With a social media strategy becoming a must-have for your business, your email marketing plan may feel a little neglected. Contrary to the popular belief, email marketing is not dead. Quite the opposite actually.
“There’s no doubt that Facebook, YouTube, and even Twitter offer exciting advertising opportunities,” according to Jack Born, CEO of AW Pro Tools. “But the winning strategy for entrepreneurs and Fortune 500 companies alike is to attract a base of raving fans that open, read, and click on the emails you send.”
Social Media, even with it’s viral nature, doesn’t have the power to deliver personalized messages directly to your potential customers. Email is what drives revenue and lets you build a lasting relationship with your audience.
The Challenge
With Social Media you have to worry about reach and engagement because according to Facebook, your posts only reach an average of 16% of your audience (a quickly shrinking percentage). Email on the other hand, is virtually guaranteed to be delivered to your readers inbox as long as you avoid being sent to the spam folder.
Sounds simple, right? But the real challenge is getting someone to actually open your email and care enough to read what’s inside.
Countless bloggers will tell you over and over that all you need is a catchy, interesting, shocking, or stunningly amazing headline for every email you send to keep your email open rates sky-high. Well guess what? They’re right. But that’s only half the battle. Maybe even just a third.
There’s so much more you need to put into your email marketing strategy if you want to continuously get high open rates. If you’re content isn’t on par with your fabulous headlines your subscribers won’t be fooled for long…
Awesome Content
Don’t use your email list as a way to get your latest products in front of potential customers. Email strategy is a lot like content marketing because it’s all about providing real value to your audience.
The content you send to your email list should actually be better than what you’re publishing on your blog. After all these are the people who have already taken the extra step to give you their highly guarded email address.
Instead of trying to get sales from your subscribers, try giving them something instead like a freebie, a sneak peek at a new product or even free video lessons. The key is to make them feel special. Make them wish they singed up sooner!
Consistent Emails
You’re open rates will tank if your subscribers have forgotten who you are. That’s what happens when you neglect your list and they don’t hear from you for a few months.
If you don’t have enough content to send regular emails, try compiling the best tips from all of your latest blog posts or sharing an article you read lately that you think your audience will enjoy.
There’s a fine line between sending too many emails and not enough. Make sure every email has a purpose and gives your subscribers something to be excited about.
Setting Expectations
Instead of just randomly sending emails whenever you have something to share, set your subscribers expectations by send an email one day per week. Just like Marie Forleo does Q&A Tuesday or Moz does Whiteboard Friday, you can use the same strategy in your emails.
When people expect an email from you they are more likely to open it because they are used to always getting it on the same day. They can also expect the same consistency in the quality of your content.
Are you planning to improve your email strategy in 2014? Comment below and share your ideas.
Awesome post, Galen! I do a lot of email marketing for clients and when someone first hires me they always talk about subject lines and how they “need to write better ones.” But, the fact is, catchy subject lines–though great!–can absolutely backfire if that’s all you’ve got. (And, really, catchy subject lines aren’t particularly hard, it’s following them up consistently with great content that’s the challenge.) Thanks for this!
Thanks Jessica! What’s inside your emails matters just as much (if not more) than your subject lines… especially in the long run when your readers begin to expect great things from you.