How to wear away customer objections

My drip campaign needs help

—Rudy Bromberg, Vista

Regularly scheduled outreach messages (drip campaigns) can wear away objections about why someone shouldn’t buy from you. Yet they don’t always have maximum impact. Consider a few things to improve your ongoing communications efforts.

• Check your content. Is it fresh, well-written, entertaining and interesting to recipients?

• Check your frequency. Does it go out frequently enough to maintain reader interest?

• Are you constantly increasing your mailing list with new contacts and sales prospects?

Every new reader is a potential unsubscriber. That’s harsh, right? But realistically, just because someone signs up for your newsletter doesn’t mean they’ll read it forever. Life’s distractions and lack of time may force readers to ignore your materials or to unsubscribe.

Which is why your e-mail list — a living thing — should be fed regularly with new data.

Assuming you’re actively looking to add to your list, consider doing the following:

• Have an active presence. Public speaking, trade shows, street fairs and other highly visible forums are good places to acquire new prospect names in bulk.

• Have a presence in social media. Regularly tout your drip campaign on Twitter, FaceBook and the rest. Discuss it in your blog. Understand your online readers may not realize your newsletter has different content in it.

Oh, yes — the e-mail addresses you’re collecting may not be your reader’s primary address. For example, I keep a Yahoo account for when I’m ordering things online. The dozens of newsletters and promotions that come to that account are ignored.

Think I’m the only one who does that?

Avoid this by developing subscriber-specific content. You’ll share insights, knowledge, news or exclusive (the more exclusive, the better) information in exchange for a legitimate e-mail address.

Whichever way you appeal to your audience, plan to constantly promote your drip, even as you use it to promote your Web site and offline promotional efforts.

Of course, growing your e-mail list isn’t always easy, but it can be done if proactively strategized and implemented.

Lastly, understand that e-mail marketing isn’t for everyone. You may have customers who just prefer personalized selling that comes from snail mail or a phone call.

With that said, I wish you a week of profitable marketing.

Mr. Marketing uses his drip campaign to entertain, educate and guide people to his Web site. Sign up for his free marketing newsletter at www.askmrmarketing.com.