5 Proven Lead Generation Strategies For Your Email Newsletter

Are Email Newsletters Still Effective in 2023?

After a year of hesitation, your best friend finally gathered the courage to start his own business this year.

He wants to know the best way to gain leads and clients. Since he knows you are a seasoned business owner, he asks for your advice. What would you recommend to him?

Ryan Holiday asked bestselling author Robert Greene a similar question back in 2009 when he worked as Greene’s research assistant. Ryan wanted to start his writing business but wasn’t sure where he should begin.

Greene, who had sold more than 5 Million books by that time, suggested Ryan should start creating an email list.

After 14 years, Ryan has written more than 12 books, sold more than 10 million copies, and has the biggest email newsletter on stoic philosophy.

Ryan Holiday has used email newsletters to promote more than just his books. He has worked directly with other prominent authors such as Tony Robbins, Tim Ferris, James Clear, Josh Kaufman, and Mark Manson.

Ryan Holiday's businesses have been all created around email newsletters, and he continues doing so because he knows that the email newsletter is the best way to get leads.

If your best friend (or you) wants to gain more leads this 2023, an email newsletter is the best way to get them. This blog will teach you five proven strategies for generating leads through email marketing that will help grow your business like never before.

Playing to Win

"The two most fundamental strategic choices are deciding where to play and how to win," says Roger Martin, author of Playing to Win.

Generating leads is essential for any business. Identifying your target market is the equivalent of "deciding where to play." How to reach that market is "how to win." Once you know your target market, you can focus your email newsletter efforts on reaching them and playing to win, not just participating.

Milk Road is a fantastic example of playing to win.

Its founder, Shaan Puri said: "When you see people making a lot of money in things, it's natural to be curious. We're helping to keep up in a way that you're gonna understand. Our target customer is not someone trying to make money fast, but is interested in the technological implications. We want them to be asking what is the right way to invest and to make their way in this space."

That is a very clear way to define where to play and how to win for a business.

"True strategy is about placing bets and making hard choices. The objective is not to eliminate risk, but to increase the odds of success," Roger Martin continues. Understand who your target market is and how to reach them. Then you will be playing to win at lead generation.

Value, Value, and More Value

Everyone talks about value as if it is the magic pill. But what is “value”? How do you know you are providing valuable content for your audience? Valuable content is the kind of content that will solve a problem or help your readers achieve their goals.

Your content should be relevant, informative, and interesting enough to keep them engaged. You need to know what drives people and how you can use that when creating content. The idea is to give value that brings improvement–not to crowd the space with more noise.

Focus on creating content that is concise and easy to read. Readers should understand what you're trying to say in seconds. Break it into easily digestible chunks, and use clear and concise language.

Finally, understand that you will figure out what content is the best for your audience after–not before–you have sent it. Keep track of what works and what doesn't, and make changes as needed. Test and tweak your content until it's performing as well as possible. A/B testing can help you determine which versions of your content generate the most conversion.

If you are sharing valuable content with your audience, you'll be able to connect with them on a deeper level and convert them into leads.

Segment Your List

One of the best ways to generate leads through email newsletters is by segmenting your list into targeted groups. This step is one of those things that separate the experts from the amateurs. Beginners think they should send every email to their audience. What an error!

Segmenting your messages will allow you to send relevant content to each group, increasing the chances of converting readers into customers. Knowing to whom you're talking helps you craft content more likely to resonate with them. You can also use this information to adjust your tone and style to ensure you're coming across in the most effective way possible.

For example, if you have a pet store, you should segment your list by type of pet. You could also segment your list by interests or demographics, such as age or location. Following the pet store example, you'll be able to send specific content about dog food to people who have dogs, and not to people who have cats or birds.

One of the biggest mistakes some business owners make is to purchase an email list from others. It may seem a logical shortcut, but those email lists are usually full of fake profiles or random demographics.

Imagine you purchase a list of 100,000 emails to send a cold email introducing the cure for cancer. Your product may be one of the most wanted and important discoveries of our times–but if it goes to a bunch of high school kids, it will be ignored and marked as spam, getting you in trouble with Google and other email providers.

This is very important to be aware of, as it’s difficult to rebuild domain authority once your email has been tainted by sending mass emails. If you’re concerned about email deliverability, check out our blogs on how to avoid hitting your customers’ spam folders and how to hit Primary Inbox.

Use Engaging Subject Lines

The best way to ensure your email stands out in a crowded inbox and generates more leads is to have an engaging subject line. According to a study by MailChimp, emails with interesting subject lines are 22% more likely to be opened than those without them. And once your recipient has opened your email, you want to make sure the content inside is just as good.

So how can you write an engaging subject line that generates more leads? There are a few things to keep in mind:

Create Curiosity

Intrigue the reader to know more about the message through the subject line. It should present enough information that the reader can speculate on what it is about while leaving them wanting more. This will inspire them to click through and read your message further.

The best subject lines are specific yet brief, delivering a clear purpose in as few words as possible. Crafting an intriguing email subject line takes practice and experimentation; however, with effort, you can develop an attention-grabbing headline that encourages readers to open your messages.

Forget About Clickbait

When crafting subject lines for email newsletters, it is essential to remember the importance of accuracy. Selecting words that accurately describe the content within the email can be beneficial in ensuring that readers have accurate expectations about what they will find inside.

Avoid using clickbait tactics such as exaggerating or sensationalizing claims; instead, opt for concise and honest language to provide an accurate description of the content. Doing so can help foster a trusting relationship between you and your reader and increase engagement with future emails. Furthermore, it may boost open rates by having subject lines that adhere more closely to their actual content. Thus, when writing subject lines for emails, accuracy should precede clickbait attempts.

Talk To The Reader's Interests

When crafting a subject line for an email newsletter, it is essential to keep in mind the self-interest of the targeted readers. People prefer solutions to problems and look to capitalize on desired outcomes. A compelling subject line should address these needs and speak clearly to the reader. To create an engaging message, consider what your target audience wants, and craft a brief but impactful sentence that conveys this sentiment. Doing this will ensure that you generate more leads.

We have created an article with 100 effective subject line ideas to boost your creativity, open rates, and lead generation. Following these tips ensures that your email stands out from the crowd, generates more leads, and closes more deals.

Use Effective Calls to Action

In email newsletters, people often forget the importance of calls to action (CTAs). A CTA is a phrase or sentence that encourages readers to take a specific action, such as clicking on a link, subscribing to the paid newsletter, or making a purchase. CTAs are important because they help convert readers into customers or subscribers.

This is the number one reason some email newsletters struggle to generate leads. They may have good content, talk to the customer's interests, and have engaging subject lines, but they lack compelling CTAs to convert readers into leads.

There are a few things you can do to make sure your CTAs are effective:

• Make your CTA buttons stand out. Use solid colors and make them big enough, so they're easy to see.

• Make your CTA text clear and concise. Avoid using jargon or complex language that might confuse people.

• Include multiple CTAs throughout your content. Try to include at least one CTA near the beginning and one near the end. Make sure to put one CTA at the very end of your content.

• Test different CTAs to see which ones work best for your audience. Keep track of how many people click on each CTA, and use the ones that get the best results.

The most important thing is to be clear about what you want people to do. If your CTA is too vague or confusing, people might not know what to do next. Be sure to explain what you want people to do in plain English, and make it easy for them to follow your instructions.

Your call to action (CTA) is what encourages readers to take action, so make sure it's straightforward and easy to follow. You want to make it as easy as possible for people to do what you want them to do!

Recap

You will generate more leads with your email newsletters by following these five proven strategies. As a bonus, here is how beehiiv can help you to execute those strategies:

• Playing to Win: With beehiiv you can play to win by understanding exactly who your readers are, where they came from, what they’re interested in, how they engage with your content, and more.

• Value, Value, and More Value: We help you to understand the growth, acquisition channels, engagement, and performance of your publication.

• Segment Your List: With beehiiv you own your audience end-to-end. Create content exclusively for different subscriber tiers and segments. We'll handle user authentication, paywalls, subscription management, billing, and more.

• Use Engaging Subject Lines: We'll make sure your newsletters arrive in your reader's inboxes so you don't have to worry.

• Use effective calls to action: We make it easy to generate the pieces needed to create an inline CTA for your content.

Make sure you sign up right now to beehiiv and start to generate more leads today with your email newsletter.