Better Email Marketing

When was the last time you checked on the progress of your email marketing strategy?

Email has become so ubiquitous that most people approach email marketing with an attitude of, “Everyoneuses email, so whatever I send to my recipients is bound to work.”

Unfortunately, because everyone uses email, the only emails that end up standing out to recipients are those thatare extremely well-designed and personally relevant. The rest end up deleted or in junk folders or don’teven make it past the internet service provider’s filters.

You may not have the resources for all the bells and whistles, but if your business has an organizational goaland a business strategy, you can establish an informed email marketing strategy that yields those well-planned,well-designed emails everyone wants to open.

Think for a moment: What are some of your business’s goals this year? Maybe you want to increase customersby 10 percent. Maybe you want to enroll more people in your annual pass program. Maybe you want more clientsmid-week instead of on weekends.

Start with a BIG goal

Your business should be using your company-wide goals to drive your email marketing strategy. Think of yourbusiness’s goals and objectives as a road map that can guide your email marketing strategy.

Let’s take one big goal your business has for 2019 and make it more specific — not just “beawesome” — so that an email marketing plan can help you achieve it. It could be anything you’vebeen planning. Boost your daily traffic by 15 percent. Increase renewals. Reduce overhead costs. Drive moretraffic to your site or your mobile app. This goal should be somewhat broad, but more specific than, “Beawesome.” That is a given.

Step 1: Define your ultimate goal for your emails.

It’s not enough to say, “I want to increase daily usage by 15 percent.” At what time, and whichpackages? If you try to increase everything, you’ll probably spread yourself too thin. Your goal shouldrequire just one call-to-action so that the end user does not feel overwhelmed by the number of options. Withfew exceptions, stuffing an email chock full of info about everything will turn readers off. People skim email.They want to check it quickly when they have a moment.

Does your goal focus on just one product, service or other aspect of your business? If not, take a moment torevise your goal to focus on just one item or concept.

Step 2: Define your target audience

Who do you want to reach? While “everyone” might seem like a good answer, it isn’t. Your emailsshould be written to a targeted audience and not just sent to everyone.

You can target potential users of your product or service, but at some point you will need to find out if you’reemailing people who will actually participate, visit or enroll at some point. This means analyzing yourcustomers’ preferences and how they like to access your products and services.

6 Steps to Refine Your Email Goal:

Define your ultimate goal for your emails.
Define your target audience.
Determine why someone takes action on your email.
Determine how people will find out about your offer.
Determine when potential customers will find out about your offer.
Establish where your customers and potential customers can act on your email.

Step 3: Determine why someone takes action on your email.

People buy stuff because they really need it (or they feel they need it). Your customers will only take action onyour emails if your emails contain a clear offer. Put another way, it’s not enough to say, “Youshould really do this!” to get a potential client to follow through.

Do some simple research to find out what kinds of calls-to-action will get someone to visit your car wash, buyyour products or sign up for an annual membership. This could be as easy as asking people who come to your carwash why they came and keeping track of respondents’ answers. Does a certain reason for visiting (or notvisiting) keep coming up? Do people constantly ask about certain benefits or promotions you occasionallyoffer?

You’ll then want to tailor your approach accordingly. Ideally, your offer would be very specific, but fornow, think of a basic offer you could center an email campaign around. What can you offer customers to get themto be regular clients and propel you toward your overall goal?

Step 4: Determine how people will find out about your offer.

We’re talking about email here, so in this context, email will be how customers find out. But you need todecide the frequency of your emails about this offer. This leads us to:

The Underrated Power of Taking the Time to THINK

The cliché that so many business executives seem to believe goes to the core of how we operate abusiness successfully. It goes something like “To get something done, you must act.” Hard todisagree with that statement when we know that strategy only matters when it is implemented, and most peopleresist change. However, the approach gets distorted when it is translated into “if you are not doingsomething, then you are doing nothing.” The general mode of management has been to view not doingsomething right now as a waste of time.

This drive to be “doing” permeates its way into the senior and executive leadership teams that Iwork with on a consistent basis. Executive calendars are crammed full of meetings, trips and more meetings.There is a constant buzz that must be addressed immediately. Look at the daily calendar of mostexecutives, and it is full!

Strategy design is one of the most important jobs of these leaders and their teams. But thecustomer/competitor/industry sensing that must constantly feed into this effort gets relegated to an annualtwo-day retreat (if you are lucky), and that is frequently more about bonding and reviewing last year thanit is about the real work of an executive.

It is long past time for the executive and senior leadership team members to take the time to thinkabout their business. Whether this has to be scheduled into the calendar (a poor system) or made a regularpart of the week, the effort may be the single best thing you can do for your organization.

Now, there is a big difference between thinking about the strategy of an organization or part of anorganization and just wasting time. While everyone thinks a bit differently, there is an approach to make itmore productive.

Structure your mental effort around a compelling issue — don’t try to take on the whole organization at once. Has there been a drop in traffic at one of your locations? Has a competitor changed their approach to the market? Are the things that really differentiated your operation last year still compelling? What do you think the business issues will be for your organization three years from now?
Use your computer, tablet or paper to free associate the issue with:
a. What appears to be the cause(s)? Are there underlying issues that are masking the cause?
What is preventing it from being dealt with effectively? Why has it not been addressed? Are employees taking the actions that you directed?
Don’t try to solve it ... not yet!
Does it impact your ability to make a sale or a repeat sale? In other words, do customers even care? Or will they care in the future?
What is happening with your competitors? I’m perennially stunned with how little knowledge some executives have about their competitors.
Identify a set of “solutions” that you believe could really impact this issue. Under what circumstances might each be most appropriate?
More than anything, you need to remember that any solution you implement with these efforts is simply a hypothesis — that is, you believe it will work.

Far too little time is spent each day “thinking about your business,” and yet we hire and firemanagers because of their ability to lead. Let’s insist that a regular part of the job of an executiveis to think about and craft the strategy of the business.

Dr. Chuck Bamford is a strategy consultant and founder of Bamford Associates, LLC who has workedwith the ICA for the past six years. He is the author of seven books, including The StrategyMindset and two of the leading textbooks in both Strategy — 15th Edition (Pearson) &Entrepreneurship — 3rd Edition (McGraw-Hill). He is an adjunct professor of Strategy at DukeUniversity (Fuqua School of Business) and the University of Notre Dame (Mendoza College of Business). Hehas been awarded 22 teaching excellence awards, including 12 Executive MBA Professor of the Year Awards,and is a Noble Foundation Fellow in Teaching Excellence.

The Strategy Mindset (available in print, eBook and audiobook) is a short, practical book for managersand executives. It examines, explains and enables the reader to get to work on the strategy of theirbusiness immediately.

Step 5: Determine when customers will find out about your offer.

The timing of your email(s) in a campaign should be based on a few things:

Your manpower: Someone has to write, design and send the emails and respond to any replies.

The length of time your offer stands: Can you use email to create a sense of urgency, or does your product orservice require careful thought before it’s purchased? Sometimes, an offer can simply be more informationor an invitation to a free event.

Your resources: There’s no right or wrong email format, but there are formats that are easier to produce.Do you use an email service provider? They often provide mobile-friendly layouts and graphics that make sendingan email efficient. Do you have the bandwidth to send thousands or hundreds of thousands of emails per week ormonth?

Another consideration: Do you have the capacity to serve everyone who receives your offer all at once? Unlessyour goal is to get more conversions during a certain season or by a deadline, you may need to stagger thetiming of who receives your email.

Step 6: Establish where your customers can act on your email.

Establishing a goal with a place in mind helps you to clarify the steps your members must take to redeem theoffer and help you achieve your business goal. Once they read about the action you want them to take, where dothey go next? To your website? Directly to your car wash? Name a place and tell your customers how to get thereso they can act on the information you just sent them.

Establishing a place also helps you create goal-driven offers that drive your customers to the most convenientplace for you.

End goal

At the end of this process, you should have a goal that focuses on one product or service that one targetaudience is likely to use/participate. You should know why someone would take action toward your business’sgoal, how they will find out about the action they should take and when and where they will take the action. Allof these elements, formalized in your goal, will not only guide your strategic thinking about the series ofemails you send potential customers about this goal, but will also guide your customers toward taking actionthat helps you achieve your goal.

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