5 New Strategies to Supercharge your eMail Marketing


If you've been publishing a regular monthly newsletter, you already know the benefits of reaching out to your contacts. You've invested time and money to build your readership and your reputation. You've provided value consistently and people have come to look forward to your newsletters.

It’s time to crank it up a notch and send more emails. You've earned it.

The 5 strategies listed below weren't invented by me but some of them may be new to you. Or perhaps you've rejected them in the past and it’s time to think again. The goal of implementing these ideas is to ‘touch’ your contacts more frequently than you are now. There are other advantages built into each one as well.

1. Create and promote a new free resource.

Make it amazing. Make it better than any other resource you've ever created. Make it something people would pay for. Give it away with no strings attached. Am I suggesting you give it away without getting an email address in return? Yes, I sure am. Make it absolutely free.

If you don’t want to just give it out willy-nilly to everyone, consider giving it to your newsletter subscribers only. Make it exclusive to them and they’ll feel special. I think that putting it on your website for everyone to download is a great idea. That’s what giving freely really means.

2. Promote a free resource that you already have available online.

You would be surprised if you knew how many of your regular subscribers don’t know about all the great stuff you already offer. Grab their attention. Even if you have promoted the resource in the past, reminding your contacts will attract people who didn't take the time to look the first time. You can also group resources together or present them in a different way than you have in the past.

This is an excellent strategy to drive more traffic to your website. Make sure you’re prepared to receive visitors there. Have you done a website audit recently?

3. Start a drip campaign.

This is about creating all the content up front, preparing the emails, and scheduling them. When someone subscribes to this list, the ‘drips’ are triggered and delivered on a pre-set frequency.

This is an awesome freebie if you have information that can be doled out sequentially. Examples of this type of campaign are everywhere. You could do daily or weekly motivational messages, quick tips, recommendations, reviews and summaries. You could also use a drip campaign to deliver a learning experience or step-by-step instructions over a time frame. A client of ours is sending her past workshop participants a 14-week follow-up program by email every Friday morning.

4. Start a mini-newsletter or ‘brief’.

Consider sending a regular short communication in between regular issues. This might include a particularly good blog article, photos of new products, event promotion, timely industry information, or draw attention to a resource.

Change up your usual format and include a video, a diagram, or an infographic instead of an article. Provide value, not just promotion. Use this as an opportunity to also share an updated blog post list and a call to action to connect on Twitter or Facebook.

5. Reciprocate promotion.

Promote someone else and, in return, they do likewise. This could include giveaways of some sort. Make sure that both your subscribers and the other’s subscribers will get real, no-strings-attached value that is appropriate.

Be strategic about this... and be careful. Enter this kind of arrangement with someone you know and trust. Someone who has the same target market as you or who has complementary services/products. Aside from offering new/different value to your subscribers, you should also gain subscribers from your colleague’s promotion. Be sure to include a ‘sign up’ call to action.

For all of these ideas, consider the following during your implementation:
  • Create a new template that reflects your brand but looks a bit different than your regular newsletter.
  • Use a subject line that is different than your usual style. Don’t be afraid to use ‘new’ and ‘free’ if it makes sense. Ensure that the value within is evident. This might be an opportunity to try ALL CAPS for some words. It does work sometimes.
  • Depending on the strategy, you may want to set up a new campaign and list to manage your multiple content streams.
Don’t be afraid to give away even more value than you already are. This is about reaching out and growing the relationships you've already started with your newsletter. “But I don’t want to bother anyone” should not even cross your mind if you’re confident in your offering.

If you want help supercharging your email marketing, contact us.

photo by Horia Varlan

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