Turning Seeds into Leads: The Gardener’s Guide to Growing Email Conversions

Email marketing is a great way to grow conversions and gain leads, and should always play a prominent role in a business’s total marketing strategy. Take Welcome Emails for example: they are incredibly effective, resulting in 320% more revenue than traditional promotional marketing emails. However, not all email marketing campaigns are created equal. To get the best results, you need to have a sound strategy. “But where do I start?” you might ask.

Seeds. Yes, you read that right — a successful email marketing strategy is like growing a garden with a bunch of little seeds to start; it takes time, dedication, skill and lots of patience. And just like not everyone was born with a green thumb, not everyone knows how to do email marketing well — but that doesn’t mean you can’t learn.

This blog will take you on a little tour of how to effectively build up your email marketing strategy. By planting, nurturing, and caring for the “seeds” — or in our case, emails — you’ll soon be on your way to growing a successful garden of leads.

Why email marketing is like gardening

You might be wondering how the heck email marketing is comparable to gardening. To start off, seeds have specific and different needs in order to grow into a healthy plant; they need sunlight, water, nutrients, and a good root system in order to flourish. However, an imbalance of any of these elements can harm the plant’s chances for survival, so finding the right balance for all these factors is crucial.

The same goes for emails. Too much or too little of a good thing can affect the success of your email campaigns. With the right amount of balance to your strategy, you’ll be well on your way to growing that successful garden of leads. Let’s get started!

Shine some (personalized) light on those seeds

Just like seeds grow towards sunlight and away from the shade, consumers will naturally be attracted to content that they want, while avoiding content that is irreverent to their interests. Providing your users with relevant and personalized content which they find useful is the best way to keep your users engaged. Sending your customers irrelevant content that doesn’t match their needs — or even too much content — could ultimately kill your seeds (or in the inbox garden, unsubscribes), resulting in weak conversion rates, and ultimately an unsuccessful garden. Personalized emails, such as including an individual’s name or products from their browsing history within the body text, can help increase your CTR by more than 14 percent. Personalization is a must for emails, and in our case, is the ultimate form of sunlight.

Mix in the nutrients

Some plants like sand in their soil; others prefer a more clay consistency. Like seeds with specific needs, each of your consumer target markets is going to need different elements to grow into strong leads. Make sure you have even and balanced content in your emails. A little product high-light here, a little update to your brand there, a photo of your new office puppy…varied content is a must in keeping your readers engaged and happy. Promotions, inventory updates, newsletters and welcome emails are all great examples of varied campaigns you can send to your users. But just remember that no matter what type of email you choose to send, keep your tone, layout and visuals consistent with your brand.

Hydrate in moderation

Plants need water. But if they are overwatered, they’ll drown, and if they’re not watered enough, they’ll dry up. Moral of the story: Don’t overwater your seeds. Bombarding your audience with emails every day, or every week, can be overwhelming — and sometimes a major turn-off. In fact, 69 percent of users unsubscribe due to “too many emails.” On the other hand, if you don’t send enough emails, your audience might view your brand as irrelevant, or worse, forget you exist.

According to Entrepreneur, 61 percent of users prefer receiving a promotional email at least once a month, while 15 percent of users said they wouldn’t mind receiving a promotional email every day. This goes to show that email marketing does not come with a one size fits all strategy. Regardless of how many emails you choose to send, you need to find that proper balance of email sends (or watering) that makes the most sense for your brand and audience.

Find those roots

Plants have roots not only to soak up nutrients, but to keep them grounded and stable. Strong roots make for a strong plant, and the same goes for emails. Your branding, personality and image act as the roots of your email campaigns. Your emails should have an overarching theme that stays consistent with your brand’s style, image and tone. Varied content throughout your emails is great, but just make sure the root of your emails stay consistent with all sends.

And there you have it, the basics for growing a successful garden of email conversions. For more tips on email marketing for your business, check out our other blog on email designs and email marketing basics here.