, you can follow some failure-proof patterns.
Newsletters
In a newsletter, there’s always some CTA link or button. Whether you share a blog post or want to tell people about new features you developed, the goal is almost similar. Getting recipients to visit your website to take a closer look.
An email signature (its banner in particular) can have the same CTA your newsletter has. For instance, when you send an email about a new case study, do link it in a signature as well. You just increase click chances two times while not being too pushy. It’s just a signature, after all.
Regular emails
From time to time, you and your colleagues send personal (or nearly personal) emails. They might not aim at converting a lead at all. But the beauty of email signature marketing can turn even these regular emails into a lead magnet.
I.g., let your banner contain a link to your website with your unique offer. Once again, you won’t look pushy as an email signature is a part of email settings. So, people can’t blame you for what you put there.
Events follow-ups
An event follow-up is often aimed at lead conversion. And even if it’s not, you still can get a few more website visitors or demo schedules with an email signature.
Conclusion
In general, your and your colleagues’ email signatures are a necessary element of communication. It’s pure etiquette adding some contact info at the end of an email.
And adding a promotional message to signatures does not look promotional at all. Use this paradox to get new leads, even from personal emails.
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