7 Effective Email Marketing Campaign Tips For Service Businesses
- September 27, 2018
- By: Vonigo
Email marketing can be extremely effective in the service industry. People are able to learn more about your services through your email marketing efforts. That’s why email marketing can be so effective for service businesses.
However, this is all under the condition of your emails being top quality and highly effective. If you want to improve your email marketing campaign, here are some tips that could help you.
1. A Warm Welcome Email
Once you gather a lead, you should always send a welcome email. This is easy to set up with your email management service (check out MailChimp, MailMunch, Campaign Monitor). Just create an email once and set the automation tool to send the email to every new subscriber. Many service companies do this exceptionally well by personalizing and introducing their services with clever calls to action (CTAs).
It’s good to also add some sort of personal touch if possible to start off with good practices.
2. Personalize
The personalization of your emails and your offers based on the user’s preferences is one of the best practices you can employ.
Upon subscription, ask a few questions that would help you understand the user better and occasionally send a survey while monitoring their behavior on your site and what their habits are. This will provide you with enough information to create personalized emails.
For one, use their name in your emails and sign them with a name of someone from the company instead of sending an email from the company itself. “Next, use the data you have to target your messages. Segment your mailing list and craft specific and relevant emails for each segment. This is the best way to not only grab their attention but also impress them,” explains Ned Spruill, an Email strategist at Eliteassignmenthelp and Academized.
Personalization Advice from an Expert
“If possible, add a personal component to your emails,” says Ashish Goswami, SEO Specialist at Zestard Technologies. “Most email tools empower you to enter shortcodes which will be replaced with the recipient’s name when the email is sent out. The subject line and content should be imaginative and personalized.
“Additionally, you can segment your messages to particular portions of your audience. If you have a business that works with multiple industries, consider sending out different versions of your email with each one providing information specific to each sector.”
3. Provide Social Proof
If anything, people love the social proof. It helps them make decisions based on someone else’s experience. They will believe you more if you provide them with a good social proof. Other than the obvious which is beyond your control – online review sites – you can also email them testimonials shaped like a story. It will help your customers picture what their experience with your service will be like.
“Email campaigns should start with building a relationship by adding value,” says Stacy Caprio, Founder of Growth Marketing. “Then move to a few real-life customer success stories told in a fun, transformative way, followed by a seasonally appropriate sales pitch. These seem to have a high success rate and are usually what I recommend for mobile service businesses.”4. Create Reader-Friendly Email Copy
Poorly-written email copy will get you nowhere. It will give your users the impression that you are trying to sell too hard. However, quality email copy will dramatically increase your chances of conversion without you sounding like you want to sell at all.
Here are some tools that can help you achieve this.
- Stateofwriting and ViaWriting – If you don’t have a designated copywriter and you have to do the job, it might be a good idea to get some help. These tools are a perfect solution.
- UKWritings – Editing is a tedious process that takes time. If you would rather spend your time on something more interesting, this tool can assist you with that.
- Academ Advisor – Grammar mistakes happen. The important thing is to know how to spot them and fix them. This site can help you with this.
- Boomessays and Essayroo – The format of your email is very important for the overall readability and visual appeal so using some help from tried and tested tools can be of great value.
- Mywritingway – As mentioned before, grammar mistakes are hard to spot and if you prefer a tool to do this for you, then this is the right one for you.
- Paper Fellows – Everyone knows how important subject lines are and how they can improve your email open rates. Use this tool to generate catchy and relevant subject lines.
Reader-Friendly Copy Advice from an Expert
“As a service based company, the biggest mistake we were making with our emails was using company logic as opposed to customer logic,” says Zach Hendrix, Co-founder of GreenPal (which is best described as Uber for Lawn Care). “You really need to put yourself in the mind of your customer when crafting your emails. Run your email copy by friends, and strangers. Get feedback because it’s so challenging to get out of your own skin.
“Then, split your email up into micro conversions:
- Subject- Just get the open
- Subhead- Peak their curiosity
- Header- convert that curiosity into interest
- Body – quickly point out what you re going to do for them
- CTA- Get them to the landing page
“The goal of the email is to get a click. Do not try to make or close the sale in the email.”
5. Offer Limited Time Deals
Urgency always entices people to act. If they don’t purchase now, will it still be there later? You can even promote this sense of urgency and elevate it by adding a countdown to the bottom of your email offering, letting them know when it expires. The tight deadline will encourage people to act fast.
An Example of a Limited Time Deal
“I own a handyman company and email marketing is how we keep our schedule full,” says Derek Christian of Handyman Connection, “whenever I have a last minute cancellation and cannot fill the void. We send out an email blast to all past clients and even people that have just asked for a quote letting them know we have a last-minute opening and they can book a handyman for the day for $600 instead of our regular price of $800.
“We always fill every spot and then some. The discount helps of course, but the real secret is letting them know we have a rare last-minute opening and they can get a deal but only if they book right away. This sense of urgency and getting a special deal due to a one-time circumstance is what makes this offer work so well.
6. Promote Experiences
People like to know what kind of experience they will have with your service. This is why you should focus on providing them enough information about that experience rather than the features of your service. Offer stories and videos of how that service will improve their lives.
7. Promote Loyalty Programs and Benefits
Users rarely enter a loyalty program right away. They wait to see what it really offers. This is why you should send them emails which explain in great detail all of the benefits they will receive once they become a member.
“A great strategy is to offer free discounts on your services on their birthdays, says Dai Carillo of PureB2B. “You can set up an automated campaign for this at the start of the year. You may also try creating a referral program that could earn them points or free sessions for every person that shows the unique referral code you sent your customer. Most importantly, if your service is something that your customers should attend to on a regular/seasonal basis like chimney cleaning before the winter, you should send an email to remind them to set an appointment.”
Bonus Tips for Marketers at Service Businesses
Email marketing in service businesses is very important because well-crafted emails show users how their lives could be better with your services. Follow these additional tips to achieve this.
“Use an app that manages the sending of your emails,” says Eric J. Anderson, Co-founder & Organizational Development Manager at CalculatorBuddy.com. “It is very useful to measure the results of your campaign because it will provide statistics such as how many people have opened the emails, how long they have been reading them and how many have shared them among their contacts.
“Analyze the results. This will give you a little more information to include in your emailing strategy. It can be new information content, new types of contests among your subscribers, etc. You can also put yourself in their shoes and think about what would you like to receive. For example, articles about the impact of garbage in the city and how your company helps to counteract it. Also, articles that explain how to separate garbage, how to recycle or strategies to reuse it.”
“The most important thing to remember when your mobile service business is beginning, or experienced in, email marketing campaigns, is to constantly clean your email lists to avoid ending up being marked as spam,” says Bob Clary, Director of Marketing at DevelopIntelligence. “Some tips for mobile service businesses creating email marketing campaigns is to always make your emails easily digestible. It’s important to remember that users are not going to spend minutes reading through every detail of your emails. Make sure your email content is engaging and broken up into sections.
“Another piece of advice that will not only help elevate your email marketing campaign but can have a greater overall impact is to include links to social and review platforms in the content of your email. Some users may not realize you post weekly specials on Facebook. It’s also likely that someone on your email list has used your service before, so including links to review platforms like Yelp, Google My Business, etc. can be very beneficial.”
Software for Service Businesses
Want to learn more about how to grow your company with software made specifically for mobile service businesses? Book a free, private demo of Vonigo.
Freddie Tubbs is a communication strategist at Bigassignments. He regularly takes part in marketing and communication conferences and webinars and contributes his columns to Oxessays and Australian help blogs.
