How to Close the Deal
While the nurture campaign is focused on adding value and building trust, the sales campaign will focus on closing the deal.
Creating an email sales campaign is your opportunity to share the full story of how your product is going to help solve your customers’ problems and actually ask them to buy it.
An email sales campaign is not about being shy, it’s about challenging your customers to take a step in solving their problems. Today.
GIVE THE CUSTOMER SOMETHING TO ACCEPT OR REJECT
The idea behind an email sales campaign is to give customers something to accept or reject. Remember, the relationship you have been cultivating all along is a friendly, kind, helpful business relationship. And business relationships are transactional.
If you fear asking people for money in exchange for your product or service, you do not believe in your product or service. You do not believe it will solve your customers’ problems, resolve their pain, or improve their lives. If that’s the case, find a new product. But if you truly have medicine that will take away people’s pain or problem, sell it to them! It’s the right thing to do.
Many people use passive-aggressive tactics to sell their products. They mention that they have products, but they never say “Why don’t you pick one up today?” or “How many would you like to order?”
The customer translates passive-aggressive sales techniques as weak. It’s not unlike back when I was dating. If I kept mentioning to a girl that she looked nice today or that I liked her taste in music or that we were reading the same book without, at some point saying, “can I take you on a date sometime. I’d love to keep talking,” the relationship could have gotten creepy. People want to know what you want and where this relationship is going. People want something to accept or reject.
It’s true that if you ask for a commitment too soon, it gets weird. But at this point in the relationship you’ve built with your customers, you can ask for a commitment. I give you permission.
NOT EVERYBODY IS WILLING TO COMMIT
Another thing to remember is that a sales campaign doesn’t convert everybody. Most people will still not make a purchase. But that’s okay. You’ve been respectful of their time and earned the right to be heard and nobody is going to fault you for asking for a commitment. By putting yourself out there and asking for the sale, you are going to be rejected quite a bit. But you are also going to be taken up on your offer. There is a name for businesspeople who fear rejection. We call them broke.
WHICH COMES FIRST, THE NURTURE CAMPAIGN OR THE SALES CAMPAIGN
We recommend starting with the sales campaign and letting it run for about a week. Then we want you to put people into your nurture campaign so you can stay in the relationship.
If you’re wondering why we start with sales without earning the right to be heard, don’t forget we’ve already earned that right with the one-liner, website, and lead generator. It’s time to ask for the sale. And if the customer does not make a purchase, we will stay in the relationship with our nurture campaign, so they remember us when they’re ready to make a commitment.
Often, we recommend creating the email nurturing sequence first and then inserting a sales email campaign later. Why? Because most companies will grow even if they don’t have a sales email campaign. A nurture campaign is truly that powerful. But make no mistake, a sales email campaign works. We’ve seen customers doing terrific only with great websites, lead generators, and nurture campaigns double their sales once they inserted a sales campaign.
You are going to love this valuable tool.
Here are a few things to keep in mind when it comes to creating a sales campaign:
1. Determine which product you’re selling. A sales campaign, unlike a nurture campaign, works best when it’s focused on selling a single product. You can create multiple campaigns for multiple offerings, but don’t confuse your customers by offering multiple products in the same campaign or by trying to sell multiple products at once.
2. Identify the problem this product solves. I know, I know. I keep saying this. But I keep saying it because so many people forget. If you were writing a screenplay, I’d bark the same reminder. Every story, every scene, every character only makes sense when there’s a problem to be solved. The same goes for your sales campaign. Your sales campaign is not just selling a product: it’s designed to solve a problem, and the product is the tool people are going to use to solve the problem. Your product gets to shine only if it helps the customer overcome a problem or defeat a villain. If you forget the problem, the product makes no sense. Decide what specific problem this sales campaign is going to help people solve and talk about it over and over and over and over again inside those emails.
3. Turn the entire email into a call to action. Nurture emails contain calls to action, and so they do a pretty good job selling. But sales emails are different. While a nurture email is trying to add value by solving a problem and then adding a call to action at the end, a sales email is going to make the call to action its primary focus. It’s the point of the email. Every word, every sentence, and every paragraph must serve one purpose: to challenge customers to place an order. It is not good enough to ask them to place the order. In a sales context, polite requests sound weak and make you look like you don’t really believe in your product. In a sales email, you are going to strongly encourage your customers to place an order.
4. Give them a short window in which to buy. You don’t have to create a limited-time offer with every email, but if you can, you should. Tell the customer their opportunity to buy or to receive a bonus is going away. You’ll notice in most movies the hero is up against a deadline. The fact of expiring time is forcing the action. If it works in movies, it will work in your marketing campaign. When clients know they don’t have forever to make a choice, they’re more likely to act. Unlike a nurture sequence, you don’t want your sales sequence to be long or open ended. Create a sense of urgency and you’ll get better results.
LET’S CREATE THE CAMPAIGN
Writing a good sales sequence is more art than science, but there are formulas that will make your first attempt more successful. As you get better and better at creating sales emails, you’ll be able to mix and match some of these ideas, but starting with a template or two won’t hurt. I’ve been writing these emails on behalf of clients for a long, long time and sometimes I still come back to these formulas.
With that, here is an easy first sales sequence you can create:
• Email #1: Deliver the asset (“here’s how to use it”). Likely, your first email will deliver whatever content/lead generator you promised when they signed up with their email address. This email should be nice and short and shouldn’t sell anything. Just deliver the free content you promised. The only thing you should add is your one-liner, so your potential customers are reminded, once again, why you exist and what problem you solve. After thanking them for downloading the asset and including your one-liner, let’s give them a day or two to enjoy the read. We’ll wake them up soon enough.
• Email #2: Problem + solution. In the second email, perhaps sent a few days later, you’ll want to identify the problem you’re going to solve for the customers. Once you identify the problem, acknowledge and empathize with their pain. Then introduce your product or service as the solution that is going to resolve that exact pain point. While you’ll definitely be selling the product at this point, don’t expect them to place an order. Often it’s the third, fourth, or fifth email that closes the deal. But in this email we’re definitely letting them know we’re going to pitch them. Don’t forget, you want to give the customer something to accept or reject and that’s what we’re doing here.
• Email #3: Customer testimonial. If successful, your last email made your potential customers want what you’re offering. But they don’t want to make an impulse buy. One of the feelings they may have is that they’re going to be played for a fool. Of course, we know they aren’t, but we need to help them understand they’re safe. One of the ways we feel safe is if there are more people involved. That’s one of the reasons customer testimonials are so important. Find someone who has experienced success with your product or service, and capture that experience in writing. Remember to keep the testimonial short and full of soundbites. Don’t let this email ramble. Often, this is the email in which you’ll start seeing exciting results.
• Email #4: Overcome an objection. At this point many customers want to buy and maybe even know they are going to buy but have one doubt that is holding them back. In the fourth email, you want to help the customers overcome a common objection people have for not buying your product. And don’t worry if you’re not addressing whatever mysterious objections your email recipients may individually have. Your potential customers likely have an emotional objection, and by bringing up a similar objection, you’ll give that emotion a focus. By helping them overcome that objection, you’ll help them overcome their emotional resistance to buying your product.
• Email #5: Paradigm shift. A paradigm shift email is another way of overcoming a customer objection. Many customers will feel like they’ve already tried whatever it is you’re selling. Comfortable yoga pants? Tried that. A housecleaning service that uses only organic cleaners? Did that. If customers feel that they’ve already used your product or service and it didn’t work, you’re done. They rightly will not place an order. But if you can explain to them how you’re different and that they actually haven’t tried something like this, exactly, they’ll be more likely to look at you through fresh eyes. A paradigm shift is language that says, “You used to think this, but now you should think this way.” It’s a powerful tool used to make people reconsider buying your product.
• Email #6: Sales email. In this sixth email, only ask for the sale. You heard me right. Don’t sell, just ask for the sale. At this point, we don’t want your customer thinking about anything other than whether to accept or reject our offer. This is a great time to bring up the limited-time offer. Is an opportunity going to expire? Is the bonus that comes with the offer going to expire? If so, bring that up in the P.S. of this email and you’ll have great success.
A sales email campaign is more art than science. There are a million kinds of sales emails you can create, but these individual emails, and this specific order of six emails, has worked for thousands of our clients.