Stop blasting and start connecting with better email strategy

I’m an email marketer at heart. I love the ability to personalize a message and deliver that message at the right moment in time—I love delivering those messages, and I love receiving them. When email marketing is done right, there is just no better way to communicate with a prospect. And that’s a hill I will die on.

Imagine my shock and horror when, at a recent digital marketing event, I encountered a growing number of marketers who visibly grimaced at the mention of email marketing.

“Ugh, email marketing—you mean spam?” was the general theme. Spam! My email marketer’s heart broke just a little more every day.

Dig deeper: 6 steps to writing emails that get opened and acted on

But you know what? They’re not wrong. Too many organizations—particularly in the B2B and SaaS space—have abused email as a channel. Because it’s free, because you can “deliver” a message that you want to anyone with an email address, and because it’s “trackable” to see who engages, we have mistaken email’s true purpose—to build a relationship between a brand and a person—with our own selfish purposes—lead generation.

If your organization is losing trust in email marketing, or if email is no longer an effective channel for you, let’s consider what might be amiss and how you can fix it.

Email marketing isn’t free

Just because you have someone’s email address does not mean you should email them. Getting an opt-in—a consented email address—has a cost associated with it. Sometimes that’s a real cost—the cost of advertising, or event engagement, or content syndication. Sometimes, that’s an intangible cost, like the value of trust and relationship.

Every time you send an unexpected email, or one that a person can’t deduce why they might have received this email from you, you are putting the cost of email acquisition at risk. At best, they will delete and ignore your email. At worst, an unsolicited or unexpected email will trigger spam complaints and unsubscribes. 

In short, if your recipients can’t logic their way to why you sent them this message, don’t send it at all.

It’s the relationship, always the relationship

Email is not a lead generation tool. It is a relationship-building tool, designed for a two-way conversation between your brand and a human being. This is especially true if you’re a service provider, as it is nearly impossible to “click to buy” in B2B email. We don’t sell sweaters! B2B and SaaS organizations are working on long-term sales that involve many parties, fluctuations in budget and needs, and changes to the business that could impact timing. It is wholly unrealistic to expect anyone to “buy” directly from a B2B email.

Instead, ask yourself—what is my opportunity to build a relationship with this person? Is it providing them with the exact right article for what their intent signals say they are researching? Is it to give them an invitation to an event that closely aligns with their interests? Is it to educate them on a change in the market?

Dig deeper: Your nurture strategy is lazy marketing

Email marketing should center on the recipient, not the sender. It doesn’t matter what your sales team wants to say to them, what value propositions you can present or what you want the recipient to do next (probably book a meeting). 

What matters in email marketing is showcasing your brand as a trustworthy and reliable resource that can help your prospects and clients navigate their business with greater efficiency. 

Timing is everything

I once subscribed to emails from a clothing brand that I really liked—only to receive an email with links to buy a new sweater every single day.

In email marketing, less is more. Send something valuable only when you have something useful to send.

Gone are the days when a newsletter has to go out on Tuesday at 11 a.m. because “that’s what we’ve always done.” Gone are the days when you need to include five content slots. Only have one thing to say? Just say that. Don’t have anything noteworthy this Tuesday? No need to send an email.

When you tailor your frequency to match the actual needs of your recipients, you have more room to send important communications without noise or distraction, and overall, you’ll see higher engagement with the emails you do send.

No blasting, please

List management is just as important as minimizing noise. Effective email marketing is tailored to the specific audience—a general rule of thumb is that you should rarely have an occasion to send an email to everyone on your list at once. 

Think about how you can segment your audience and get creative. You might consider:

• High intent topics.
• Titles and/or roles.
• Previous engagements and interests.
• Industries.
• Regions.
• Clients versus prospects versus open opportunities versus lost clients.

The most effective messages are those intended for specific people and groups.

In short, email marketing is still one of the top-performing marketing channels in terms of revenue generation, but not because it’s doing any real generation. Email marketing works best as a form of relationship nurturing, and the more you tailor the right message to the right person at the right moment, the better your email program will perform. 

The post Stop blasting and start connecting with better email strategy appeared first on MarTech.

Continue reading →