Why You Need an Email Marketing Strategy

It’s important to remember that just because you created a useful article or blog post or are hosting a timely webinar, there is no guarantee that anyone will actually read about it.

The idea of “if you build it they will come” isn’t necessarily true when it comes to your marketing efforts. You need to promote them.

That’s why mail marketing should be at the top of your list when it comes to essential elements of your marketing strategy.

Many professional service organizations don’t realize the importance of creating an email marketing strategy.

Emails help to amplify other channels in your integrated marketing efforts, such as social media marketing, webinars/events and content marketing.

Emails are also among the most direct, low-cost and reliable ways of getting in touch with your clients and prospects because:

• Email is personal

• Email is purposeful

• Email is targeted

• Email increases leads

• Email improves sales

• Email generates traffic to your website

• Email is cost effective

• You own your email list

• People check their email several times a day

Email marketing helps you connect with leads, nurture them and convert them into clients/customers by being top-of-mind with them. It is crucial to supplement and promote your content marketing and event and webinar promotion strategy.

Email marketing is a strategic form of inbound marketing where you create content or social media tactics that spread brand awareness, so people learn about you, go to your website for information, show interest in your product or services, and potentially make a purchase.

One of the most important reasons you should use email marketing is because you have a direct channel to promote yourself and your services.

While social media should be part of your marketing strategy, there is no guarantee that your audience will actually see your social posts.

On the contrary, most people use their email daily, several times per day – so it’s a great way to reach your clients and prospects.

You can send emails about new products, features and benefits, or new content. Since customers or prospects opted-in to receive these communications, you can use email marketing to provide more resources to contacts who are interested in what you have to say.

That being said, your audience will take action on your emails only if they contain something that is helpful and interesting for them.

Three Things You Need to Build an Email List:

1. A website or blog

2. An email marketing service

3. High-converting opt-in forms

4. Helpful content

5. Upcoming events and webinars

What to Include in Your Emails:

• Value-added content

• Share tips and tricks

• How your product or services will solve their problems

• Interactive formats and diversify with videos, infographics and images

Make sure that segmentation is part of your email strategy. That means personalizing content to your subscribers – it is not about blanketing them with emails that don’t pertain to them. That will only promote unsubscribes.

When it comes to email subject lines, make them concise and straightforward to increase open rates.

With email marketing campaigns, you’ll send traffic to your site and improve your SEO. You can use emails to remind your audience of your brand and showcase your website content. Send summaries of your recent articles and blog posts where can click on the titles to read the rest of the content.

Remember to place clickable social media icons on your newsletter’s footer and embed your social media posts on your emails. That way, your customers can follow your social media profiles.

It’s important to remember that just because you created a useful article or are hosting a timely webinar, there is no guarantee that anyone will actually read about it. You need to promote these activities using various marketing tools.

The idea of “if you build it they will come” isn’t necessarily true when it comes to your marketing efforts.

I would strongly recommend that you continuously build your email list as well as segment the list according to the parameters that make sense for your organization, clean up the undeliverable email addresses.

So, start that e-newsletter (with helpful, value-added content of course), if you haven’t already.