Profitable Email Marketing: 3 ‘Must Have’ Strategic Considerations

Email marketing, seems pretty simple, at first.  Afterall, who can’t click ‘send’ on an email, right?  However, profitable email marketing is quite another story.  There can be a lot to consider both before, and after the send.

1.) Make it part of your strategy
When it comes to being an online marketer, as difficult as it may be to get emails delivered at times, you still need to be building a list.  The foundation of success (as a mentor friend of mine likes to say) is “traffic and conversion”.  Rarely is the case that a marriage proposal is extended in an introduction, nor is that the case when selling online.  You have to ask for the first date.  The first date is the opt-in.

You probably see one on this page somewhere.  A chance to become a subscriber, and get access to information that non-subscribers don’t get.  The courting happens after they have become a subscriber…relationship building.  Oftentimes much of this can be automated.

In order for email marketing to be successful, it has to be integrated as part of your strategy.

2.) Always be list building
In order to market with email, you need to have an audience.  Your audience grows through list building.  Building your email subscriber list needs to be incorporated in nearly every aspect of your marketing activities (ehem…yes even offline marketing).

So…when you are driving paid traffic to your site, or optimizing for search engines, or how about joint ventures… always ask yourself what relevant value can you offer them to build a list?  Consider some of your current marketing activities, how might you incorporate more value (a free report, a video series, an industry specific survey with access to the results) to build your list?

3.) Condition your audience.
There are many marketers out there who are serious about email marketing, have it as a part of their strategy, and building their list at every turn.  There is more, however…  You have to make sure that you condition your audience to open your emails.  I see three core elements here:
a.) Deliver value. Make sure that you are providing relevant information to your list…and preferably not something everyone else is talking about in your market.  Do whatever you can to make their world better, easier, faster…you are building relationship and delivering value.
b.) Set expectations. Make sure that you are clear on the front end what they are going to get from you as a subscriber.  People are overloaded with email, if you let them know what to expect, and deliver on that…you will be seen as trustworthy.
c.) Be consistent. I am on many lists of online marketers, and there is only one that comes to mind when it comes to being consistent.  Tried and true on Saturday’s I get an email from him with encouragement, teaching, and product recommendations.  I actually take time to read these messages, and they come at a time when I’m not flooded with email, so I have time.  I have purchased product from this marketer as a result of being on their list.

If you fail in these areas, you are still conditioning your audience.  Conditioning them to potentially find you offering little value, being irrelevant, and not trustworthy.  This can result not only in unread and deleted messages (which is the worst result), but unsubscribes, and possibly flagged as a spammer.

When it comes to Email Marketing…every serious marketer must agree that it needs to be a part of their strategy and a pillar to their success and relationship building going forward.  They also need to always be building their list, and integrating it in every new project, or online publishing activity.  Lastly, create a plan to condition your audience for *good* things, maximizing your value and trustworthiness, and reducing the chances of being unread and deleted, unsubscribed, or reported as a spammer.