There are two huge mistakes in email marketing that can severely limit how responsive your list is. Your list is your biggest asset in this business, so ensuring your relationship is as strong as possible with the list is paramount to your success. Respect, honor, and cultivate that relationship. Here’s what these two mistakes are and how to solve them:
1. Using a “Newsletter” model.
Ah, the monthly newsletter. This is one of those things that sounds like a great idea, but just isn’t that effective. There are several issues with them, but the umbrella issue is that your subscribers just don’t have time to read the whole thing. People are not lazy, they’re busy. So sending a monthly email with several different articles is a great way to make sure that people don’t read everything. Aaaand, If you only send something once a month, you have to overcome the subscribers thought of “who is this again?” And in email marketing, the most important factor is name recognition and the relationship with that name. They need to see your name in the “from” box and remember that you send them all kinds of love and goodies.
What to do instead: use an autoresponder sequence that shares who you are, what you do, why you’re sending them this stuff, and how they can improve their lives/business. Instead of blasting them with a “newsletter” every 30 days, space all that great information out over the series of a month – and make it automatic.
2. Only sending them “how to” training content.
Today’s savvy online marketer understands that in order to get people to genuinely want to buy your stuff, you have to pre-sell them on the product/service prior to you ever asking them to buy. You do this in your business by showing them how to improve their life/business in your area of expertise with free training (video, audio, pdf, etc…). So the other mistake that gets made with email autoresponders is sending only “how to.” You need to share your personality. In one of the most successful autoresponders I have ever seen, the second email in the sequence had a link to a hysterical video from youtube. So sales copy, no bribe; the call-to-action was “watch this 1 min video. It’s hilarious.”
What to do instead: Your follow-up sequence needs to also build that relationship to your audience. And you do that by sharing who you are (what you do for fun, how you live, your personality, your voice, your story) and why you’re really helping them (the belief driving the work you’re doing, that BIG WHY). So yes, the “how to” is wonderful, but if you don’t convey who you are, that personal connection cannot be formed – and you will have a far more marginal/mediocre impact than I know you really want.
If you want to know more about how to convey your character, personality, and bond with the audience, then check out te Big Kahuna List Builder. We dedicate an entire module to exploring the in’s and out’s of how to do just that.
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- 5 Key Ways to Maximize Email Marketing Effectiveness (sazbean.com)
- Secrets of Successful Reengagement Programs Detailed in Latest Ultimate Email Marketing Guide from StrongMail (prweb.com)
- 5 Ways To Ruin Your Business Rep With Email Marketing (smallbizbee.com)
- The Science Behind Email Marketing (compukol.com)
