Email Marketing Foundations – Part One

Email Marketing Foundations – Part One

TAKING AIM

You may find this hard to believe but there are a lot of authors and speakers that take the fire, aim, ready approach instead of the ready, aim, fire approach when it comes to building their platform. 

Put another way, they put the cart before the horse. 

In most cases, it’s because you just to want to get things done. You have your to-do list and you want to get the boxes checked off so you can move on to the next thing. 

Trust me, I get it. Taking time to strategize and plan isn’t always as fun as acutally doing the stuff. It’s not as fun as writing. It’s not as exhilerating speaking. 

BUT, the reality is that if you don’t have a roadmap in place it’s easy to suffer from Shiny Object Syndrome. Without a blueprint, FOMO (Fear Of Missing Out) can easily take hold and take you down a rabbit hole that’s more precarious than Dorothy and Toto. 

So what does this have to do with email marketing? The answer….everything. 

OVERALL BUSINESS OBJECTIVES

In part one of this series on email marketing foundations, I want to help you get clear on your objectives. If you aren’t clear on these things it doesn’t matter what kind of email tools or tactics you use, you’ll be stuck and frustrated with your email marketing efforts. 

BRAND AWARENESS

What kind of position are you trying to establish with your writing and speaking platform? Defining the 5 W’s and the H is critical to identifying your unique selling proposition/position:

• WHO is your audience? 
• WHAT does your audience need and what’s in it for them? 
• WHAT does your audience need and want to hear your message? 
• WHERE does your audience want to consume your content? Examples: book, live event, podcast, video, blog, etc…
• WHY does your message matter and why should people listen to you instead of someone else? 
• HOW will you get your message in front of people? 

The most valuable currency isn’t measured in dollars and cents. 

Today, the most valuable currency is attention. If you can gain the attention of people and they become aware of your brand, you have won more than half the battle. 

CUSTOMER/AUDIENCE ACQUISITION

The next natural step after brand awareness is getting people to know, like and trust you so you can move them to a place of taking action. Action can take on a number of forms:

• Signing up for your email list
• Downloading a free sample of your book or any kind of valuable piece of content 
• Buying your book 
• Inviting you to speak at an event
• Engage with you on social media

Your messages and platform exist to have a positive impact on people. So, never feel bad about doing what you can to grow your platform and gather more people to your tribe. 

CUSTOMER RETENTION

Retaining a customer or audience member is far cheaper than acquiring a new one. Consider some of the statistics as reported by Outbound Engine (outboundengine.com):

• Acquiring a new customer can five times more than retaining an existing customer. 
• Increasing customer retention by 5% can increase profits from 25-95%
• The success rate of selling to a customer you already have is 60-70%, while the success rate of selling to a new customer is 5-20%

You definitely need to be building a larger audience that leads to the sales of your books and more people in the seats at your events. But, you can’t ignore your current audience, it will always be a challenge to maintain an appropriate balance between gaining new followers as you build your platform.

LOSS PREVENTION

You have done a lot of work to make people aware of your brand. A lot of these people know, like and trust you. More people are buying your books and attending your events. So, how are you going to keep them? How does the hard work of bringing people into your tribe grow instead of shrink and disappear? 

Stay in touch with your audience. This could a daily, weekly or monthly email communication but’s incredibly important you are in the inbox of your audience regularly. Here are a few examples of how this could look for you: 

• Inspirational, educational, or entertaining content
• Reminding your audience of your upcoming events
• Curating and sharing other relevant resources and contents
• Excerpts from your books
• Clips from speaking engagements
• Testimonies from other readers and/or followers

WIN-BACK

The brutal, sad truth is that people will leave your tribe. They will unfollow you on social media. They won’t show up at your next event. They won’t buy your next book. They will unsubscribe from your email list. 

Sometimes, just due to “life” you won’t be top of mind with them. 

There was a time they were connected with you. At some point in the past, they benefited from your content. Now you have to reach out to them and encourage them to rejoin the tribe. 

No matter what the case, you can still win them back. 

STICK WITH THE PLAN

Take some time to think through each of these points on the journey of your audience. Don’t let a false sense of urgency push to put the cart before the horse. Take time to think about your strategy. 

Establish your roadmap. 

Follow your blueprint. 

Win!

by Chris Rainey