Email Persuasion

1. Email marketing is the most powerful tool for building client relationships

Email is, without doubt, the most powerful marketing tool available in business today.

Unparalleled ROI. Email marketing offers the highest return on investment of any marketing channel, with studies showing a 41 to 1 return. This effectiveness stems from email's ubiquity and personal nature. Unlike social media, email is universally used in business, with people spending an average of 2.5 hours daily on work-related emails.

Personal connection. Emails land in personal inboxes alongside messages from friends and colleagues, creating a sense of intimacy. This allows for targeted, personalized communication that feels more direct and relevant than broad social media posts or website content.

Scalable follow-up. Email enables consistent, scalable follow-up with potential clients, which is crucial in nurturing leads and closing sales. It allows businesses to maintain contact with thousands of prospects simultaneously, providing valuable content and building trust over time.

2. Deep client understanding is the foundation for effective email marketing

Developing a detailed client persona and building deep understanding of your ideal clients is the critical foundation for all effective email marketing.

Create ideal client personas. Develop detailed profiles of your target clients, including their demographics, goals, challenges, and aspirations. This deep understanding allows you to craft emails that resonate with their specific needs and desires.

Customer Insight Mapping. Use a structured process to extract actionable insights about your clients:

• Basic facts and demographics
• External targets and pressures
• Internal goals and aspirations
• Personal challenges and problems
• What they need to know and feel to be ready to buy

Tailor communication. Use these insights to shape your email content, tone, and offers. Address the specific problems and goals that matter most to your ideal clients, using language and examples that will resonate with them.

3. Create a compelling opt-in offer to quickly build a valuable subscriber list

The key in my experience is to focus on the quality of visitors to your site – not just the quantity.

Opt-in Formula. To maximize subscriptions, focus on four key factors:

• Value: Perceived long-term value of your emails
• Incentive: Attractive short-term offer (e.g., free report, video)
• Friction: Minimize obstacles to signing up
• Risk: Reduce perceived risk of subscribing

Create a lead magnet. Develop a free resource that addresses an urgent problem your ideal clients face. Make it easy to consume (e.g., short report, video) and clearly communicate its value.

Optimize opt-in forms. Place opt-in forms strategically on your website, use compelling headlines, and minimize required fields. Consider using pop-ups or welcome gates to increase visibility, but balance this with user experience.

4. Craft emails that get opened, read, and acted upon

The biggest factor, in my experience, in whether a subscriber will open your email or not is nothing to do with the email itself, it's who the email is sent from.

Build sender reputation. Consistently deliver high-value content to establish trust and make your name one that subscribers eagerly open.

Craft compelling subject lines. Use the formula: Interest = Benefits + Curiosity. Highlight the value subscribers will get and pique their curiosity to encourage opens.

Subject line techniques:

• Use numbers and specific claims
• Ask intriguing questions
• Invoke emotions
• Link to unexpected topics or current events

Optimize for mobile. Ensure your emails are easily readable on mobile devices, with short paragraphs and plenty of white space.

5. Write engaging emails that build trust and encourage action

Engagement with your email subscribers is where: They believe they have a relationship with you over and above just being recipients of your emails. They trust you and they believe in the value of what you do.

Establish a clear persona. Develop a distinct character for your emails that aligns with your strengths and resonates with your ideal clients.

Write conversationally. Use a friendly, informal tone as if you're chatting with a client over coffee. Avoid corporate jargon and overly formal language.

Tell stories. Use personal anecdotes, client case studies, and analogies to illustrate your points and make your emails more engaging and memorable.

Encourage interaction. Regularly ask subscribers to take small actions, such as replying to questions, completing surveys, or sharing content. This builds a habit of engagement that can lead to bigger actions later.

6. Convert engaged subscribers into paying clients through strategic campaigns

Emailing without permission like this actually damages your relationships. It shows you don't really think or care about them. You just see them as yet another name to add to a list and maybe try to sell something to.

Address "know and feel" factors. Weave stories and examples into your emails that demonstrate your expertise, experience, and understanding of your clients' needs.

Gradual promotion. If emailing frequently, spread your sales message across multiple emails rather than cramming everything into one pitch.

Logical next steps. Position your offers as natural solutions to the problems or goals discussed in your emails.

Use campaigns. Create focused email sequences (1-4 weeks) that build towards a specific goal, such as promoting a product or securing a consultation call.

7. Use autoresponders to put your email marketing on autopilot

Autoresponders can be "storyboarded" rather like a film with each email building to achieve an overall goal.

Benefits of autoresponders:

• Ensure new subscribers receive your best content
• Tailor messages based on subscriber's stage in relationship
• Automate follow-up and nurturing

Planning autoresponder sequences:

1. Define overall goal (e.g., encourage product purchase, book consultation)
2. List relevant topics from customer insight map
3. Audit existing resources (blog posts, videos, etc.)
4. Sequence topics logically
5. Create individual emails with calls-to-action

Mix autoresponders and broadcasts. Use pre-programmed sequences for core content and relationship building, supplemented with timely broadcast emails for current events and promotions.

8. Tailor your emails through list segmentation for maximum impact

List segmentation is a technique for splitting your subscribers into groups and emailing different things to each group.

Segment based on interest. Use subscriber behavior (e.g., link clicks, page visits) or explicit preferences to identify topics of interest and send more relevant content.

Adjust for engagement level. Send different sequences to highly engaged subscribers versus those who rarely open emails.

Increase response rates. Target emails based on geographic location, past purchases, or recent website activity to improve relevance and conversions.

Gather data gradually. Start with basic information (name, email) and collect additional data through surveys, resource downloads, or purchases over time.

9. Apply persuasion principles to enhance email effectiveness

By far the most effective way to persuade someone to do something is not to try to convince them that they want to do that thing. It's to understand what they already want, and then show them how they can get it by doing that something.

Cialdini's 6 Principles of Persuasion:

1. Reciprocity: Offer unexpected bonuses to encourage reciprocal actions
2. Social Proof: Share testimonials and success stories from similar clients
3. Commitment and Consistency: Start with small commitments to encourage larger actions
4. Liking: Share personal stories and be genuinely helpful
5. Authority: Establish credibility through valuable content and subtle mentions of achievements
6. Scarcity: Use genuine scarcity (e.g., limited time offers) when applicable

Focus on existing motivations. Understand what your clients truly want and position your offers as means to achieve those goals.

10. Measure and test your email marketing for continuous improvement

The ultimate measure of your email success is whether or not you achieve the end results you're looking for. For most people that will be sales.

Key metrics to track:

• Total sales attributable to email
• Number of subscribers
• Average sales per subscriber
• Number of buyers
• Sales per buyer

Build an email marketing dashboard. Track these metrics monthly to identify trends and areas for improvement.

Test and optimize. Regularly test different elements of your emails:

• Subject lines
• Email content and format
• Calls-to-action
• Send times and frequencies

Focus on outcomes. While open rates and click-through rates provide useful information, prioritize metrics that directly impact your business goals, such as sales or lead generation.

Last updated: April 19, 2025