Email is an effective way of growing your sales by enabling you to communicate on a regular basis with your clients, highlight your expertise, services, and encourage people to reach out to you.
See the included email templates you can use to promote your product or service.
Large percentages of your existing customers and prospects will check their emails on a daily basis, so email is a way to get your message in front of the right person. It’s also cost-effective, because it’s cheaper than traditional advertising. In fact, with a little time on your part, you can reach a large number of people with one or two emails.
Promotional emails are a good way to remind people about what you do, alert them to new products or services, and spread the word about special offers. You can also use them to reach out to people who haven’t come into your office in a while.
Of course, before you can start sending out emails, you need people to send to. Then you need to decide what you’ll write about and how to write it.
In this guide, we’ll cover getting people to sign up for your emails, what to write about, and how to write for your clients.
When your email list is small it’s smart to grow your list through personal contacts. Begin with the obvious: ask friends, family and business contacts to sign up. Let your clients know as well. Everyone has a pool of people who might be happy to learn about your business. All you have to do is remember to ask if they want to receive your emails or newsletters, or if they know of anyone who could benefit from your content.
Put a note by your phone or computer with a couple of sentences so you don’t have to think about asking each time. After you’ve worked through your personal and business contacts, it’s time to get creative.
If you have social media, periodically post about the benefits of your newsletter, with a link people can visit to register.
Using lead generators such as case studies, white papers, or guides where people share their email address with you in exchange for accessing the document, can also be an effective way to grow your email list.
Now that you have some addresses, you can send out emails.
Typically, you want a friendly but professional tone. Although you are a professional service, you generally want to be relatable to your clients. Follow these tips to improve your tone when writing emails or any other business communications.
Tone reflects your attitude toward your reader, so you’ll use a different tone depending on who you’re writing for. An email to a small business retailer will likely have a different tone than an email to a large corporate client.
Your relationship and your purpose will help you decide on your word choices. Less of a relationship with the reader might require a formal and serious tone, while a more personal relationship might be more relaxed and fun.
An active voice will also bring your reader right to the point. Taking care to always use courteous language will keep them on side.
Drafting a style guide will help make your company’s “tone rules” clear to staff, help build greater brand recognition with a consistent voice, and help you avoid the wrong tone in your communications.
Start by defining your tone. Is it casual and fun, formal and serious – or a bit quirky? Come up with five words that describe the tone of your brand. Then make a list of words that you like and those you absolutely don’t want used. You might prefer the word “firm” to “practice” when describing your accounting business. If that’s the case, make sure anyone who writes for your business knows this.
To illustrate exactly what you’re aiming for with tone, include sample text in your guide – perhaps some of your company’s collateral or examples of marketing emails that you’d like your business to emulate. Don’t be afraid to research how other companies write and see how you react. If you like their tone and think it would be effective for you, pay attention to the words they use and their style. Use that when you write your content. Sending out a promotional email with a product or service to promote, ensures you make the best of your audience’s time. You want to promote something that is relevant to your customers, is timely (it’s currently available), and is something your clients would want to know more about. You might be writing to move leads further along the marketing funnel, people to sign up for your webinar on improving cash flow. Or you may want to engage dormant clients. Maybe you want to let prospects know about the benefits of using Xero’s cloud accounting software. Whatever your objective, you need to know it so you can better craft your message, determine your positioning and engage your audience. When you write, it’s important to know which segment of your audience you’re writing for. Your message may not appeal to everyone on your email list, so it’s a good idea to segment your list based on certain attributes such as the industry they work in, their business size, or the services you provide them. For example, if you’re informing people about your accounting services, how you’ll write to people who have worked with you for years is different from how you’ll write for people who just learned about you. Target your message for each segment to best engage them. Don’t get caught up in overexplaining what you do, as your readers want to know how your services will benefit them. Writing that you help them do their finances at tax time doesn’t showcase your value. Instead, your value might be that you save them the time and headache of sorting out their own taxes. Perhaps your planning and strategies help them save money for retirement, giving them peace of mind. Your promotional email should clearly showcase why your product or service is of value to your reader, and why they should contact you. People like emails from people; they tend to disregard emails from companies. When you send your promotional email, send it from your name, and make sure you have an attractive and professional signature line to close the email. Your signature line includes your name, your role in the company, company contact information and social media links. The subject line you use is a strong determiner of whether your email is opened or not. Include the promotion in the subject line, keeping it as short as possible while still being intriguing enough for them to open it. Avoid spam filters by leaving words such as “free” or “100% free” out of the subject line. Consider timely subject lines, such as “Tax time is coming, are you prepared?” or “5 ways we help you prepare financially for retirement.” Readers see three areas of information in their inbox that help them determine whether to read your email. They see the sender name, the subject line and the preview line, and a few words to describe the email’s purpose. This text can be written identically in the promotional email, or you can write something separate to make your email stand out. Write something short and compelling that clarifies your purpose for emailing. Your call to action tells the reader what steps you want them to take when they’ve read your email. Do you want them to book an online appointment? Do you want them to call you? Do you want them to visit a page on your website for more information? This is linked to your overall objective. Based on your objective, determine what steps you want the reader to take next and make sure you tell them that in the email. If your readers don’t know what to do next, they won’t do anything. Your call to action doesn’t have to be long or wordy. It can be a button in the email that states “Book a consultation now” or “Request a demo” and links to your online scheduler. Remember that your email is competing against many other marketing messages that people receive every day. The challenge is to make your email something they look forward to. People tend to switch off pretty quickly if they sense just another sales pitch. Keep your promotional emails short and punchy, with lots of subheads and bullet points to aid readers in finding the information and facts that interest them. Don’t force them to wade through a lot of text to determine what you’re selling. The main rule here is to email promotional emails when you have something to promote. Don’t block up your clients’ inbox with a bunch of irrelevant or unnecessary emails. The important consideration is to make sure your readers look forward to your emails rather than regarding them as humdrum or spam (unsolicited commercial emails). The last thing you want is for them to click on the Delete button without reading the email. People hate spam and will do anything to avoid getting inundated by it, so to encourage a higher sign-up rate, make sure you reassure potential subscribers that you will never sell or disclose their details to any third party. Make sure to follow any regulations regarding who you can send emails to, and how to get their permission. The only way to know whether your promotional emails are working is to review the results. Analytics can tell you how many people opened your email, as well as whether they followed any links included in the emails. If your call to action includes having people phone to book an appointment, include a line in the email asking them to mention the email, so you can track how many people called you after reading the email. If the first emails don’t generate the results you want, don’t worry. It could be that you need to adjust slightly, such as sending the emails at a different time or on a different day, or you need to revise your writing a bit. Use analytics to determine where in the process people are dropping off. If people aren’t even opening the email, you might be triggering a spam filter or you might need better subject lines. Be open to adjusting the process to determine what works best for your clients. Use these email templates to get started with email marketing. Email marketing is an important tool in your marketing strategy. It enables you to reach out personally to clients and leads, target your messaging, and connect with a larger number of people at a lower cost.
Decide what you’re promoting
Determine why you’re promoting this product or service
Write for a targeted audience
How to effectively promote your product or service
Focus on the value
Send your emails from a person
Write a compelling subject line
Remember your preview line
Include a strong call to action
Important tips for a successful promotional email
Keep the sales part low-key
Short and sweet is better
How often to email customers
Privacy Policy
Review the results
Related resources
Final thoughts