Speaking on stage I was challenged by an audience member on whether email marketing still works:
“But aren’t people overwhelmed by emails, their inbox so full of it they ignore it?”
It’s true that people are more protective of their email inbox – and more careful about what they allow in it. But it’s definitely not true that email marketing doesn’t work, when you get it right and follow email marketing best practices.
They really sat up and paid attention as I shared case studies on how to do email marketing and for using email to generate cash. These case studies were from 3 separate businesses, in different industries and included an international example.
Neil a member of the audience jumped in boots and all to support me on the power of email and how it can to generate sales with the right email marketing strategy. He had a very positive experience with his latest email marketing launch, and he also shared a great story of Qantas using it very successfully. This leads to the real question, which is:
How can YOU use email marketing successfully? Here’s how you can do email marketing that works:
1. Have an Email Marketing Plan
Have a plan of what your email marketing strategy will be, know how often you will email, and who will write the emails.
One of the key secrets we teach in our email marketing formula (EVO) is that you have to add VALUE when you send emails, not just sell. It’s crucial that you understand email marketing best practices and you implement a plan to use these.
2. Build Your List
Emailing to no one, or just a few people doesn’t help. Make sure you add new clients and new leads to your database (legitimately asking people for permission is important) and obviously also build it online, for example:
- Free Reports (yes these still work)
- Training Videos
- Webinars (our favourite list building and engagement tool)
3. Test, Measure and Refine
Don’t make this a once and done thing, know your stats and always look to improve them.
I also discussed with the audience Email Open Rates (how many people open and read your emails) and what a good percentage is. You can look at industry rates, or compare yourself to others. But the most important thing is to always improve your stats, discover what is working well for you (so you can do it more), and equally what is not (so you can fix it, or stop wasting valuable resources on it).
BONUS: Advanced Email Marketing Strategy
Once you’ve got the basic strategies sorted and have a handle on your email marketing strategy, it’s time to ramp things up and look at some advanced strategies. Allow me to share one with you: Segmentation.
Segmentation is creating different sublists within your database. This is people who want slightly different things from your business.
For example say you own a service based business, and you have some clients who want done for you services (i.e. you do the work for them) and others who want to be taught how to do things (so they can do it for themselves).
You could create two sublists, one for the Done For You, and one for the Do It Yourself. This lets you follow email marketing best practice and email them with highly relevant content that is more specific to them and their needs. This drives better engagement, higher response and also less unsubscribes because your messages are more targeted!
Segmentation can also enable you to do some very cool things, for example, completely change the rules of the email game….
Imagine if you could email people, selling to them all the time, and they wanted you to do that, in fact they welcomed it?
That would be pretty cool right?
That’s exactly what some businesses do, in fact I know a retail store in Auckland that makes thousands every time they send an email because they use exactly this segmentation strategy. Here’s how to do email marketing the way they do using segmentation:
A. Create an Exclusive Segmentation
This is a special segmentation for people who want deals, people who want first chance to grab a special.
I know it sounds a bit cheesy – but businesses like Grab One have built their entire business on the back of this idea. As I already shared a retailer here in Auckland uses this exact strategy to generate big sales.
B. Don’t have this on Your Website (or open to everyone)
Sounds a bit counterintuitive, but don’t have it on your website, don’t have it “easy to get to”. You want it to actually BE exclusive, not just pretending to be.
Invite your best customers only to have access to it, allow people to join it when they make their first purchase. However you make it exclusive, don’t make it available for everyone and anyone. This is one of the keys to using this specific email marketing strategy successfully.
C. Give them first access to deals or even exclusive offers
Then live up to the promise, actually send them deals first, or exclusive offers, i.e. ones that no one else gets. This is a massive part of email marketing best practices: actually follow through and be authentic and do what you say you’re doing to do.
This is where the value comes in – this still follows the EVO formula, the value in this case is the super deals and offers, and exclusive access to it. People don’t want to miss out, and they love to feel special. This strategy hits both of these emotional hot buttons which is why it works so well.
If you’d like to learn more about email marketing and our EVO email marketing formula click here to check out our next live digital marketing workshop.
