Getting Traction with Email Marketing

Spartan Spark

When it comes to email marketing there are a few tips you want to keep in mind:

Be careful who you send email to

Make sure the recipient of your email has authorized you to send them your newsletter. Especially in Canada with Can Spam laws there are special requirements you need to meet to be legally allowed to send someone an email.

If you go to a networking event and collect business cards from the people you meet, you need to ask them in person, or via email afterwards if they want to join your newsletter. Remember to follow up soon after you've met them, introduce yourself again letting them know where you met and what you might have talked about, and then ask them if they want to join your newsletter.

Offer an incentive

Better yet, offer them an incentive to download some great info when they sign up to your newsletter: Here are some ideas:

• a video of you teaching something, that's not usually available available online
• a useful checklist you've created
• a white paper that has some research and conclusions you've compiled
• make an interesting e-booklet
• a compilation of interesting information you've found online

The key here is to make sure it's something of value.

Create a landing page where your visitors can exchange their email for your valuable information

Don't Spam with Your Newsletter

Once you've got a new email, the biggest mistake we see entrepreneurs make is that they start spamming their audience with their sales info, or with information that’s not really relevant in an effort to put “something” out.

DONT - make every communication with your email list about something your selling DO - send out interesting information that your audience will be interested in reading and every once in a while make an offer.

Use the 80/20 rule. Send 80 percent of your articles or information about topics of that might interest your audience. Then, 20 percent of the time you can send information about your own products or services.

For example, there’s a Realtor who sends contest for hockey games, and makes short videos drawing names etc. He’s got the principles of email marketing down, but he doesn’t have the content. Instead of having contests all the time, he could be speculating on the market in his videos, he could be filming short 30 sec to 1 min discussing rentals vs buying (and sending those via email) or he could be compiling interesting information and putting it into infographics for his target audience to easily visualize.

Yes it’s more work, but you’ll have a better list of contacts at the end of the day.

Remember that this is always a long term plan.

Make an Editorial Calendar

So this all might seem overwhelming but what you can do is create an editorial calendar that outlines what you plan on doing over the next month. Here are some tips”

• Be consistent - set out a schedule that works for you, and then stick to it, it’s like going to the gym - you’ll only do it if it works for you in the long run
• Start out slowly - step-by-step is the best way to get started, start with once-a-month posts and then move into weekly posts and then daily, if that works better for you.
• Plan ahead - plan a month in advance so that you know what’s coming up. Set up a day to collect all the images you might need or resources you might want to bookmark to write your article
• Set a Timer - lets go back to our exercise example, it’s alot harder to go to the exercise if you’re dreading it. If you set your timer for 5 min or 15 min, it feel more accomplishable and you’ll do it!
• Get an editor - find someone to edit your work, because you want to make a good impression on your audience

Measure Always Measure

As always, make sure you measure everything:

• try different subject lines in your email
• test different days of the week/times of day
• test different landing pages

Use your data to get the most bang for your buck out of your marketing dollars.

That’s it for today, my timer just rang! I’ll be back tomorrow with some more tips to get some traction for your business!

Written By: Dafne Canales

Dafne’s expertise lies in creating strategic roadmaps for companies to grow their business through unique marketing approaches. Her company, Spartan Spark, works with million dollar companies, advising them on how to grow their business by using strategy and technology more effectively.

Through articles, vlogs, training and speaking engagements, Dafne shares her marketing knowledge, showing business owners how to leverage all the knowledge they have and use technology to their advantage to increase visibility and lower their cost of acquisition.