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Reflections on Email Marketing
March 26, 2018 |
The following is adapted from a message I wrote to a client today.
K ~
A few thoughts as we work on becoming more proactive with marketing.
Over the years I've seen expectations shift about email. I can remember before it existed. When my mom was alive we had a local small business called The Paper Crunch that did hardcopy mailmerge campaigns using Wordstar and dBase. People thought it was so cool you could create a template that said "Dear <Lname>" and that their last name would be magically inserted to make the letter seem personal. Cool! We went through a lot of paper and made many trips to the post office with those big bins full of envelopes.
I can also remember when fax machines happened, it was the early 80s. My mom said "I can send a document over the phone!" It was like the old Willy Wonka movie when he transported a candy bar via television. Wow!
Then email came and we had all the advantages of mail merge, and then some, without having to print anything or make any trips to the post office.
Then came SPAM which became misunderstood (I wrote a web page about that too, that I encourage you to check out) and the government tried to regulate.
Hah, good luck with that, government. I still get spam every day.
Then social media came along and email became So Yesterday. People abandoned it in favor of instant messaging and going viral on social media.
Blogging and SEO happened. I researched them and wound up writing a poem from my findings.
But what to do with blogging, how to do it; most importantly, how to monetize? I watched the consensus develop over time that it became all about (drum roll, please . . .) building your email address list.
Wait, what? I thought email was So Yesterday. Now it's important again? OK, whatevs. Man, this is so confusing.
And in the blogosphere I saw a consensus develop that the ideal blog post was several thousand words, something like ten pages.
Huh? Who has time for that, either writing or reading?
Then a couple years ago, on a tip from a CRM software CEO, I read Chris Smith's The Conversion Code. Conversion as in, converting prospects into paying clients.
In it, Smith shared the most successful email campaign. It was really short - like, nine words. From this, I developed my One Thing email campaign, which you've received before and responded to, because it works:
K ~
A few thoughts as we work on becoming more proactive with marketing.
Over the years I've seen expectations shift about email. I can remember before it existed. When my mom was alive we had a local small business called The Paper Crunch that did hardcopy mailmerge campaigns using Wordstar and dBase. People thought it was so cool you could create a template that said "Dear <Lname>" and that their last name would be magically inserted to make the letter seem personal. Cool! We went through a lot of paper and made many trips to the post office with those big bins full of envelopes.
I can also remember when fax machines happened, it was the early 80s. My mom said "I can send a document over the phone!" It was like the old Willy Wonka movie when he transported a candy bar via television. Wow!
Then email came and we had all the advantages of mail merge, and then some, without having to print anything or make any trips to the post office.
Then came SPAM which became misunderstood (I wrote a web page about that too, that I encourage you to check out) and the government tried to regulate.
Hah, good luck with that, government. I still get spam every day.
Then social media came along and email became So Yesterday. People abandoned it in favor of instant messaging and going viral on social media.
Blogging and SEO happened. I researched them and wound up writing a poem from my findings.
But what to do with blogging, how to do it; most importantly, how to monetize? I watched the consensus develop over time that it became all about (drum roll, please . . .) building your email address list.
Wait, what? I thought email was So Yesterday. Now it's important again? OK, whatevs. Man, this is so confusing.
And in the blogosphere I saw a consensus develop that the ideal blog post was several thousand words, something like ten pages.
Huh? Who has time for that, either writing or reading?
Then a couple years ago, on a tip from a CRM software CEO, I read Chris Smith's The Conversion Code. Conversion as in, converting prospects into paying clients.
In it, Smith shared the most successful email campaign. It was really short - like, nine words. From this, I developed my One Thing email campaign, which you've received before and responded to, because it works:
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Hey [FIRST_NAME], Heads up, just checking in to see if we`re on the same page: As of [Last Date], I understand our One Thing is [Agenda.] Is that right? The next time I plan to follow up about this is around [Next Call Date]. Glad to help, Kris Freeberg, Economist Making End$ Meet (360) 224-4322 |
The One Thing campaign is an artful use of mail merge techniques, the same ones we used back in the day in hardcopy. But instead of just merging names, it also merges dates and agendas.
I was able to create this because I have a good CRM. It's clunky, but it has the features I need.
Could you create something like it in yours? I'm pretty sure you can although I'm not sure whether you can indicate in individual contact records whether they were included in a campaign and when, relative to all other interactions. To me it's vital to know what campaigns people received when because those incidents are vital moments in the relationship development history. They're seminal.
In your case, imagine you're prospecting someone in November and they say "Yeah I could use a good spring cleaning." So you'd schedule a follow up in early March about that. Using my technique, I have a One Thing field in every contact record. In this case I'd write in it, "scheduling the spring cleaning we discussed last November."
Then when I sent the One Thing campaign to a group of prospects, their message would include that agenda, making it seem like I just wrote the message to them, individually.
As we ramp up for more proactive marketing and sales I just wanted to share this insight with you that comes from 35 years of experience in work and business during a time of rapidly changing technology, theories, and opinions about effective marketing and sales practices.
The bottom line is to master your database and email games because email is here to stay.
Now Facebook is in trouble so who knows? Zuck could crash and burn but we'll still have our databases and our abilities to interact with our tribes via email. It's the one dependable constant that abides throughout ever changing technology, politics, fads, and trends. Learn to master it.
And keep messages short, simple, uncluttered, and personalized. The technology to do that well is at our fingertips. If you can carve out the time, read The Conversion Code. If not, read my review at least, along with my reviews of Jeff Fox's work. He's brilliant.
Now we'll be meeting about a marketing plan soon, and that is why I'm taking the time today to record and share these thoughts.
The main thing I want to impart to you all is that insofar as surprises have made or broken your business in years past, you are in the Surprise Business. So I encourage you to embrace Surprise. Do not behave as though it's all predictable. It's not, and that's the good news.
Tom Peters wrote about this a long time ago in his Thriving on Chaos books.
That's your position, right? Predictability: are you kidding me? Chaos is your friend. Give it a big love hug and go with
it.
That's why I'm suggesting we stick with an "unrealistic" revenue goal this year. If you leave the goal in place your mind will go to work on it.
What seems unrealistic to me is expecting quality work from suffering employees, or acting like revenue is predictable when the largest component of historic profit is from surprises, or depending on surprises to keep your business going.
I'd suggesting building out the predictable sides of your business beyond anyone's opinions of what is "realistic." I'm 100% sure you can, if you'll make up your mind to do so.
I hope you'll chew on these thoughts between now and when we meet, and that we can work together, using them to
maximize our productivity then.
For your success,
Kris Freeberg, Economist
Making End$ Meet
[email protected]
(360) 224-4322
