We’re massive fans of email marketing.
One of the sharpest guys I know recently noted, “it’s guaranteed page views for your product.”
But more importantly it will help you make sales. Or in start-up parlance: “Email will get you laid.”
There are two reasons you should be doing email marketing in your business:
1.Your customers will forget about you otherwise
Your product might be awesome, but the reality is, people are forgetful.
When they’re ready to make a purchase decision they might not remember your name – it happens every day.
By touching base with them regularly about anything, from new features to new colours, they’ll keep you front of mind when they’re ready to buy.
You’re also building a relationship. Even if it’s a mass email you’re still building brand equity.
2. You will make sales
It really is that simple.
You will sell more products if you’re in touch with your customers frequently. I see this every week in our business and in the other businesses we work with on email marketing campaigns. Sometimes it feels unbelievable that selling can be as easy as sending an email.
We send an eDM (Electronic Direct Mail) every Wednesday morning around 10am. It’s a collection of interesting links to articles, applications and videos we’ve discovered in the last week.
The results have been incredible. Every week that we send out the eDM we get a phone call or email from someone wanting to do a project with us.
Usually a project idea that was sparked by the Native Insights email itself.
We also get a lot of people who may have slipped off the radar for whatever reason getting back in touch, just to catch up.
These emails work for us for three reasons. And you can apply these to your business.
1. Define your audience
Our clients come from a lot of different industries, not just one, so we needed to better define our audience, otherwise we’d risk alienating some groups. We’ve got everyone from journalists, freelancers, advertising agencies, entrepreneurs, marketing managers, musicians and record labels on the list. Each is vastly different, but united by their interest in good, relevant links that help them work better and find meaning in the world. Our content reflects that and we’ve found a broader relevance.
2. Produce great content
The people on your mailing list, whether your customers, suppliers or just general subscribers, have given you permission to contact them periodically with relevant information.
Don’t abuse that trust by sending them poor quality content or marketing materials.
Give them something of value. Work out who they are and why they should care about what you’re sending them.
In our case we wanted to give our friends something of value – our knowledge, our insights into the market and hopefully motivation to help them nail their job.
3. Keep it consistent
You have to send it out every week/fortnight/month.
So many people suck at this. They can do it for the first few times but generally tap out and forget about it completely.
Do not fall into this trap.
To avoid this make it a KPI for someone’s job, if they fail to get it out then you should make a big deal out of it. Even if it’s your job as a business owner your employees should be given permission to hassle you about it.
Keeping it consistent shows you’re reliable and trustworthy.
4. Tell them what you want
Figure out why you’re sending these emails. Is it because you want everyone to think you’re cool? Is it because you want them to buy a particular product? Maybe you just want to build your brand so you want them to share it with their friends.
Whatever it is make sure that you state it explicitly. Tell your readers what you want.
Every month we include a line in the intro, something like: “We hope you enjoy these emails as much as we enjoy putting it together. Love it? Hate it? Do us a favour and give us a call and let us know what you think.”
Every time we put that in our emails we get a phone call or email back from about 10% of the list. Admittedly, it’s not a massive list, but it still keeps us busy for most of that morning, which is partly why we’re only doing it once a month now.
Now it’s time to take action.
Take five minutes to work out what your email marketing plan is.
What are you going to send out?
Why should people care about it?
How regularly are you going to send it?
Who are you going to send it to?
Next: make it happen. And shoot me an email when it works: ned@nativedigital.com.au
Ned
PS. Two smart email applications you should check out:
PPS. Want to be better at email in general? Read this article on “Email Mistakes That Irritate Smart People“
