Email is NOT Dead
I’m sure that you’ve heard it before: email is dead. Or, at least, it’s broken. Tech bloggers love to bring this subject up every year probably because their email folders are so out of control, they wish email was dead. But as much as they might like to declare, email is doing perfectly fine.
And it’s a great way to connect with your customers.
Build It and They Will Come
Just like the websites in the days of yore, you can’t just throw something out there and get a massive response back. Yes, email marketing might still work but one email is not going to revolutionize your business. It’s going to take a plan, time, and some trial and error.
Like Social Media, companies who aren’t having a lot of success with email will claim that they tried it and it didn’t work. Maybe they heard it from some colleague, through some content in an email, listed a bunch of people, and fired it off to poor results. Then they claimed that, like Social Media where they put up one post, it just didn’t work for them.
The key is a schedule, follow-throw, and a plan.
Email Marketing Plan
The first thing to figure out in your email marketing plan depends on what you want to do with email. If email for your company is just about sending things to customers, whether it’s acknowledgments of scheduling, responses to forms, invoices, etc, then that’s fine. Good email marketing is about engagement and while this form of receipt-based email marketing is fine, trying to get a response from a customer with a one-off solicitation email isn’t going to result in anything major. If you’re not using email at all and have never emailed customers before, you’re going to get even results.
Therefore, you need to start somewhere specific and constantly build up to the thing you want customers to do. Starting with emails that either introduce or reintroduce customers to the company, emails that set a tone of information, humor, and engagement can lead to more successful emails down the line. But you’ve got to start somewhere small and have a clear end-goal in mind.
Why Not Start at the Beginning?
I normally help clients design an email campaign that begins from the first moment of contact. For example, when a customer fills out a form, they are launched into an email campaign that sends them a series of emails over the next couple of weeks, even months that allows the customer to get to know the business. Even if the customer doesn’t do business with the company, this campaign is still engaging and informing them.
A good email marketing plan should include a variety of campaigns that customers move in and out of. Ones that engage them from different angles and also give them opportunities to explore.
Email Marketing is My Jam (One of Them)
I love creating emails, campaigns, elaborate lists and journeys. I love analytics and seeing what customers engage what emails. I love building on-boarding strategies. I love email marketing. And I love seeing what it can do for clients’ businesses.
From MailChimp, Campaign Monitor, HubSpot Marketing, Emma, to SharpSpring, I have worked in many systems. I would be more than happy to find which one is right for your business.
My Process
Everything starts with a conversation so here’s the way that I have found works the best for my clients and I:
- We’ll talk about your business, current email usage and website (trust me, they go hand in hand), and overall goals.
- I’ll create a detailed report about your current usage, build a high-level email marketing plan, and suggest recommendations based upon systems to use and your website.
- If you decide to act on my proposal, I’ll begin drafting sample emails, style aspects, and images that we’ll use. If the website is part of this project, I will also create mockups showing how the emails and website work together in styles and language.
- Upon approval of mock-up, I will set up the system that is chosen, begin building the emails, do any web work that needs to be done, and get final approval before project finish.
- When all is done and approved, I will launch all work and put the workflows into motion.
- Any outstanding work regarding automation and data structuring will then be worked on.
I am always available to answer questions and provide support.