Hey, so you want to start email marketing for your business.
[click_to_tweet tweet=”Email Marketing 3 Things to Know Before You Start” quote=” Email Marketing 3 Things to Know Before You Start”]Well, email marketing is a fantastic way of communicating with potential customers and your current customers.
So, I’m going to give you three things you need to know before you start email marketing in your business. By the end of this post, you will know the steps to take to have greater success quicker.
I’ve been doing email marketing for clients for over seven years now. The things I’m going to tell you today would have saved me lot’s of time and missed opportunities.
Ok, I need to give you a clear warning if you are going to commit to email marketing. Having a solid plan will always provide better results than winging it and knee-jerk activity.
I have seen so many businesses in my career who have a slow month or quarter and immediately send some emails to a database.
Most of the time they fail to achieve a good outcome, and they end up with the conclusion that “email doesn’t work for them.”
However, what happened is they didn’t put the work in at the beginning to create a proper strategy and action plan. And they didn’t have a long-term plan for consistency to make sure it was a success.
So let’s get into the three things you should know before you start email marketing for your business.
First off is the “why”
You have to be clear on why you want to use email marketing in your business.
I don’t mean the obvious “to make more money” that’s a given, that’s why we are in the business right!
If your only approach to email marketing is to get people to “buy my stuff”, then you will fail in the long term. Imagine if all you receive from a company are sales messages, every email, EVERY TIME. How long would it take you to switch off from their emails, unsubscribe or put them in spam?
So your why needs to be a bigger picture because if it’s a short-term goal, then it will be a short-term gain at best.
So your why could be:
To build credibility
Stay in contact with customers or people who have shown an interest in your product or services.
To reach customers in real-time (54% of all emails get opened on a mobile).
You want to support customers with ongoing tips, so they continue to see you as a trusted supplier.
So remember once you have the “why” tied down you can focus on a long-term relationship with customers and potential customers.
[click_to_tweet tweet=”You have to be clear on why you want to use email marketing in your business.” quote=”You have to be clear on why you want to use email marketing in your business.”]
The next thing that’s important is your “how.” How are you going to deliver the emails?
If you use a standard email provider with outlook, Gmail or mac mail it’s not going to cut it going forward.
They are ok if you have an audience of one. However, if you want to reach more than one person with personalisation, you will have to use email software. If you grow an audience and want to segment them into specific sub-audiences, then you need software that can do the job.
There are lots of software that can do the job, and it’s a balance between functionality and cost. The two I have used that combine low cost with great functionality is Aweber and MailChimp.
I’m going to do a series of posts on email marketing including this one which is putting the foundations in place.
Through how to write an email that gets opened, right up to how to create a campaign that works on autopilot.
Number three on the list is the “what, how often and how long”.
What are you going to say on these emails?
Sales messages have their place and are the ultimate purpose of any marketing.
However, you can’t expect to ramp up and ask for a sale. You need to create a series of touchpoints where you deliver value, engage with the customer, explain the benefits and solutions you provide then ask for the sale.
If you consider how many times you make contact with a customer offline through cold calls, meetings and presentations before you ask for a sale. Then it will take the same amount of emails to get to either asking directly for a sale or meeting.
Crafting a series of emails that takes the customer through natural steps, to make a decision.
Think about it if you send three sales emails and then nothing for months what are the chances of your emails getting opened?
It takes a lot of effort to get attention, and then you are going to blow it by going silent for months.
So what you are going to say and how many emails it will take to say it is a must.
The voice you use in these emails should be the as if sitting in front of them. Building rapport and trust are one of the goals of email marketing. Showing the customer that you understand their issues and your product or service can help solve their problem.
You can commit to sending an email every week for a year if you can deliver value for that period. You can create a campaign for as short a timescale or
as long as you think necessary, it all depends on your goal.
Email data sources: https://emailmonks.com/blog/email-marketing/email-marketing-statistics/
Other suggested post:
