Don’t believe what you may have heard about email marketing. It’s definitely NOT dead.

How can it be dead when we churn out 102.6 trillion emails every year? By 2022, we’ll be sending 126.7 trillion emails annually. And we’re not just sending, we’re checking … very regularly – as much as 20 times per day, research shows.

Email marketing, regardless of the rumours, is still one of the best ways to reach your audience and delivers a return on investment of up to 4400%.

Even compared to social media marketing which has an engagement rate of just 0.6%, email boasts an average open rate of 22.86% and click-through rate of 3.71%.

Don’t miss out on this tried and tested marketing method. It really works!

And it can serve you in a myriad of ways: applying for translation jobs, emailing preferred direct clients, reaching out to HR departments or marketing managers and so much more!

Email marketing isn’t spam

I hate spam just as much as the next person. But that’s not what email marketing is about and I certainly wouldn’t recommend sending super-cold, impersonal mass emails which translates to spam for me and for a lot of people.

There are better ways of doing it.

Cold vs warm emailing

Whether you want to approach new contacts or follow up with contacts you’ve already spoken to, it’s useful to know the difference between cold emailing and warm emailing.

Cold email: an email sent to someone you’ve never connected with, with the purpose of establishing a connection and converting into a warm email. Usually quite impersonal and too general.

Warm email: an email sent to someone you already have some kind of a relationship with, with the intention of “inviting” the person to become a potential customer. Usually personalised and more targeted and focused.

But you can turn a cold email into a warm one (strongly advised!), if you write it in the right way of course.

How to write an email that gets a response

Say you want to email preferred direct clients. You could always initiate communication via LinkedIn or other social media and then follow up with an email. Or you could simply get in touch directly, but that would mean taking extra measures to ensure your cold email sounds more like a warm email in order to anticipate a response.

Here are a few tips to bear in mind:

• Know their name

Research the prospect prior to writing your email to give them the feeling you’ve taken the time to learn about them. It’s a lot less like a cold call that way and instantly installs confidence in the recipient. Familiarise yourself with the company, the market etc. and if you can, definitely try to pin down a name to whom you can address. It just makes it more personal that way.

• Establish how you can help them

Figure out what the business might be struggling with and how you can help them. Show them how you could be an asset to their company. Offer them something of value too, like a link to your website, your free e-book, or a blog post on your site that could be useful to them. Something that prompts further conversation.

• Keep it short and sweet

Pack it full with useful information and value, but don’t go overboard with the words! No executive or HR administrator has time to read a novella and a long list of your achievements and services amidst a hundred other emails lined up in their inbox!

Don’t forget to follow up

Don’t lose hope over unreturned emails. There could be a multitude of reasons why they didn’t get back to you. Sometimes, companies just have way too much on their plate and they can simply forget to follow up.  That’s why it pays to give them a little nudge … or several.

Did you know 80% of sales require at least five follow-ups?

This is massive!

Believe it or not, only 2% of sales are made at a first meeting. It’s only when a level of trust has been developed between two parties that people feel more comfortable committing to a purchase.

Now that doesn’t mean sending the same email again and again five times. Embrace variety!

For instance, if you wanted to apply for a translation job, you could first connect with the company on LinkedIn, send them a personal message to introduce yourself and exchange pleasantries. You could then move this forward to emailing them and perhaps calling them. It could only be on that fifth follow up that the company would feel a lot more inclined to hire you because they’ve spoken to you through different channels on several occasions and built a relationship with you.

How to nail your email pitch (Your FREE course)

Now I’ve outlined the basics of email marketing and the necessity of building trust through follow-ups, I would like to show you exactly how to write a marketing pitch so you can start crafting one (or many!) of your own and begin making more connections for your translation and interpretation business.

This NEW free 5-day mini course will show you everything you need to know about nailing the marketing pitch, so you can:

• Get more translation jobs
• Expand your client list
• Work with more preferred direct clients
• Grow your business
• Make meaningful connections

Subscribe today and build your own marketing pitches!