Summary: In session 12 of A Marketing Podcast I talk all about email marketing strategy. I go over the objectives that any email marketing strategy should work to achieve, and review 6 email marketing strategies that you can implement for your small business. I talk about the ins and outs of each strategy and some things to keep in mind when developing those strategies.<br><br> <br> Session 12: Show Notes<br> The objectives of an email marketing strategy<br> A comprehensive email marketing strategy works to achieve all of the following:<br> <br> * Email list building<br> * Subscriber conversion<br> * Customer development<br> <br> Building your email list<br> <br> * Email marketing is nothing without email addresses<br> * so building your list is your first priority<br> * The only way to build your list is to provide potential subscribers with a level of value that they feel is worth sharing their email with you.<br> * That level depends on many factors. I’ll talk about some strategies for list building later in the article.<br> <br> I’m not going to get into specific tactics to build your list – we’ll save that for another session.<br> Subscribers into paying customers<br> <br> * Once you have subscribers you want to build trust and convert them into paying customers<br> * Again the trick is to provide value that is worth paying for<br> * This is a process – not a single email<br> * Depending on business product/service the time will vary (your sales cycle)<br> * The conversion is achieved by delivering a solution to a problem and having the required amount of trust and value in your product or service to make the purchase a non-issue<br> <br> Developing your customers<br> <br> * Once you have paying customers you should use email to support them<br> * Not only that, you want to keep them engaged for the potential of another purchase<br> * Treating your customers right will also entice sharing and social proof which in turn equates to sales<br> <br> Drip email marketing explained<br> Before we get into the different types of email marketing strategies that are available, let’s discuss drip email marketing.<br> Drip email marketing is the act of sending multiple emails, usually in an automated fashion, to develop your subscriber into performing a desired action.<br> The main reason for performing a drip campaign is to build trust and this is done by providing value before attempting to sell a product/service.<br> Developing trust with your subscribers<br> The benefit to executing a drip email marketing strategy is to develop your subscribers’ trust in you and your product.<br> Here’s a quick rundown on a theory I use to developing that trust.<br> <br> * Email 1 – Welcome and thanks<br> * Email 2 – Some value (educational in nature)<br> * Email 3 – More value (more education)<br> * Email 4 – More value + soft sell on product<br> * Email 5 – More value (more education)<br> * Email 6 – Hard Sell (it’s time to buy)<br> * Email 7 – Why not (question as to why they didn’t buy – politely of course)<br> <br> Let’s look at several email marketing strategy types to sum everything up.<br> Strategies to discuss<br> <br> * Community building/generic list<br> * contests/giveaways<br> * Email based challenges<br> * Email courses<br> * Lead magnets<br> * Emails’ involvement in your inbound campaigns<br> <br> Community building email marketing strategy<br> <br> * Community building, or a general list, is the idea of building up your email list to distribute general update style emails<br> * An example is your monthly newsletter<br> * This is the type that most small businesses begin with (and maybe end with)<br> * This is the “sign up to receive our newsletter” call to action<br> * It can be effective but has become slightly less effective due to the development of the following strategies<br>
