Do you remember the days when we loved checking to see if we had new emails? It wasn’t that long ago.

Ah, those carefree days, before everyone and their brother could easily spam us or eblast us with incessant special offers, and endless follow-up reminders that we might miss those special offers….

I want to give you a reason to love your inbox again and here it is: There’s gold in those emails.

No, not the super duper early bird discount price for someone’s infocrap.

What I am talking about is emails from prospects or clients – questions they ask, thank-you notes they send, content they respond to – this is all incredibly helpful information, and can potentially generate money for you.

Let me walk you through some ways you can make your inbox work for your business.

FAQs

Do prospects ask the same (or similar) questions about your services? It might be time to more explicitly address those concerns in your website copy.

In addition, you might consider putting up a FAQ (frequently asked questions) page on your website, or create a PDF that you can attach to email responses.

Content ideas

What do people reply to in your newsletters? What do prospects want to know more about? What content on your website spoke to them?

I love it when prospects walk me though exactly what I said on my website that addressed their needs and wants. If something is a hot button for them, create more and different content around that topic.

Viewers engage with content differently. Think about creating some written content, videos, infographics, eBooks, social media posts, Facebook Lives, etc. Have fun and get creative!

People always comment on my Morgan Moment videos. I frequently get the ideas for them from my inbox.

Some people still like long-form content. My eBook gets downloaded multiple times every day. It consistently generates complimentary strategy sessions.

Social media posts

Once or twice a month I will do a “from my inbox” post on my personal Facebook profile where I share a client success email without sharing the client’s personal information. These posts always get likes and wonderful comments. Friends and colleagues tell me how much they enjoy seeing the positivity and possibility in these posts.

Sometimes, prospects and clients email me links to articles they found helpful or think might be of interest to me. I sometimes share these on social media as well.

Referrals

Is a client over the moon about the results they got from working with you? This could be a good time to ask them if they know anyone else who might benefit from your services.

You may be uncomfortable doing this, so just add it in as part of your process. It will get more comfortable the more you do it. It’s unlikely that anyone will get annoyed when you’re having a love fest about great results.

What I do know from personal experience is that if you wait, you’ll probably forget, or chicken out of doing it, missing an opportunity for a warm introduction. (Warm introductions, like freshly baked cookies, are delicious.)

Always remember that people tend to hang out with people like them, so if this client was a great one, they might know other people who would be great clients for you.

Testimonials

If someone writes you a heart-warming thank-you note, ask them if they would be willing to post something on LinkedIn. Social proof is incredibly important, and LinkedIn recommendations are public and verifiable – bonus!

If someone is uncomfortable with posting it on LinkedIn, they may be willing to act as a reference, or may be willing to let you post something on your website, assuming that their colleagues probably won’t see it.

Maybe now you can start thinking of the ping in your inbox as generating leads, and hopefully a cha-ching of revenue for your business. Client and prospect emails always get my full attention.

Now if I could just delete the 20K of unopened spam messages in my inbox. *sigh*