What To Do Before Using Email Marketing

As tempting as it may be to start an email list to promote your business because you've heard it is the thing to do, hold your horses! Emails may be easy to send, but you can screw yourself over if you start sending them out without being strategic in your approach.

Some people do email marketing for a living, meaning that there are job titles for this marketing activity. This information should let you know that it may not be as easy as you think to execute email marketing campaigns. So before you step your foot into the email marketing pool, ask yourself the following:

Do I have a messaging strategy?

A messaging strategy helps you to communicate a consistent brand message. Your emails will be nothing but messages. You should want them to connect with your audience on a deeper, emotional level to give you a competitive advantage. Every business owner needs a messaging strategy before promoting their business.

The messaging strategy will provide you with your brand's position, personality, voice, tone, message, and story. It will also give you direction on how to best express your brand. Until you have a messaging strategy, you will lack the humanization of your brand that is needed for your email marketing messages to work well for you.

Do I know who my ideal consumer is?

If you do not know who you are trying to reach, what is the point of sending out emails? Knowing who your ideal consumer is will determine everything from when to schedule your emails to the type of information you will be sharing.

You should know your ideal consumers' wants, needs, fears, and desires related to your services. Then, you want to speak to them in each of your emails while providing readers with value (education) or an opportunity to work with you.

Do I know what I am going to write about?

You can write about anything. But does it make sense to write about everything as a business owner? Probably not, as you should focus your attention on writing content that your audience wants to read.

And, like all pieces of content, yours should have a clear goal in mind or a specific call to action. Thoughtful emails require time, so ensure they serve a purpose. Some goals for your emails can be to:

1. Sell a product (educational, digital, physical)

2. Drive traffic to your website

3. Build relationships with those you serve

4. Increase subscribership

Do I know how often I will be sending emails?

How often do you like to receive emails from one company? Trick question. How frequently you send emails is never about you. It is about your audience. If you can consistently share phenomenal content, then yes, send out emails daily. However, if your subscribers start to unsubscribe, you may want to consider reducing the frequency of your emails.

I send an email to my list every other week. It is a content schedule that I can manage. It is a schedule that allows me to write thoughtful content that people say they enjoy. The exception would be for promoting something time-sensitive, like signing up for a class by a particular date.

When promoting something, increase the frequency of your emails by sending them out every few days until your event or sale ends.

Would I enjoy reading my emails?

The best way to know if your email is enjoyable would be to listen to it. If it doesn't interest you or make sense to you when you hear it, edit your email or scrap it. You not only want to listen to the quality of your emails, but you also want to determine if they are genuinely interesting to your audience. You don't want subscribers to read your email and feel like they couldn't care less. And if you are using images, do your pictures support the message of your email?

Lastly, reading starts with your subject line. Would you click on your email in your inbox if you read the subject line you created in it?