Email Marketing Mindset
Email Marketing Is A Must-Have
Email marketing has one of, if not the highest ROIs of all marketing efforts; coming in at $41 for every $1 spent.
How the heck is that possible?
It has a lot to do with the fact that the leads are higher quality than others because you OWN them. You own their attention. They have expressed exclusive interest in you. They are not just being advertised to on a platform where they see you for a few seconds and you're at the mercy of that impression being good enough to make them act.
The second part of what makes email marketing so effective is that they say it costs 7 times more money to acquire a new customer than to get the ones you've got to buy again and again. Email marketing is one of the top choices of communication between consumers and buyers.
Email marketing provides you a platform to add more depth to your brand/customer relationship. With automation, it sells for you- which is why it is essential to at least set up your:
- Opt-in with an enticing offer or freebie
- A Welcome Series (typically 3 emails. Give them their freebie or offer, explain your position in your market, your motivation, and what they can expect from being a member of your email list. Don't forget to tell them to drag your email to their primary inbox or add you to their safe senders list! In email #2, offer them additional ways to interact with your brand. Choose one of the best ways to further connect; via social media, giveaways/contests, referral/affiliate opportunities, etc). The third email can dive into your top products/services. Throw in at least one review or case study to further prove your point.
Experiment and Prepare To Be Surprised
Everything about email marketing can be tested for optimization. Email marketing platforms provide a nifty feature called 'Split Testing'. You can split test subject lines, copy, length of email, call to actions, and much more.
It's important to split test things that you think will matter to YOUR CUSTOMER. Knowing your customer, their pain points, their desires, and what makes them buy is crucial to your business. Email marketing can utilize what you've learned about them from other parts of your business and it can also collect more data about them, so you're constantly fine-tuning your messaging and offers.
The greatest unique piece of information I can offer here is: Prepare to be surprised. As an email marketing strategist, I often think I know how an audience will respond to my minor changes and different approaches and almost every time I'm totally surprised. Don't assume! Assuming makes an ass out of You and Me, especially in email marketing.
If you're considering split testing something you're on the fence about, do it. I've found gold where I least expected it.
Speak Their Language
The last point brings up a great point. Email copy should largely be influenced by the way your customers actually talk. This is such a neat trick! Go to a Facebook group relevant to your industry or send your audience to a FREE Google Form survey where you ask them open-ended questions. Copy and paste, then carefully edit what your customers have literally said into an email and watch it work!
I can't stress this enough: You'll never know your customer too intimately.
Always Provide Value, Always Have A Call To Action
The best way to retain your email subscribers is by making sure each email provides them value. This can be free information, or simply making them feel a certain way. Is it an email you'd like to receive as a subscriber? You don't want to spam your list. If you think you'd be annoyed by your emails as a subscriber, re-evaluate your content strategy. Each email should be interesting and a good email frequency, depending on your industry, is 3 emails per week.
One really common mistake business owners make with D.I.Y. email marketing is simply not having a call to action in the email. Ask yourself what you want the subscriber to do and make sure you ASK them to do it at the end and if the email is long, throughout. I've always said 'People do what you tell them to do'. Sometimes I just use the subject line 'Open This Email'.
Address Objections: Explain More Than You Think You Need To
When you're writing email copy about a product or service, think about what objections they'll have and when. If after the first paragraph, you think they'll have a question- ANSWER THE QUESTION! Be sure to take advantage of friends, family, and colleagues to 'User Test' any sales emails or copy you write.
Consider doing a series of emails to sell one thing, instead of just one email. I am sure your customers will benefit from being warmed up to the idea.
Provide Options
I like to provide options in emails because it's likely if you have not 'Segmented' your audience into different divisions of people (based on certain attributes or behaviors you know about them), your one sales message won't fit everyone. I take advantage of the Menu and Footer to provide other ways and reasons for a subscriber to go to the site to learn more, browse other products, or become more connected to my brand.
Commit: Organize A Calendar/Strategy/Frequency
If you're email marketing for your own company instead of using a 3rd party company or person to manage it, commit to a plan. First figure out the appropriate frequency for you and your audience.
How much time do you have? How much do you have to talk about/sell? How often do your subscribers want to hear from you?
Google Calendar is a great way to plan your content. Consider the holidays, company benchmarks, monthly themes or offers. Each month you should evaluate key metrics like how many emails were sent, how well they converted, the total revenue generated that month, and what worked and didn't work (what you learned). Let these metrics help you form new goals and how you'll approach email marketing the next month.
Mobile-Friendly Is Key
Most of your subscribers will be viewing your email on mobile, so a few things you will want to consider are load speed & mobile-friendly designed images PLUS short sentences.
Design images to have few words and make them large to avoid the viewer having to zoom in on the email to see something. Also, shrink your image file size so that it loads as quickly as possible- you can use the websites tinypng.com or tinyjpg.com.
Break up large blocks of text into shorter sentences. Readability is SO crucial. Make sure you are being to-the-point and providing them a relaxed and interesting journey through the email.
Recycle Content
Need content for emails? You probably have a wealth of content available to you that you aren't even utilizing. Email content doesn't have to be brand new. It can simply be a curation of all the other content about you and your industry on the internet. What types of content would you like to see if you were your customer signed up for your email list?
Here are examples of content that can very easily be recycled.
-Blog Posts
-Helpful Articles and Tools
-Social Media Posts
-Customer Reviews
-Behind The Scenes Photos
-Customer Case Studies/Before and Afters