When was the last time you opened an email from a company you like? Just seeing the name of the brand can be enough for you to check out what they have to offer. Your construction company emails can do the same thing.
With an ROI of about 28.5%, and 19% of people checking out an email as soon as they get it, email marketing is highly profitable. If you’re only sending emails to give updates about jobs, you’re missing out on a huge opportunity.
Here’s how to create an email marketing strategy and tips to take full advantage of an email marketing campaign.
Let’s dig in!
How to Use Email Marketing for Contractors
Let Customers Opt In and Out of Your Marketing Emails
Forcing people into your email marketing list does not lead to good impressions. Give customers a chance to choose to get your emails.
Make an invitation for them to sign up for your newsletter. But make it focus on what the emails will offer and how that will help them. No one wants more emails unless they know the emails have something for them.
You also don’t want to make customers stay in your email campaign if they don’t want to be there.
Giving email recipients a chance to unsubscribe isn’t just respectful; it’s the law. You’re legally required to give recipients the option to opt out of receiving future emails. If you don’t give that option, you can annoy some customers and be charged for failing to comply with the law.
Segment Your List of Opted-in Customers
The message you send in your email should be relevant to the people getting it, which means different people need to hear different things. That’s where list segmentation comes in.
Break down your construction industry email list based on factors like:
- Past purchasing decisions (tiled roofs, metal roofs, etc.)
- When they last worked with you
- Geographical location
- If they’ve referred you
With that target audience in mind, you’ll be able to write much more compelling emails.
Send a Welcome Email
Help your customers feel included with a nice welcome email when they join your email list. The welcome email doesn’t need to be anything fancy. But it should set clear expectations like when you’ll send out emails and the type of information the emails will have.
Sending a welcome email to every person who signs up for your emails will take a lot of time—time better spent elsewhere. Automations can help solve this problem. Set up an automation for your welcome email to automatically send at the right time without you needing to do more work.
Regularly Send Out Valuable Emails
You’ve probably subscribed to an email list and then been bombarded with emails multiple times a day. It’s frustrating, and there’s just no need for that.
Instead, you should send emails out frequently enough that you stay top of mind without bothering recipients.
The best way to do this is to send emails at a set schedule. Once a month is pretty common for email marketing.
But just sending out emails once a month to fill a quota isn’t going to help your company. Your emails have to have something of value. Let customers know about your upcoming sales, new products, the referral program you’re launching, community involvement, or even educational content (like the major signs that it’s time to replace their siding).
When the content proves its worth, customers will be excited to open your next email.
Bonus Tips for Getting the Most from Your Email Marketing
Write Email Subject Lines That Work
Your email’s subject line is like the cover of a book. If someone likes the look of it, they’ll open it up to see what’s inside.
How do you make subject lines that pique interest? Our research shows that the best way to start a subject line is with an emoji and the recipient’s name. The emoji will help your email stand out in their inbox, and everyone loves to hear (or see) their name.
Incorporate Your Brand into Your Emails
If another company could’ve sent the same email, you’re not branding your emails enough. Include your business’s logo, colors, and fonts to create a cohesive brand image.
Your brand voice also matters. The way you talk to your email recipients should match how you talk to customers in person, over the phone, or in ads.
You should also use a company email address as the sender so customers know it’s coming from your business.
Steer Clear of Spammy Words & Phrases
Did you know that using certain words will automatically flag an email as spam? If your email is marked as spam, customers probably won’t even see it.
It’s good to be aware of the words and phrases that trigger the email spam filter to help you avoid that scenario. HubSpot made a list of 394 email spam trigger words to help your emails have the greatest chance of success.
Keep in mind that these spam-trigger words are riskiest in your subject line.
Watch How Your Contractor Email Marketing Performs
Take the guessing out of which emails are performing well. Keep track of key metrics like bounces, unsubscribes, open rate, and click-through rate.
- Bounces are emails that were sent but not received (if someone’s inbox is full or their email address is invalid)
- Unsubscribes are when people opt out of your email list
- Open rate lets you know the average of people who got your email and opened it
- If you have a link or call-to-action button in your email, the click-through rate will show you the average percentage of people who click on the link
Include Preview Text for Your Marketing Emails
Along with the subject line, customers can see preview text before they actually open your email. Because this gives them their first taste of what the email holds, you want your preview text to be short, to the point, and interesting.
Not all email platforms will show the preview text, so don’t include something vital that they could miss out on. Instead, we recommend diving into more detail about the subject line, answering a question, or highlighting a few points the email covers.
Personalize the Construction Email to Your Customer
Oberlo found that emails with personalized subject lines get 50% higher open rates. Why? Because everyone wants to feel like you’re talking specifically to them.
Include the customer’s name in the subject line and the first line of the email content. You can easily do this at a higher level with personalization tokens that automatically fill in that information for you.
Don’t mention their name too much, though, since that looks spammy.
Make Construction Email Marketing Work for Your Company
Email isn’t going anywhere, and contractors in the construction industry should take advantage of it with a simple email marketing campaign. With these tips, you’ll be able to get an email marketing motion off the ground and running.
Do you have an email marketing strategy? Let us know about it in the comments below!
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