Why you should send emails
Email seems like an archaic way of communicating in many ways given we can message over social media apps these days, but it continues to be one of the principal ways that companies who want our business contact us. And that’s exactly why you should build up a mailing list and use it on a regular basis - if everyone else is doing it why shouldn’t you? But I can sense some resistance - it’s more work, something else to add to my very long to do list, do they even work? - so let me explain why in a little more detail.
Why does email marketing matter?
Email marketing helps you build a relationship with your client base which is essential for sales. There are other ways, of course, and if you use it in conjunction with the likes of social media, webinars, in-person meets it will only help to consolidate your brand’s values and increase client engagement. Email marketing can also drive traffic to your website which is another huge bonus. Once people have landed on your website the email passes the baton over to the web copy and web design to keep clients there. The longer they’re browsing your website, the more they are understanding about your brand and hopefully they will make a purchase or sign up to a service you offer.
Brand awareness
Brand awareness is part of building a relationship but there’s more to it than that: your email appears in an inbox and although the recipient may scroll on by nine times out of ten, you’re still penetrating their subconscious and building brand awareness. The next time they need someone to bake them a cake / fix a gutter / coach them onto their next career move, your company name may well be the lightbulb that sparks above their head. Think about how many times you yourself have done it.
Each to their own
We live in a media rich world now and so there are many different ways to absorb information. Think about the news as one example - TV, newspapers in print, newspapers online, apps, podcasts, YouTube videos, social media posts, emails straight to their inbox …and the list goes on. The same applies to your company: you probably have a social media presence, you might advertise in print magazines, you might write the occasion guest blog and you should definitely send emails. Everyone has their favourite medium, or a few and so for every person who deletes the email and wishes they’d never subscribed (but can they be bothered to unsubscribe?), there’ll be someone who dives right in and reads it from top to bottom. (As long as the ‘deleter’ doesn’t unsubscribe, they’re still a potential customer.)
Sales and the sales journey
As the name suggests, email marketing is a marketing tool and is a ready-made sales funnel for your business. Mailing lists can be sliced and diced as well as used in their entirety so you can really hone in on a group’s purchasing habits. One party supplies’ website emailed me at the same time every year as I had used them once for my son’s birthday party - it was brilliant and, you know what, I always repeat bought because they were making my life simple for me - no Googling party supplies and trawling through websites. Here was a company I trusted, and they were right there in my inbox. They were the paracetamol to the pain of planning a child’s birthday party.
You can also capitalise on different parts of the customer journey, marketing to the recipient in different ways along that path and maintaining the relationship.
‘Hi new customer! Thanks for your purchase from XXX….’
‘Did you forget to add to cart? Here’s 10% off to say thanks for browsing …’
‘Please leave a review of your purchase.’
Marketing automation platforms like Mailchimp and Klaviyo can help with such emails along the customer journey if they’re built into your website and ecommerce functionality.
Image from Unsplash
How to make email marketing work
Audience
Always think about your audience and what’s going to engage them. Writing for you isn’t going to work; you need to write for them.
You don’t want your emails to be 100% sales focussed as that isn’t going to help you build a relationship with your customers or clients. You need a mixture of nurture emails and sales orientated emails. The nurture emails provide value to the recipient and demonstrate that you’re trustworthy. Provide value regularly and sales patter less so.
Image by Unsplash
Examples of nurturing emails:
How - if you’re a cake baker, you might provide a recipe for the best buttercream icing; if you’re an accountant, you might provide a list of common pitfalls that business owners make with their accounts.
Testimonials - share customer reviews about your service or products to show that other people who are just like the reader endorse you or would recommend you/your product.
Newsletter - this is a common form of email and allows you to provide a good round-up of what you’ve been doing, news in the industry, links to your blogs (you’re blogging right?!) without directly selling.
“87% of consumers choose to do business with vendors who provide valuable content at all stages of the buying process
63% of consumers need to hear a company’s value proposition(s) 3-5 times before they trust these claims
Nurtured leads make 47% larger purchases than non-nurtured prospects ”
I would also recommend putting your most interesting, relevant, sales focussed (if that’s the type of email you’re composing) at the top simply because people may not read the whole email. Think about your own email/article/blog reading habits…
Data
Your email marketing list is valuable data that you can use. Data has to be one of the biggest commodities of the 21st century and you have it right there in that database of email addresses be it a fancy system or an excel spreadsheet! You have the names and email addresses of people who are interested in your company for whatever reason - they might be interested in what you do, they may have bought from you in the past, but the important thing is that they’re expecting to hear from you. Subscribers understand the way the world works and are expecting emails.
Make sure you have a lead generator on your website to entice people to sign-up to your mailing list so that you’re adding to it all the time. An example of a lead generator might be a discount for a first purchase or a free guide to something relevant to your site that they can receive by signing up.
Frequency of email marketing
Try to stick to a regular schedule to keep up the brand awareness. By regular I would suggest weekly or every couple of weeks but if you can manage every day with fresh information/products to pass on and the time or team to do it, then go for it! All the big brands so put yourself out there - every email is another notch in the subconscious! Don’t forget to take advantage of special days too - awareness days, holidays, count down to an important date e.g. Christmas, the self-assessment deadline.
Customer journey emails work alongside your regular email schedule as they are bespoke to each client’s route through your website and as they are automated, you won’t necessarily know when they are being sent (although you should check the analytics to understand which emails have impact and generate return).
Image from Unsplash
Images
Good quality images that coordinate with the email content are a must. They can help to amplify what you’re saying and engage a reader. They break up the text and so make it easier to read and if you’re selling physical products then it goes without saying that they’re essential! But they must be of a high quality and I would recommend employing a product photographer.
For other images, there are lots of websites that provide free photos such as Pixabay, Unsplash and Canva. Image websites such as these can be frustrating however, if you’re looking for pictures depicting groups such as people of colour or disabled people. The industry needs to improve in this area.
Topping and tailing
Topping and tailing sounds flippant but a catchy subject line that engages the reader and a clear call to action are imperative. Next time you go through your inbox, think about the email subjects that make you want to read more - how did they do that? That’s what you need to emulate with your own email subjects. Preview text is another opportunity to ‘hook’ your reader so don’t dismiss it as irrelevant.
Calls to action are what you want the reader to do. It could be ‘Visit website’, ‘Read more’, ‘Buy’. Make them very clear so that the reader knows what they have to do and try not to make them too confusing. Your emails should have a clear mission, what you’re trying to achieve from that email. If it’s a nurture email and you have a ‘how to’ video on your website then you want people to ‘watch video’. Once they’re on your website where the video should be located, hopefully they’ll keep browsing and you’re in a position to sell.
A lot was covered there and really there’s more to say, so if you have any questions, please contact me.
My top takeaway would be to go through your own inbox and look at the emails you receive - what catches your eye, what do you like, what do you not like, can you identify their hook and their call to action, how quickly do you move from the email to their website? You will start to see how all this works and then you must try it out for yourself!
Get in touch if you need a hand.
Caroline