Stop Blasting, Start Conversing & Converting with Email Marketing

Editor's Notes

• #2: Fr
• #5: Yes I want you to walk away with practical action steps you can take for better email. But even more importantly, before you get into “doing”, I want to set you up for correct “thinking”. I’d be remiss if I didn’t try to convey a healthy mindset for understanding what you can do with email, where it works best, and why. I want you to have realistic expectations of what email excels at, and what it doesn’t. Of where it’s highly effective, and where it isn’t. Just as important as knowing the right things to do with email is knowing the right way to think about it and not misuing it.
• #6: When individual email marketers say, "I send batch-and-blast, and I'm doing fine," that's ignorance on a par with people who believe old-fashioned direct mail is the only marketing channel that pays off. Many of us have the same challenges: lack of time, resources and money, as well as management indifference. I know it's hard. I've been on the front lines on the client side, too. I know it's not easy. But If you can innovate your program incrementally so that you learn something new every day and make one small improvement with each campaign, at least you're trying. Just the other day I was talking with someone who wanted to know how he could move from Email Marketing 101 to an advance stage. "Do something. Anything," I said. "Then, at least you're one step closer than the guy who's doing nothing." These five points sum up the way successful email marketers are applying the channel and developing strategy . . .
• #7: One of the things I love most about email and hands-down the single greatest factor that has kept me interested in working in this space for almost 15 years is that it’s continually evolving and changing, and we need to evolve with it. In this seminar you’re going to see numerous examples of real-life email marketing campaigns that are starting to take advantage of some of the newer approaches I’ll be discussing. But you know what really struck me while putting this together? Despite having an archive of thousands of email marketing messages from hundreds of senders to comb through, it was really hard to find good examples of the points I’ll be illustrating. Most email I looked at fell into predictable patterns or followed static formulas and designs – rarely changing or evolving even from the same sender over time. Basically it was boring, too matter-of-fact, and looked too much like traditional print advertising. So today, if I can inspire you to move your email in a new direction, to appeal to people’s hearts instead of heads, and to take a few risks, I’ve done my job!
• #8: So let’s understand a recent evolution that has taken place in the marketing demand generation model itself. The old marketing model relied on a funnel approach which was mostly one-way from advertiser to audience. Advertisers were more interested in broadcasting a message to a large, like-minded audience. Audiences usually had little mechanism for feedback – other than to buy or not buy. The market determined the effectiveness of advertising messages, which were designed basically to generate demand for products and sell them rather than communicate the value of such products or any transformational outcome from using them.
• #9: The new model is quite different. Internet marketing channels like social media sites, blogs, and email make it possible for advertisers and audiences to have two-way conversations. In fact, audiences have shown they are eager to provide vocal and frequent feedback when given the mechanisms to do so. Therefore, the marketers who will succeed in the new world are required to engage in conversations rather than simply broadcast a message to the masses. The goal has shifted from simply selling product (of course, that’s still what needs to happen to stay in business) to developing long-term, loyal customer relationships. Any good direct marketer knows it costs more to generate new customers than keep the ones you already have, so if we continually demonstrate value through information, education, entertainment and by way of serving communities, customers will stick around. The new model has evolved into selling by way of serving rather than selling by way of promoting.
• #10: So, as advertising channels increasingly grow both more fragmented and more targeted, we see less consumer time and attention given to any one. However, with channel proliferation each channel becomes part of a holistic whole that frames brand and customer perceptions, so the idea is they need to work together, in concert. You can’t afford disconnects between online and offline marketing, nor between the different components within each context. Furthermore, you can’t afford to make an emotional disconnect from email to email as you step through your program. There should be continuity, connection and a consistent context. But we’ll get to that shortly.
• #13: just as the blueprint for a building is drawn up and certain essential parts of the building support specific functions and needs, the blueprint for your email program support be designed for base levels to support advanced.
• #15: Pyramid showing 5 types of messages that together make a successful email marketing program (from broadest to narrowest segmentation) Foundational (broadest segmentation, continuity, general) Newsletter, bulletin Promotional Educational & Informational (Content Marketing) – nurturing tracks Entertaining & Engaging (games, contests, surveys, user feedback, fun) Personal (1:1 Triggered)
• #19: EEC email live link with animation: http://inboxgroup.msgfocus.com/q/13Z4lyUWwEZJ6V3syPREB/wv
• #21: Content can support but is not the lead approach in promo campaigns.
• #22: Replace example with B2C
• #26: Replace w/new example – keep B2B
• #28: (li
• #30: Replace w/newer example