In today’s episode, we are talking about your email list and building relationships with your customers or donors, by making sure that you’re getting your audience to know, like, and trust you. Email marketing is one of the best ways to do that. And not just emailing from your personal email account, but why using an email service will ensure deliverability, stay in compliance with regulations, and how you can use templates that match your brand. Email marketing still has the highest return on investment of any digital marketing spending. If you use it consistently, it will pay for itself many times over. Listen why it works.
Links in this episode: Delos Tune Up for 2021
Transcript
Welcome to the Get Digital Marketing Results podcast where we give you information and actionable tips to grow your organization.
Bob: Hi, I’m Bob Clark.
Donna: And I’m Donna Botti. We’re with Delos Inc and we make the web work for you. In today’s Tech News Tuesday, episode, we are talking about your email list and building relationships with your customers. We’ve been getting our marketing ready for the new year with our Tune-Up for 2021 program, and the past week has been about making sure that you’re getting your audience to know, like, and trust you.
Bob: That’s right Donna. Email marketing is one of the best ways to do that. But who are you going to send emails to? You can’t buy an email list on the internet.
So let’s first talk about conversions. It’s not enough that someone has found you on the web or through an ad, read your article or seen that great viral social media post you made.
All of these things are good, but your goal should be to convert this paid traffic, or the organically earned traffic, into owned traffic. For a lot of businesses and nonprofits, that means getting an email address.
Donna: Right, your owned traffic is your customer and prospect list, it’s people you can contact when you want rather than relying on them to find you again later on when they are ready to buy. With every customer interaction you should be capturing their email address. It’s always easier to retain and grow an existing customer or contact than get a new one.
To grow your list, use your website, your physical location, have one of those sign up forms, and also events. Remember events? That was a great strategy in the “before times” of course. But virtual events are working well and are here to stay, so you can get someone’s email address when they register. The key is when you offer something of value, when you ask them and let them know why they should join your list, they will.
Bob: Ahh… the “before times.”
But if we want to talk about growing your customer and prospect list, we want to talk about how you are managing that list. First, are you using an email marketing service like Constant Contact, that’s one we use, and there are a number of other services for this purpose.
Using an email service ensures deliverability. You never want to send out a large number of the same emails from your normal email account, they are more likely to be flagged as spam and not sent through. An email service lets you stay in compliance with the CAN-SPAM regulations which state you must give someone an easy way to unsubscribe from your list and track that they’ve unsubscribed.
You also want to look at the email address you’re using for your business. Get email at your domain name, it’s going to look a lot better than aol.com, Yahoo, Gmail, comcast… or whatever it is. And email at your domain is less likely to be treated as spam as well.
Donna: That’s true Bob. Nobody wants to be a spammer! And an email like [email protected] doesn’t inspire a lot of trust in your business either that you’re a real business.
But really, an email service has lots of benefits beyond regulations. You can create templates that match your company branding, so your communications always look great every time. And you can schedule emails ahead of time. You know that I am a big fan of batching your content.
There’s also reporting, so you know what’s working, who is opening and clicking and this helps you track the effectiveness of what you’re doing. By knowing who clicks, you can go a step further with a targeted email series that walks a prospect or new customer through your best information. This saves time and makes sure that people are receiving the information you know they need.
Bob: Good points Donna. So if you got your list and your Constant Contact, what are you going to send? You may have heard us say many times before that consistency gets traction, and this is especially true in email marketing.
You have to pick a schedule and stick to it so you are familiar and expected. More frequent, shorter emails with a single focus are better than long newsletters packed with information. Try to send an email once a month at a minimum, but aim for twice a month or a weekly regular communication.
Donna: It’s really the consistency that builds traction. So it’s a great idea to create a calendar and plan your content ahead of time. It’s going to save you a lot of time later.
You aren’t writing a book or article each email. Most people only spend a few seconds on an email so make it easy to skim, and have a clear call to action.
And remember, they’re more likely to be reading it on their phone than on a desktop. So make sure you look at your emails on your mobile device to see what kind of experience you are delivering to your audience.
And a final reminder, email marketing still has the highest return on investment of any digital marketing spending. If you use it consistently, it will pay for itself many times over. If you’re not using email marketing that should definitely be a priority on your action plan. We’re a Solution Provider for Constant Contact, so if you want to try it out, let us know and we’ll set it up for you. If you like it, we will also set you up with a template that matches your branding.
Bob: That’s it for today’s episode. Don’t forget that email is one of the best ways to build a relationship with your audience. And you can find a link and a transcript of today’s podcast, at DelosInc.com/164.
You can also find a link to the signup form, which is DelosInc.com/tuneup2021, where you’ll be able to get all the information we’ve talked about so far.
And don’t forget to subscribe, so you don’t miss out on our actionable digital marketing tips to grow your organization.
