Know-How Exchange : E-Marketing

Here are some resources to give you more background:

https://www.marketingprofs.com/8/email-marketing-mobile-friendly-osterday-l...
https://www.businessknowhow.com/Internet/ccinterview.htm
https://www.email-marketing-reports.com/books.htm
https://email.about.com/od/emailmarketingtips/Email_Marketing_Tips_Tricks_a...

I would suggest you use a client education approach. Write white papers and other useful information (perhaps a blog as well) and use it as your email marketing.

A white paper is a report or guide (say 10 pages or so) offering information and solutions to a particular set of problems.
It's not intended to be a hard sales pitch, but rather a way of delivering information in a way that positions you as an expert.

For example, you might produce a paper called, "How to Choose a Web Host that Best Meets Your Needs" and then explain different options, pitfalls, etc. so readers can make an informed choice.

A white paper is a report or guide offering information and solutions to a particular set of problems. It's not intended to be a hard sales pitch, but rather a way of delivering information in a way that positions you as an expert.

For example, you might produce a paper called, "How to Choose a Web Host that Best Meets Your Needs" and then explain different options, pitfalls, etc. so readers can make an informed choice.

Oops. Sorry about the double post.

In addition to what's been said, I don't think you mean a formal survey to actually convert sales. A survey is a method used to gain customer insight; in your case you could use one at some point to find out what customers like about your service, what's important to them, what they highly value, what benefit you can provide for them, etc. It's really a way to listen to what customers are thinking, and can be used to convert sales long-term, but not as they're answering the questions.

Hope that helps.

Good luck!

Dear Aron,

I agree with Harry that the best approach would be a client education approach. Of course, keeping in mind that a hosting clients turnaround time will be less you might want to add some selling points of your own service as a sort of appendix to each article.

Taking Jodi's example, if you write a paper on "How to Choose a Web Host that Best Meets Your Needs", at the bottom of the article you might want to add a link to a page on your site where you explain the exact kind of needs and client your hosting is best suited for and how.

The point I am trying to make is that you need to integrate your entire marketing with your email campaigns. This approach to marketing will make it a lot more effective.

Hope this helps.

Clive Fernandes
Clive Fernandes Consulting

Michael Stelzner is a good resource for this information. I used his book when I was asked to write a white paper for a health insurance company targeted at corporate benefits managers.

https://www.stelzner.com/copy-HowTo-whitepapers.php

Aron,

Depending on the topic of the white paper you could use it as an incentive for people to sign up for your newsletter.

For instance, "Web design blunders that cost sales" (topic). Sign up for our newsletter to receive a free white paper outlining design improvements you can take to improve website conversions.

Or you might elect the case study route. This oversimplifies it but a case study can be broken into 3 parts:

1) Problem Identification
Business X needed to generate more quality leads.

2) Solution
- Redesign of site navigation to address visitor segments (awareness, research, hot sales prospect).
- Organic SEO improvements for select key words.

3)Results
- Not only was business X able to increase the # of leads from its website, the highly targeted leads have allowed the sales team to increase closes by X%.

Hope that helps.

Cheers,

Jesse Kanclerz