Let me guess.

Your business sells products and services that help your customers.

Your products are unstoppable, your service is unparalleled, and you beat out the competition every time.

There’s just one problem….

Your customers aren’t looking for a hero.

They’re looking for a way to be a hero.

Which is why, Bob Dragich — marketing consultant and owner of Street Gang Marketing — pushes businesses out of the spotlight to make room for their customers.

Take a look at a recent marketing email he created for his client, Full Spectrum Power. Bob’s email received an open rate of 58 percent (over three times the industry average), a 13 percent click-through rate, and dozens of social shares.

Constant Contact customer email -- Full Spectrum Power

Since getting started with Constant Contact, Bob has increased website visits, awareness, and sales for his clients.

“The thing with Constant Contact is it’s active,” Bob explains. “You deliver the message directly to the person. Rather than relying on them stumbling upon it. With all my clients, we see upticks in traffic to whatever we link to. And the most important result is sales.”

Do you offer marketing services to clients? See how becoming a Constant Contact Partner can help you grow your business.

Want to create emails with superhuman results?

Use Bob’s simple, three-step approach to create stronger emails that resonate with your readers and boost business.

1. Introduce your hero

What’s the first thing you want readers to see when they open your email? An eye-catching image of your customer accomplishing a heroic feat.

In the email above, Bob featured an image of motorcycle road race winner, Danny Eslick.

“The most compelling image I’ve found so far is a person enjoying the use of the product,” Bob says. “And if you can get the product in the picture, that’s great. But basically people visually connect with other people. That tends to draw people in.”

Although Full Spectrum Power sells motorcycle batteries, you’ll notice there are no batteries pictured in Bob’s email. Instead, Bob focuses on what the batteries help people accomplish and the emotion behind that accomplishment.

“We wanted to show Danny grinning ear-to-ear, standing on top of a podium,” Bob says. “Focus on people who are using your product and keep your message brief.”

Full Spectrum email example

Tip: Increase website visits by linking your images back to your business website.

2. Spur readers into action with a compelling message

When writing emails, Bob urges businesses to stay succinct and focus on a single, compelling action.

After his leading image, Bob adds a few lines of simple text, including: Powered By Full Spectrum Power. Readers can then click-through to visit Full Spectrum Power’s website and view their products.

Full Spectrum logo

“The main problem I see with all emails that I get is that they’re too long,” he says. “Obviously the people sending the emails are really enthusiastic about their products. So they tend to write a lot.”

Bob recommends being conscious of the reader and how much time they’re looking to commit.

“Time is money and people don’t have a lot of it. So you have to get people’s attention quickly and provide the core and compelling information as quickly as possible.  The best technique is to only have one subject in your Constant Contact email.”

But what if you have multiple things to share with your audience?

“People will accept frequency over length,” Bob explains. “I was only emailing once a month. But now I’m now trying to send a very brief email once a week. You want to keep your name in front of your customer. So when it comes time for them to buy a product, they’ll think of your emails and your business.”

After sending each email, Bob uses his email reports to make sure his email unsubscribes stay low.

With Constant Contact, Bob can collect feedback to see why people are unsubscribing and make sure he’s not overwhelming his subscribers with too many messages.

Constant Contact Unsubscribe Report

3. Increase your impact with social media

“Every time I run a Constant Contact email, I share it on Facebook, Twitter, and LinkedIn,” Bob says.

Using Constant Contact’s Social Share feature, Bob can connect his social media channels with his Constant Contact account and schedule his emails to post on social media on the channels he is most active on.

When he sees an email campaign perform especially well, he runs a Facebook Ad to extend its reach.

“I boosted the email with Danny on Facebook and it got four times the average amount of reach,” Bob says. “It just went completely nuts.”

In total, his boosted campaign received 115 Facebook Reactions and 37 shares — getting his business in front of a whole new audience.

Bob also shared a link to his email sign-up form directly in the Facebook caption, so people could easily join Full Spectrum Power’s mailing list if they hadn’t already. In the week after the email was sent, Bob added 30 new contacts to his email list.

Full Spectrum Power email signup form

Tip: New to Facebook Advertising? Check out how Constant Contact’s Tool for Facebook Advertising can boost your email results.

Now, it’s your turn.

Take a look at your latest email newsletter. Is the focus on you and your business? You may be turning your customers off (and shortchanging your business) by trying to be their hero.

Instead, turn the tables and make your customers the focus of your emails. Look for ways to add customer images, quotes, and case studies to your marketing to make your products and services come alive.

Put these tips to work. Make your customer the hero of your next email.

Don’t have a Constant Contact account? Try email marketing free for 60 days!