{"id":726,"date":"2019-07-02T23:40:42","date_gmt":"2019-07-02T23:40:42","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.printivity.com\/insights\/?p=726"},"modified":"2025-07-30T18:43:24","modified_gmt":"2025-07-30T18:43:24","slug":"an-intro-to-email-marketing-learning-how-to-hard-soft-sell","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/insights.printivity.com\/an-intro-to-email-marketing-learning-how-to-hard-soft-sell","title":{"rendered":"Intro to Email Marketing: How to Hard & Soft Sell"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

I actually look forward to getting advertisement emails every day.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Not many, mind you\u2026 I might get 20-30 advertisement emails every day (even more, if you count my spam folder!), but I open about 2-3 of them. In particular, I like emails from Toronado<\/a> (a local pub near in San Diego), promotional offers from Target, and the Women\u2019s Health daily newsletter.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Consider this: out of all the advertisements that I get, most of them are from the giant corporations trying to get me to go to the mall. I buy from other companies; all of these other companies are missing their opportunity to get me to buy more.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

This tells me that (a) not enough businesses take advantage of email marketing. Or, (b) maybe they do email marketing, but their email lists are too small.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

One of the first things you need to do in email marketing is to choose a goal. I would say that there are two kinds of email campaign goals: the hard sell and the soft sell. Today, I\u2019m going to describe the various kinds of email marketing you can do.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\"Get<\/a><\/figure>\n\n\n\n

A HARD SELL gives a specific call to action<\/h2>\n\n\n\n

One of the fantastic things about email marketing is the ability to make a direct sale. When you do something like social media marketing, or content marketing (ex. Publish content through a blog), you can\u2019t make a hard sell; sales pitches are taboo.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

However, email is different because you don\u2019t depend on them \u201cliking\u201d you.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Let\u2019s say you have a list of customers\u2019 emails\u2014customers who have paid you money\u2014you know they like you enough to order from you. This means that you\u2019ve earned their trust, that they need something from you, and they might buy from you in the future.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Here\u2019s another kind of email list that you could build. Build a list of emails from potential customers who have made sales inquiries. I\u2019m talking about customers who have not yet purchased from you, but you know are interested in your services.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

If you advertise both of these groups, you\u2019re much less likely to be dismissed.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

What do you say in a HARD SELL email?<\/h2>\n\n\n\n

You want something that gets them into your \u201csales pipeline\u201d. Here are a couple of ideas on what you want them to do:<\/p>\n\n\n\n