You’ve probably heard about how important email is to your content and marketing strategy. Maybe you even send regular emails to your audience or have a welcome sequence for new subscribers. That’s one step in the right direction, but there’s so much more you can do with your emails!
In today’s ever-changing world, we see how dramatically technology is changing. As a small business owner, you are always looking to follow the latest trends. You may feel that in a world of social media, emails have become outdated. However, the reality is that emails are more important than social media.
There needs to be a true strategy in your email marketing and it must tie into your overall content strategy. You can use email to help achieve your content and business goals and get the most out of your audience interactions. I’m going to share with you several strategies and examples that will help you do this.
Client Journey in Your Email Marketing
You should already have a welcome sequence in place. When it comes to email marketing, this is the bare minimum of what you should be offering. It introduces you to your audience and should (hopefully) be providing them with some additional value. Now it’s time to go beyond the welcome sequence. It’s time to take your audience on a journey with your brand as they get to know you.
I worked with a client who sells digital products of varying difficulty to consumers. They have a ton of content already created with free and low-cost products that their audience members can use to “try out” my client’s teaching ability and style.
Eventually, we wanted to drive more traffic to higher-paid programs and courses. The problem is that new subscribers are often confused about what content to consume. We mapped out four different levels of products. Then we created a quiz to determine where new subscribers fell within their ability level. From there, subscribers followed a journey of brand awareness and education. They learned what my client had to offer–for free first, then as paid programs.
This resulted in loads of new leads, a better-segmented list of current subscribers, more clarity for new subscribers, and new sales! Sales that my client wouldn’t have gotten without the quiz and email sequence–because subscribers didn’t know what the client offered.
Your email list provides a journey for your audience as well; it’s a matter of you taking them on that journey by sharing what it is you offer.
Customized Content
While working with a blogger client, I found that she had a large, profitable list of subscribers. It was difficult to identify what she could do differently to increase sales from her emails, though, because she wasn’t actually familiar with who was on her list.
Segmenting your list allows you to send customized content to subscribers based on who they are and what they’re looking for. Depending on what email service provider you’re using, you can create separate text blocks for subscribers with one tag, but not another. It’s especially handy for those who are really engaged with your list so you can give them exactly what they need. You can implement this strategy into your own business today with ActiveCampaign.
Follow Up With Warm Leads
You’ve heard about making money while you sleep, right? Well, this can be possible if you have the right tools. Automate this process and you can nurture warm audience members without even thinking about it!
This is the power of two of my favorite business tools–MemberVault and ActiveCampaign. If you’ve ever signed up for one of my freebies or joined my Content Strategy Clarity challenge to get more clear on your content strategy, you’ve seen what I’ve done with MemberVault.
One of the really cool things about MemberVault is that once someone is part of the free content bank, it knows when people are looking around at the other goodies on the site. So if someone clicks on my membership program, I know!
This use of email isn’t just about getting people onto your list and it’s not a strategy that sends the same email to every person on your list, like your regular weekly emails. It uses tags to segment your list and to send emails just for those people who are interested in a product or service you offer.
Build An Audience For Future Projects
What if you could start marketing a product or service to your audience that you don’t even have ready yet? Or have a list of interested people, ready to go before you launch?
One of my clients has a book coming out later this year. We’ve done a few things already to start building her interest list and collecting email addresses so she can make a big impact when the book is ready to launch. We’ve been talking about her book in her regular nurturing emails and have a rule set up for people to click on a link to get automatically added to her book notification list. She also has a separate landing page set up for the book, so people can sign up to get on that list.
Now she has a dedicated list just for those people who are interested in the book. When the time comes, we’ll be able to notify hot leads much sooner than we would be able to otherwise.
Drive Traffic Naturally
One of my favorite things about emailing my list is that I get to get a little more personal. I get to dive a little deeper into why I’m creating the content I’m creating–and then give them links to that content in case they missed it. It is so easy for audience members to miss content they would enjoy while scrolling through their social feeds due to the algorithms these sites have in place.
Connecting with your audience regularly is important, and that means sharing a little more about you, your business, and your overall message. Nurturing emails are a great place to share this type of content directly with them. And, again, your email marketing strategy should include linking to other pieces of content and even offers you’re selling so you can increase traffic to your website and increase conversions. If you don’t already have email as part of your content strategy, I encourage you to get started today. It doesn’t matter how big or small your email list is. What’s important is that you engage with those people.
