How Do I Start With Email?

"Email marketing is one of the most reliable and cost-effective ways to grow your business. It allows you to reach your audience directly and build trust that leads to sales."  ~ Pat Flynn, Smart Passive Income Blog

Influencers like Pat Flynn and Russell Brunson agree that email marketing is a very effective way to connect with your people.  The right communication delivered on a consistent and regular basis can help build and nurture your relationships and turn familiarity into trust.  And while I love Social Media, your email list is the only thing that you really “own.”  

Imagine that you have say 500k subscribers on YouTube.  They tune in every week for your content.  Suddenly one day, your YouTube Channel disappears. (I witnessed this happen with a channel I was following).  This content creator had no way of connecting with 500k people! People who raised their hands and requested to regularly tune in and view his content.  Gone! 

With an email list, it’s easy to connect with people, share information, etc. Now that being said, email is not without its flaws.  The recipient has to open the email and actually read it.  But the point is that at least you have a chance.  But how do you create and leverage your email list for profit?  

There are several tools available that offer pre-configured templates and you can find a coaching program for just about anything these days.   But seriously, what is Your Next Move?

The single most important component to your email campaign is your messaging.  Without a solid understanding of your audience your campaign is headed for lackluster results.  Specifically, developing the understanding of the problems that your ideal customer faces and how your offering solves the problem.  Armed with this understanding, you can then craft email message(s) that speak to your ideal customer so that they are more likely to:

(a) open your email,

(b) read your email; and 

(c) complete your Call to Action (CTA).   

 It takes time and that’s probably why most entrepreneurs don’t dig deep into the ideal customer avatar.  But your time is valuable!  You want to stack the deck in your favor and craft messages that are likely to convert your recipients into paying customers.  

Keep in mind that email marketing is just another method for Relationship Building.  The truth remains that people do business with people they know, like and trust.  This means that if you are not “speaking their language” email campaigns will be ineffective at best.  That being said, you’re still better off having a list than not having one because even the minimal interaction of your name popping up in their email may be enough to keep your customer from going elsewhere. 

YOUR NEXT MOVE? Start Here.

So what if you’re just not there yet with your ideal customer language.  What do you do?  Wait until you have it nailed? Nooooo!  If you’ve identified email marketing as your strategy you just have to start.  So here we go . . . 

If you are not actively managing your relationships via email, here is what I recommend on where to start based on my personal experience. 

Gather all of your contact information into a single list.  You can use Google Sheets for this for free.  Create a simple spreadsheet with the following columns column for the following items: 

• First Name. You will want to keep first name and last name separate to allow for sorting based on either name.  When you eventually move to a Customer Relationship Management (CRM) tool, you’ll be able to do things like custom email and text messages for a personal touch. 
• Last Name. See comment above. 
• Mobile Phone.
• Office Phone.  Most people these days have mobile phones so this field will probably be empty most of the time.  
• Email
• Source: Identify where you met this person so that you can reference this info in future emails. 
• Source Date:  If you’ve collected this already, capture it.  Otherwise ignore. 
• Tag.  Use this for list characteristics (i.e. woman, small children, teens, etc)  Don’t worry if you don’t know.  You can always update with a good CRM but you will want to identify as much key info as possible, as soon as possible.
• Comments.  Any notes that you have related to the contact.  

You will most likely not have ALL of the info for every contact but you will need a consistent format to upload when you upgrade to a quality customer relationship management and marketing intelligence platform. 

• Send out a very basic email message to your list in each platform for a quick, free email validation.  Check with your provider to determine the exact daily sending limit.  This first email can be a simple (Hey there Joe, I know it's been a while.  Just cleaning up my email list.  How’s things? ).  Bad email addresses should reveal themselves fairly quickly and then you can remove them from your list. 
• Craft a very basic 5 day email sequence based on the journey you would like your ideal customer to experience. For a sample sequence make sure to inquire in the Your Next Move Entrepreneur Working Group. 

Now there are entire businesses that dedicate 100% of their time to creating the perfect email campaigns.  I believe, however, that there is value in taking a few passes at this on your own so that you do not lose precious time with the pursuit of perfection.  Also, this exercise will help you hone in on the “journey” that each of your leads will experience.  

The reason it is important to create a journey for leads is that when you are able to create a consistent “journey” for every lead into your business it will allow you to scale.   This is when it will make sense to engage a lead generation partner to help pump more leads, appointments and conversions through your business.  Until you have this in place, engaging with lead generation firms and appointment setters will not yield optimal results for your business.  

Cheers!

Juhl T. Lenard is Founder and Principal of Get Crystalized Agency. 

Need more support?  Consider joining the private Your Next Move Entrepreneur Working Group here on LinkedIn and let's work together.  This private group was  created to provide a safe space to execute and/or experiment with the actions suggested in this newsletter. .  

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