Email marketing is a great tool to boost contractor leads. By working with an email marketing campaign provider coupled with tracking results will take you one step further in maximizing your email marketing efforts.

Email Marketing is a powerful tool to reach a large, yet targeted, audience to boost contractor leads. After you begin to build your list of quality contractor leads, you’re ready to start sending out communications. For many of our clients, taking the time to conduct email marketing themselves can be challenging, so we suggest some strategies that involve working with a third party to help streamline the process.

You can perfect your email marketing strategy by identifying an email marketing service provider to work with. There are several benefits of working with such a provider, including:

• Keeping your emails looking professional with professional templates, etc.

• Unsubscribing made easy with a simple click and link.

• The provider manages the overall list, including segmenting and groups.

• Easy automation with 24 hour marketing.

• Cost-Effectiveness.

Some examples of email marketing platforms that tailor to local business include:

• Aweber Communications, Inc.

• Constant Contact

• InfusionSoft

• Blue Hornet

• CheetahMail

Once you have your provider in place, it’s important to track your email campaign results to determine if the provider is worth the investment. To ensure maximum ROI, you want to track and analyze:

• Email Bounces.

o How many and why?

• Open Rate.

o Who opened or did not open your emails.

• Click Through Rate.

o How many links did they click?

o Which links had the best click rate?

• Unsubscribe listing.

• Email Forwards.

Use these tips to get the most bang for your buck out of your email marketing campaign starting yesterday to boost contractor leads for your business!

Generating contractor leads online successfully hinges on building your email list and using it. But if you make any of these three common mistakes with the list you build, all your work will be for nothing. Here are three DON’Ts you’ll want to pay attention to:

Don’t blow up their inboxes!
How many times do you delete an email message from a sender because, well, at some point enough is enough? Everyone complains about how many emails they get. Keep this in mind when you’re developing your email strategy for contractor leads. You definitely want to be consistent with your email communications, but every day is a bit much. Weekly communications in addition to communications for special events is probably more than enough. The type of business you’re in may mean you can get away with emailing more often, but just be sure to keep tabs on your unsubscribe rate as an indicator of your frequency sweet spot. You never want to turn off prospects and lose leads in the process.

Don’t write a book!
It’s hard for me to find the time to read a really lengthy email communication. I’m just like you – skim, scan, scroll, get the main point and move on. Keep your emails brief and to the point with bullet points, different fonts and colors to highlight the main points and information. Also, use the subject line to give your readers a clue about what’s to come, and entice them to open your email.

Don’t be boring!
A key to growing your business is providing informative and newsworthy content and information to your prospects. Don’t send out emails just for the sake of sending them. Give some thought to this – what do your readers want to know about your industry, your business, or sales and promotions? If your information is newsworthy and informative, you may even hit the email marketing jackpot… having the people on your list actually forward your email to their contacts. That means instant referrals and more leads for your business.

By all means, use email to generate contractor leads for your business. Just do it right! You wouldn’t believe how many contractors make these mistakes and then wonder why their list looks like a revolving door of subscribes and unsubscribes. Keep your messages coming on a regular basis, but don’t overdo it; be short and to-the-point; and provide newsworthy information.

Think about it – and let’s have some common-sense conversation…

What makes YOU hit the ‘unsubscribe’ button when you’re on someone’s email list?