Nathan Vecchio explains why email is the winning platform to build client relationships.
Director of Hunter Galloway, Nathan Vecchio, started broking in 2015 and using the techniques from Joshua's Top Broker Handbook, is writing big numbers, leading to Vow Financial naming him Broker Partner of the Year Rising Star in 2016.
It’s easy to feel swept up on the social media bandwagon and want to jump on the next best thing nice and early – Snapchat, Instagram, Facebook, LinkedIn, Youtube, WeeChat, Pinterest – but I don’t think you should.
I think there is an even more powerful tool that you use every day to keep in touch with customers and could easily be your biggest lead generation source.
I’ve always preferred using emails over platforms like LinkedIn or Twitter to build relationships with clients. In my opinion, it’s a much more authentic form of social media, since it’s personal, easy to share, and easy to use. At a time of increasing popularity of social media, email marketing it is still the secret sauce of my business.
So why does email deliver 100x marketing results over social media?
1. It’s more personal and intimate
Getting access to somebody’s inbox (and not being sent to spam) is already a success, being able to stay there is a win.
Literally, everybody uses email both for business and everyday life. Consequently, people care more about who to grant access to their email rather than who follows them on Twitter –and with emails, the read rate is increasing. According to new metrics from Return Path overall the read rate of emails has increased by 8% year on year, meaning more people are opening and reading your emails more regularly.
2. It’s more permanent and sticks around
Remember that one tweet that you desperately wanted to find in someone’s newsfeed and you scroll and scroll to finally surrender? Facebook or Twitter does not guarantee that your followers actually see your posts.
A study from Edgerank Checker found that in March 2014 the organic reach for the average Facebook Page was 6.5% – so if your page has 1,000 likes only 65 of them may see it and this is set to fall with Facebook moving to a pay to play model where they are almost forcing you to pay to reach people who have liked your page (the boost post option).
Compare this to an email that gets delivered to your inbox and stays there.
Even if it’s classified, a simple search by keyword can dig it up. The email reaches the most private inbox of your client and stays put until they access it; it doesn’t disappear.
Whereas if you have thousands of followers on Facebook or Twitter, your post or tweet is seen only by a handful. That’s the difference.
3. Almost everyone has email
Despite impressive numbers of subscribers to Facebook, LinkedIn or Twitter, not everybody is actually on there, and a lot of people still don’t use it daily. Email-users outnumber Facebook, Twitter, and LinkedIn followers three to one, giving you a direct window to an explosive 2.9 billion potential subscribers. That includes all people that may not have social media accounts too.
4. It’s more business orientated
I don’t how it is at your job, but in my office we don’t really access Facebook on our PC’s. So people go through their timeline only occasionally. On the contrary, most people’s email is always open, so they tend to look at emails and respond to them much more quickly, and regularly than social media.
5. It sells, and you know who it is going to.
We all buy online or complete transfers and payments with the help of email. Other social media lack this feature. By managing the message you can make an email cater to the specific needs of a target audience. Higher click through and better conversions are possible if you enhance the appeal of the message to fulfil an urgent need of the user.
6. It’s cheap!
A single email can take literally seconds to write and can be sent to one individual or thousands – while not costing any extra. For brokers like us, it can provide much better return than traditional advertising like TV or radio, and compared to Facebook or LinkedIn, which effectively makes you pay for advertising to show up anywhere, at least you can guarantee with email it is reaching its intended target.
A real life example
Email is the bread and butter of business transactions and is open and regularly monitored during business hours. Your message arrives at the right moment when clicks and conversions have more likelihood of succeeding. Social media users may follow, unfollow or like your post, without committing themselves to what you offer.
Email expert, and someone I really admire Chris Brogan, shares his experience saying email works 100 times more effectively for him than ‘social media’.
His newsletter sells 10 times more by volume than his entire social platforms, even though it’s 10 times smaller by subscribers. So one email subscriber is worth 100 social media followers because they are much more engaged and an email is sent to them individually, compared to a social media post that is broadcast to the entire world.
Neat, but I’m a broker how can I get it to work for my business?
While I have used social media successfully to target new customers and grow my business, I have used email to retain customers and grow my referrals. I believe you need to be touching base with customers at least 15 times through the year to build their trust, and allow them to send your referrals.
This includes 12 monthly newsletters, an annual review and 2-3 phone calls throughout the year to give them updates on offers and movements in the market.
The most effective emails I send are my newsletters, with personal tips to clients and stories that have happened in the last month. This makes my customers feel more engaged, and therefore happy to refer their friends and family through.
Another effective email campaign I have done is with specific offers, targeted to the customer base – we have recently had a successful fixed rate campaign (with interest rates increasing out of cycle fixed rates). By segmenting our database, and doing a targeted offer, we are looking after our customers better and catering for their needs.
Like Chris, my best customers and the ones that can help add to the bottom line aren’t necessarily on Facebook, Twitter or Instagram but they are the few that are on my mailing list. I know from my own experience that when email is used in a targeted and effective way, you can create a very personal, and powerful form of communication that can help build long-term and trusting relationships with both your clients and prospects.
PS: I’m going to be taking over here at Top Broker for a little bit while Joshua focuses on a few big and exciting projects we are looking forward to bring you in the next few weeks. A quick background, I started broking in 2015 and using the techniques Joshua has given in the Top Broker Handbook I have grown my business in a very short time to writing some big numbers, and was fortunate enough to be awarded Broker Partner of the Year Rising Star in 2016.
It’s easy to feel swept up on the social media bandwagon and want to jump on the next best thing nice and early – Snapchat, Instagram, Facebook, LinkedIn, Youtube, WeeChat, Pinterest – but I don’t think you should.
I think there is an even more powerful tool that you use every day to keep in touch with customers and could easily be your biggest lead generation source.
I’ve always preferred using emails over platforms like LinkedIn or Twitter to build relationships with clients. In my opinion, it’s a much more authentic form of social media, since it’s personal, easy to share, and easy to use. At a time of increasing popularity of social media, email marketing it is still the secret sauce of my business.
So why does email deliver 100x marketing results over social media?
1. It’s more personal and intimate
Getting access to somebody’s inbox (and not being sent to spam) is already a success, being able to stay there is a win.
Literally, everybody uses email both for business and everyday life. Consequently, people care more about who to grant access to their email rather than who follows them on Twitter –and with emails, the read rate is increasing. According to new metrics from Return Path overall the read rate of emails has increased by 8% year on year, meaning more people are opening and reading your emails more regularly.
2. It’s more permanent and sticks around
Remember that one tweet that you desperately wanted to find in someone’s newsfeed and you scroll and scroll to finally surrender? Facebook or Twitter does not guarantee that your followers actually see your posts.
A study from Edgerank Checker found that in March 2014 the organic reach for the average Facebook Page was 6.5% – so if your page has 1,000 likes only 65 of them may see it and this is set to fall with Facebook moving to a pay to play model where they are almost forcing you to pay to reach people who have liked your page (the boost post option).
Compare this to an email that gets delivered to your inbox and stays there.
Even if it’s classified, a simple search by keyword can dig it up. The email reaches the most private inbox of your client and stays put until they access it; it doesn’t disappear.
Whereas if you have thousands of followers on Facebook or Twitter, your post or tweet is seen only by a handful. That’s the difference.
3. Almost everyone has email
Despite impressive numbers of subscribers to Facebook, LinkedIn or Twitter, not everybody is actually on there, and a lot of people still don’t use it daily. Email-users outnumber Facebook, Twitter, and LinkedIn followers three to one, giving you a direct window to an explosive 2.9 billion potential subscribers. That includes all people that may not have social media accounts too.
4. It’s more business orientated
I don’t how it is at your job, but in my office we don’t really access Facebook on our PC’s. So people go through their timeline only occasionally. On the contrary, most people’s email is always open, so they tend to look at emails and respond to them much more quickly, and regularly than social media.
5. It sells, and you know who it is going to.
We all buy online or complete transfers and payments with the help of email. Other social media lack this feature. By managing the message you can make an email cater to the specific needs of a target audience. Higher click through and better conversions are possible if you enhance the appeal of the message to fulfil an urgent need of the user.
6. It’s cheap!
A single email can take literally seconds to write and can be sent to one individual or thousands – while not costing any extra. For brokers like us, it can provide much better return than traditional advertising like TV or radio, and compared to Facebook or LinkedIn, which effectively makes you pay for advertising to show up anywhere, at least you can guarantee with email it is reaching its intended target.
A real life example
Email is the bread and butter of business transactions and is open and regularly monitored during business hours. Your message arrives at the right moment when clicks and conversions have more likelihood of succeeding. Social media users may follow, unfollow or like your post, without committing themselves to what you offer.
Email expert, and someone I really admire Chris Brogan, shares his experience saying email works 100 times more effectively for him than ‘social media’.
His newsletter sells 10 times more by volume than his entire social platforms, even though it’s 10 times smaller by subscribers. So one email subscriber is worth 100 social media followers because they are much more engaged and an email is sent to them individually, compared to a social media post that is broadcast to the entire world.
Neat, but I’m a broker how can I get it to work for my business?
While I have used social media successfully to target new customers and grow my business, I have used email to retain customers and grow my referrals. I believe you need to be touching base with customers at least 15 times through the year to build their trust, and allow them to send your referrals.
This includes 12 monthly newsletters, an annual review and 2-3 phone calls throughout the year to give them updates on offers and movements in the market.
The most effective emails I send are my newsletters, with personal tips to clients and stories that have happened in the last month. This makes my customers feel more engaged, and therefore happy to refer their friends and family through.
Another effective email campaign I have done is with specific offers, targeted to the customer base – we have recently had a successful fixed rate campaign (with interest rates increasing out of cycle fixed rates). By segmenting our database, and doing a targeted offer, we are looking after our customers better and catering for their needs.
Like Chris, my best customers and the ones that can help add to the bottom line aren’t necessarily on Facebook, Twitter or Instagram but they are the few that are on my mailing list. I know from my own experience that when email is used in a targeted and effective way, you can create a very personal, and powerful form of communication that can help build long-term and trusting relationships with both your clients and prospects.
PS: I’m going to be taking over here at Top Broker for a little bit while Joshua focuses on a few big and exciting projects we are looking forward to bring you in the next few weeks. A quick background, I started broking in 2015 and using the techniques Joshua has given in the Top Broker Handbook I have grown my business in a very short time to writing some big numbers, and was fortunate enough to be awarded Broker Partner of the Year Rising Star in 2016.
