The Importance of Conversions And The Power of Targeted Email Marketing

Here’s a situation we see all too often in the SEO world: some guy has dumped a few hundred bucks a month into website SEO for the better part of a year, and he’s got himself up to a hundred hits a day. That’s a big milestone for an internet entrepreneur, and he should be incredibly happy to get there. But he has a problem. He’s not making any money.

For every hundred people who land on his website, 9 of them ‘bounce’ — that is to say, they click away within 10 seconds of landing there. 91 of them stick around and read a bit of the content — but then another 90 of them leave without buying anything. 9% is a totally acceptable bounce rate — surfers are fickle that way — but a 1% conversion rate is really hard to make any money with.

So how do you rescue a failing conversion rate? One very effective method is called targeted Email marketing: the art of ‘squeezing’ an email address out of a surfer who isn’t ready to buy and then emailing them more content later on in hopes that they’ll come around and purchase your product or service. It happens in four steps: the squeeze, the flow, the drop, and the score.

The squeeze is basically an exchange — you give them something they want, usually some free information, and they give you their email address and permission to email them with commercial materials down the road.

The flow is the part during which you Email them a few times with NON-commercial content. You get them used to the idea that your Emails are full of useful content without a lot of pressure.

The drop comes the first time you put a call-to-action in an Email. At that point, some people will immediately unsubscribe — that’s normal. The ones that don’t are considering your offer. The drop is usually somewhat subdued in tone. More drops generally happen after the score.

The score comes a few emails after the drop, and it’s a high-pressure sales email designed to elicit maximum response. More people will unsubscribe in response — that’s normal too. After this point, every month or so should have a new score.

Basically at this point, you’ll have three groups of people on your list: people who aren’t reading it but can’t figure out how to unsubscribe; people who are reading it and want to buy but can’t afford it (but will someday); and people who will buy — usually multiple times — as you suggest products. That last group is your bread and butter, and is a group that your website would never have gotten a single penny from without the power of targeted Email marketing.