Email marketing is still shedding its reputation of being spammy or annoying. For me, it’s like any other marketing. If it’s done well by a company I’m interested in, I love it. If it’s ham-fisted and sales-y, it bugs me and actually detracts from my likelihood to purchase from that company again. So, what is it specifically that makes an email marketing strategy work or not?
I’ve been thinking about it lately and I have come up with a few ways to determine the right balance for your company’s email marketing strategy. As we know, all good strategy starts with questions. So let’s start by answering these for yourself.
How many offerings do you have? Does your company offer a small line of products or is it a wide-ranging array of flexible, custom services? In the end, the number of products you have on offer should correspond in some way to how frequently you send out email blasts.
How much content are you creating? How do you manage your online presence? Do you develop new and interesting blogs on a weekly basis? Or do you typically let your products do the talking? Emails that have nothing new to say aren’t very likely to get opened, and if they do, the reader will likely be disappointed.
How much value are you giving away? When it comes to your online presence, what kind of activity do you do? Do you give people valuable information? Or do you mainly sell, sell, sell? As a reminder, this is “the age of the customer” and the customer needs to be given value in order to feel like they have an equitable relationship with your company.
As you let those questions marinate, I’m going to use one company I receive emails from as a way to discuss the good, the bad, and the ugly of email marketing.
Our guinea pig is a fancy beef jerky company I’ve ordered from once….