EMAIL MARKETING: The What, Why and How to Run Emails that Sells

EMAIL MARKETING: The Definition, Essence and Methods of Email that Sells

Are you wondering if you need to include email marketing as a tactic in your digital marketing strategy?

The short answer is yes, you do!

Although, you might have heard the rumors that email marketing is dead.

Well, don’t believe it.

Email is no where near dead – it is alive and well.

No matter the niche or size of your list or your product price point, if you’re not using emails, then you’re definitely leaving a whole lot of money on the table.

Sadly, your competition (who is half as smart as you) is using emails to collect plenty of sales from customers (including yours).

Therefore, in this article, we want to introduce you to one of the discipline in digital marketing that regardless of the rumors (that it is dead), if you know how to use it, it will help you exponentially grow your brand and business online.

But first,

Definition of Email Marketing

What exactly is email marketing?

In a simple term, email marketing is the process of promoting a brand/business through the use of emails and newsletters.

It is also the process of doing more with less by connecting with your (target) subscribers in a highly personalized way while staying on budget.

It is one of the most versatile marketing tools (if deployed properly) whereby, any business like yours can use to grow their brand/business exponentially.

In fact, email marketing is a direct marketing channel that lets you share new products, sales and update with customers on your subscriber list.

With that in mind…

Essence of Email Marketing

Why is email marketing very important?

It is important because;

1. It is an easy way to reach mobile subscribers. Most of your customers engage with your business through mobile and email enable you to reach out to them with ease.
2. It’s an effective way to keep subscribers informed. Your customers need to know more about your business. Happily, email enable you to provide the right information that meet them at the stage of their journey with you (or your business).
3. It is cheap because it is easy to customize and integrate into other marketing tactics.
4. It has the longevity. That is, while some marketing trends come and go, email remains the most powerful channel available to the modern marketer.

Now, here is…

Methods of (a Well-Executed) Email Marketing

How to run a good email marketing strategy;

1. Define the Business Objectives.

You can’t start any digital marketing activity without knowing its benefit it will bring to your business. You need to know the objectives and how it fits into your business.

This’ why identifying the goal intended to be achieved by your email marketing program is the first step. This is done by defining and putting on paper if it is for generating leads or converting leads or both. Either way, ensure you have a defined objective for this program.

Next is to…

2. Define the Subscriber Profile.

Your subscriber profile is that one person who is interested in your offer or who is already in your (email) list. Sadly, you can’t set up an email marketing program and have it deployed without knowing who it is targeted for. You don’t want to end up sending it to the wrong subscribers. This is why profiling your subscribers is the best shot. And this is done by identifying who and where they are, what’s their pain points and interest, most importantly, where they are in your subscriber journey (cold, warm or hot).

This leads us to…

3. Describe the Irresistible Offers

Your offer is not the same as or built around your product or service alone. Although, your business is built around a product but your offer is a unique combination of your product or service with bonuses. Luckily, you may have one product but you can offer it for sale in a variety of ways, creating a hundreds of offer. So, describing your offer and making it irresistible (good), will surely attract and convert your subscribers. But a resistible (bad) offer will not convert.

Now is the time to…

4. Develop the Persuasive Copy.

This is where you turn your offer into copy. What do I mean by that? Your copy refers to the message you used in your offers. It has to be clear and compelling. That is, you need to develop a copy that is persuasive – that has a strong emotional hook – that in turn triggers your subscribers to act on your offers – to take whatever action you’re asking for. Bear it in mind that at this point, you need to forget about hyping your product and focus more on presenting your offer as the solution.

You can write the copy yourself or, because the copy need to be clearly communicates and persuade the subscribers you’re targeting, you can outsource it to a copywriter. Regardless of who does the writing, ensure, you have unique copy for every subscriber on your list.

Last but not the least is to…

1. Deploy the Pragmatic Tools

We cannot end this session without discussing about email tools and techs. The fact is that, you cannot run a Perfect Email that Sells without them. Deploying one will enable you to create, send, test, optimize and report on the performance of your email campaigns.

Fortunately, there are lots of them offered by email service providers (ESP) to choose from. Yet, ensure to choose and deploy the one that will help you get the job done.

Conclusion: What’s the Bottom Line?

As a business owner, if you need to do more with less and connect with your (target) subscribers in a highly personalized way at the stage of their (subscriber) journey while staying on budget, email marketing is the tactic you need.

Businesses who are good at strategically executing email marketing can not only connect with their subscribers in a highly targeted way, they will be successful in delivering ROI and revenue back to the business.

Truthfully, no marketing category has the longevity of email marketing. While some marketing trends do come and go, email remains the most powerful channel available to attract and convert today’s  consumers online.

Therefore, if you’re just starting out and you need to (hire an agency to) execute a Perfect Email that Sells, click on the link below.