It’s 2023 and the email marketing space is full of products and brands that are looking to sell you their product or move you along the marketing funnel. In a space that is full of businesses.
How do you and your team find success in email marketing?
It is a question I have been considering for a little while with a couple of entrepreneurial ventures that I am spearheading. So let’s dive in and look at emails that actually work.
Honest Skepticism
There is no magic wand in marketing and marketing needs to be robust and diverse in order to succeed. I think of sales as the surgical and subsequent fine-tuned resolution of valuable goods and services. On the other hand, marketing is the overall health and well-being of the supporting structure for valuable goods and services. Both are important but one requires a talent-driven set of techniques and skill sets shared in a very precise and careful manner that is shaped by experience-ie sales. Whereas marketing requires a massive overarching thread of connected channels that lift the brand and associated products/services up over time.
With this comparison in mind, it is an important strategic principle to understand that the emails that you and your team send to close deals or communicate with clients directly are sales emails and those are not what we are discussing here. Instead, we are discussing the long-game email strategy of communicating through email as an advertisement space.
Why Dividing Emails Into Types Helps
It is daunting to be tasked with setting up an email campaign. Once you and your team determine the audience and branding that goes along with the campaign it can still be difficult to get traction. This is precisely why you and your team need to segment emails into types. This will make it less grandiose and more manageable. Let’s dive in to the types of emails that will help you and your team find and nurture your leads.
Acquisition Emails
First off are acquisition emails. These emails are key to any campaign and are important keystones to the top-of-funnel communications that you and your team are developing. The top-of-funnel idea refers to the marketing funnel which starts with Awareness and Consideration. When you and your team are crafting these emails, think about how to drive awareness and help leads consider your product or service. For a more detailed best practice guide for crafting acquisition emails that rock, check out this recent article where I dive in deeper into practical steps to craft excellent acquisition emails.
In continuation, it is important that this type of email be focused on branding and quality assurance. If there was a type of email to spend the extra money on to get a nice graphic or to send out an A B test to determine the best option, this would be it. Just like in real life, the first impression that we make of someone sticks with us forever and an acquisition email should be considered in the same light. Could of the best practices are to make sure to include a clean and legible logo and spell things out to the audience in this email (but don’t be too wordy). The main objective that typically will help you find success is if after the email is opened would a potential client remembers who sent it and what they do. If the answer is yes, then that is great top-of-funnel communication. Enjoy the botanicals courtesy of Elias T.
Welcome Emails
Connected to and oftentimes mistaken for acquisition emails are welcome emails. Do not confuse these two emails and just because someone joins an email list does not me that they are a true member. Just like dating, don’t be too desperate or assume that you will have a follow-up until you are sure they are interested. These emails should be sent at key milestone intervals and should be very unique in their content. Ideally, these emails are auto-sent and developed with a trigger in mind from someone like MailChimp, AWeber or even HubSpot.
Okay, quick tangent: you do not need a fancy CRM to establish a cadence email set. You can do it the manual way if you have a small audience and you are focused on scale. I have done this in the past when I am trying to make sure an idea is marketable and I want full control and I am using a small audience (less than 100). If you want to manually track each client in a Google Sheet with basic demographic information and then build out columns for each email that needs to be sent, that is not a bad way of staying frugal. There are great tools to build html emails such as BEE or TOPOL. Another exciting update hit Gmail and they are rolling out a more robust email with custom styling, here is a snapshot and overview from them. It is important to manually track the emails and the stages in the customer journey but if you stay organized you can do it and not spend a dime.
Anyways, back to welcome emails. When crafting these emails think about what would “seal the deal.” These emails are going to your leads right at the conversion stage. Depending on your market and approach, the client/customer may still be hesitant and would benefit from a strong, straightforward, and trust-building email that prevents buyer remorse and cancelations. This is a brilliant opportunity to build trust by showing gratitude with a coupon on the next order or setting up a rewards program for a certain number of purchases.
Another excellent best practice here is to pivot the customer towards ESG or Sustainability that you and your company are a part of.
Link to a recent Press Release or YouTube video of you and your team giving back to the community or how your initiatives or innovation strategies are making the planet a better place.
Any SMM services are available – whether it’s likes, YouTube followers or buying Telegram accounts.
Whatever you choose, remember to stay simple, straightforward, and on brand- this will ensure that trust is right where it needs to be. Another pro tip is to not sell them something else at this stage, just wait and let them come to you.
Newsletter Emails
Newsletters have a bad rep. Let’s face it sometimes these types of emails are borderline spammy. The key to this type of email is to send it at the right time, consistently, and make it an email that you would read. These emails are there to build bottom-of-funnel client relationships such as conversion and loyalty.
These are a great way to promote sales, events, sponsorships, partnerships, current events, and much more. Don’t be afraid to show and tell in this email. Make them brief but try to include 2–3 key details with a subsequent call to action that makes sense. Again, make sure to stay with your brand voice and match the style to build trust. These types of emails should stay pretty buttoned up and focus on educating, informing, and sharing information.
Promotional Emails
Promotional emails are typically the most common. Today many businesses fall into the trap of “just send out an email blast.” When email blasts go out these are typically promotional emails and they are typically poorly thought through and lack the marketing approach that I mentioned at the beginning of this article. Unfortunately, these emails are typically more sales-forward and this is where experience matters. Take the time to think this through and do not come off as desperate. Provide a promotion that makes sense.
In Eric Ries’s book The Lean Startup, he outlines the guiding principles for finding scaleable success. One of the instances he shared is the power of promotion. He used an example of a landscaping company offering a free specialty service if the customer books a standard one. He says to be wise about this but it is the same principle that many retail and food outlets use to promote increased revenue with the BOGO offers.
Each business, product, service, and offer is unique and should be thought through carefully. Once you establish your promotion now it is vital that you provide the simplest and most UX-friendly call to action possible. In this type of email, trust and consistency are paramount and User Experience is absolutely vital. I think of this like the main baton stage, don’t drop the baton! Photo courtesy of eberhard gross gasteiger
Retention Emails
Last but not least are retention emails. These emails fall solely in the loyalty bucket of the marketing funnel and should be spaced out appropriately. It is important that these emails are sent to the correctly segmented list groups to ensure authenticity and stay ahead of the competition. One objective for these emails is to focus on lead nurturing content and strategies to help build a strong relationship. These emails are all about timing. Make sure not to oversend them and if you and your team offer support services make sure that these emails do not impact the support team’s interaction with the client.
Some excellent examples of retention emails are cart abandonment emails, customer feedback emails, and follow-up emails. All of these should be crafted with care and attention and serve the same goal. It is important to personalize these emails, probably more important to personalize these emails than any other type. By personalizing retention emails you show people that they are not a number but a valued customer or client. Do not send these too often but do not be afraid to send these out when appropriate.
Conclusion
That’s it, now get out there and “break some eggs” or in other words start drafting some emails. Just to recap we addressed the overall perspective of keeping the right driving principle behind different types of emails such as sales vs marketing. We also discussed acquisition emails. Welcome emails, newsletters, promotional emails, and retention emails. As you and your team work hard, keep in mind the importance of staying on brand and distinct in your delivery. Follow these principles and you will do outstanding! Don’t be afraid to pivot and stay patient.
