In the current age of social media and modern technology, businesses may think that emails do not bring much to the table in terms of sales and prospecting. However, that is not true. A great number of consumers still prefer to get emails from brands about any new products or promotions. That is because these emails are a great source of information for the consumer with their targeted and relevant content.
They key to using emails as an effective marketing and prospecting tool is to understand and implement the concept of quality over quantity. The consumer of today does not want to be overwhelmed with random and irrelevant messages that do not add any value to their life. As a marketing or sales professional you need to make sure that your emails are tailored to your target audience and their needs. By sending lesser but more specific and targeted emails, you will have a better chance of converting customers.
To help you in this process of writing better and effective emails, one tool is particularly helpful – the AIDA model.
Understanding the AIDA Model
The AIDA model is a tried and tested method that has been used by salespeople to guide and convince customers through a purchase decision successfully. This model consists of four steps in which you not only engage but involve the customer with the message you are promoting.
The AIDA acronym stands for attention, interest, desire, and action. The basis of the model is that the first step of effectively marketing a product or message is to attract the attention of the consumer towards it. This is done to make the message tempting and hold the consumers’ interest. After the exposure to the message and its content, the consumers develop a desire for the product or service you are trying to sell to them. When all goes well and consumers are convinced, they take action and purchase the product or service you are offering.
Crafting Emails According to the AIDA Model
When you are doing customer outreach, creating an effective email text copy is part of the process. The four steps identified in the AIDA model target specific email elements that can help you scale effectively.
· Attention
One of the first things that people notice in an email is its subject line. Even though it’s a short line, the impact that it can have on the reader is immense. Depending upon how well you form and structure your subject line, your email campaign’s success can be determined. According to statistics, 47% of recipients open emails based on the subject line.
Make sure that you are able to get the attention of the recipient with your subject line. Having a concise and targeted copy of your subject line can do wonders for your email campaign. There are multiple ways you can use to get the desired effect and engage the email recipient.
o Create a sense of urgency through words like important, urgent, only now etc. This makes people feel like they are going to miss out if they do not hurry to buy the product or service.
o Make the content and offer that is relevant to the email recipient. Focus on their interests, needs, habits or geographic requirements.
o Do not follow the same old and rusty copy that you may have sent to other recipients. People prefer a brand when their message and offer is personalized because they can connect to it.
o Engage the recipient with a question or statement that alludes to something interesting to improve your open rate.
o Do not make your subject line so that your email automatically gets shifted to the spam folder. But at the same time do not be afraid to highlight your offer in the subject line by using words like promo, free or limited time.
· Interest
Once you have hooked them with your subject line, the next step is to reel in their interest so that they do not feel like their time was wasted. Engaging them with an interesting and informative opening paragraph can make them resonate with the message you are promoting.
Have you considered telling stories in your email campaigns? Storytelling is an effective tool because of how it emotionally engages the recipient. Reading a story that they can relate to can have a positive impact on their attitude towards your message. Humor is one of the greatest skills that one can have when working in the marketing and sales industries. People tend to remember things that made them smile.
Another technique that you can utilize is using facts that support your message and makes the email recipient perceive you as credible. Having the facts support the pain points that your product or service addresses of the target market can greatly influence its effectiveness.
· Desire
This part of the email is focused on persuading the recipient to develop a desire for the product or service that you are offering. The way you phrase your questions and statements can either help deliver your message or turn the potential prospect away. The purpose of the body of the email is to explain to the prospect how your offer can add value to their daily lives. Try to create your email in a way that you address the pain points of the prospect and provide a possible solution to their problem.
Do not flaunt what you have but rather how the prospect will benefit off of your offer.
For example: If you are selling a software that allows for document sharing and storing on one platform you may say, ‘Tired of having your documents scattered all over the place? Incorporate the software in your daily life to experience the ease of having a centralized platform for sharing and storing documents”.
· Action
A core part of any prospecting email is the call-to-action.
The CTA tell the recipient what they have to do to avail the offer and what you want them to do. The key to having an effective call-to-action copy is to keep it as simple and concise as possible. Adding a CTA button to aid the action part of the campaign is even better! Highlighting the CTA button in a different color or any other element to distinguish it from the rest of the text is helpful.
The rule of thumb is to keep the CTA statement under five words. Any longer and it may seem like you are trying too hard or overwhelming the recipient. To get the perfect CTA for your email, try out different versions and keep an eye on the analytics to see what works best for you.
For example: ‘Call now’, ‘start your trial’, ‘join our newsletter now’ etc. are all examples of CTA.
Conclusion
If you are stuck on trying to understand how to best formulate an email that improves the quality of your sales prospecting, the AIDA model is a great place to start. By following the general pattern and customizing it to your needs you can use it to strengthen your email campaign in an effective way.
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