-Part 1-
Consider this before you send another email – the greater majority of small business people and/or entrepreneurs have no idea how to use email marketing in an effective manner!! Because of not being able to use email effectively, we are losing millions if not billions of dollars in revenue because of the lack of savvy in email marketing.
Being an entrepreneur myself, I can say that! As a real estate investor, father, and business owner, I've always been an entrepreneur at heart, and have successfully started and sold several businesses over the years. I have even started some businesses that have failed; so I know both ends of the spectrum!
As small business owners (myself included), we’re always looking for ways to close more sales and to grow our business(es). I’m sure by now you’ve either adopted some form of email marketing, but if you haven’t, I’m sure you will shortly. In any case, email marketing is easy, it’s fast, and it’s really relatively inexpensive. In most cases it will yield the highest return for our investment.
When it comes to email marketing, the truth is that most small business owners and/or entrepreneurs will spend a greater part of their time worrying about such things as: 1) what do I put in my subject line to grab their attention so it will get opened, 2) how can I be sure that my email won’t end up in the SPAM box, 3) when they open my email, is my email going to be too long so that they get bored and close it before they get to my offer, and finally 4) what is the best time of the day or week to send my email.
I have written previous article(s) “Email Marketing – Is It part Of Your Marketing Strategy” that help address some of these issues. You may want to go there and read those before you continue with this article.
Regrettably, there is a larger picture when it comes to email marketing that most entrepreneurs are missing and worse yet, neglecting. I’m talking about such things as a) sending a promotional email to an existing customer that has already purchased what you are offering at the full price [wow, that’ll go over real well!!]; b) worried about getting more SPAM complaints than ‘click-throughs’; c) a woman receives an email inviting her to a Male Enhancement offer; d) a prospect signs up to be on your mailing list, but then doesn’t hear from you for several weeks or even months!
Somehow, as entrepreneurs and/or small business owners, we have become oblivious to the mistakes we’re making! Sad but true. I can’t tell you how many times I’ve had other entrepreneurs tell me that email marketing sucks, they never get any return, and that building a list using email never works, and is basically a myth. My fellow entrepreneurs, nothing could be further from the truth. List building is relatively easy if you use a little common sense and use the right tools. Tools that are fairly inexpensive but effective.
The first things that most of us want to do is totally drop email marketing [big mistake], or go out and buy a “bigger and better” list because this one sucks!, or maybe even hire a copywriter to write a better and more compelling email and subject line!! I’ve seen cases where entrepreneurs will test by sending emails at all kinds of different hours of the day, hoping and praying that somewhere someone on the list will see it and be compelled to open the email and buy their product or opt in for their offer. Sorry to be so blunt, but you’ll go broke and discouraged before that will happen.
Your success in email marketing is not determined by sending it on a certain day of the week, or by sending it in the wee hours of the morning so the first thing they see when they open their email is yours! It’s not necessarily determined by the length of your email, or even necessarily by the header in your subject line. It’s not even necessarily determined by simply avoiding SPAM words.
What we need to emphasize on to get some real results is not by focusing solely on the things mentioned above, but by concentrating on some real bonified techniques that will make a difference to our bottom line. The strategy to creating an effective and successful email marketing campaign lies in basically 3 important (however not well known) marketing methods [there are more than 3, but we’ll focus on the 3 most important ones]:
1) 1) Your Email Marketing MUST Be Predictable and Consistent
2) 2) You MUST Have Multi-Media Included in Your Email Marketing
3) 3) You MUST Send Only Relevant Emails to Relevant People In Your List
In Part 2 we will address each one of these methods. Until next week….
