Here’s the Framework You Can Use to Plan Your Email Marketing Content (and see results)
Getting started in email marketing can feel like the great, big void of the unknown.
You feel as though you don’t know where to start: from what to say, to what to promote, to who you should even send out your email to even though you only have 500 people on your list. You may feel like it’s not worth it.
However, it’s definitely worth it.
You’ve probably heard it time and time again: your email list makes you money. And it’s quite true. Because those are the customers who are curious about what you offer or who have bought from you before.
What we’ve seen are founders or owners throwing spaghetti at the wall when it comes to email marketing and opting for quick-wins as opposed to strategic relationship building to keep their customers engaged and coming back, which ultimately increases lifetime value and results in increase revenue.
You just have to know how to talk to them and that begins with building an intentional relationship with them that’s build on trust, value and benefit. We’re going to talk about what that framework actually looks like for your business in 3 simple steps.
Why a Framework?
Frameworks help us to keep things organized, almost like a checklist. It allows for you to follow a structure that you can continuously build upon and reiterate, much like building a home, a car, or that favorite recipe that you want to tweak to make just a tad better.
Here are the three things that you can think about and brainstorm as you’re developing your email content.
Lead with Features
Your features are what makes your product or service unique—exactly how features distinguish one human being from the next. It’s what creates the initial attraction and guides them in, just like the beginning of a romantic relationship.
If you’re a brand that offers a macadamia nut-based milk alternative with zero sugars, talk about that feature and how added sugars are hidden calories that could be detrimental to your lifestyle goals.
Talk about your Benefits
How would your customer’s life change if they use your product, service or space? We’re naturally selfish people, so we always want to know “What’s in it for me?” Why should they buy into what you’re offering?
You need to be able to clearly articulate the why behind your brand so that your customers, new and returning, can understand why you exist and decide if they align with you or not.
Likening it to the nut-based milk and the zero added sugars feature, the benefit of that is they can reach their weight-loss goals faster without the hidden carbohydrates.
Hook them with an Offer
People buy from brands they trust or that they’ve seen other people use—then they trust the brand based on the results or recommendation. Once you have established trust from the features and benefits, this is where you can make an irresistible offer that will come off as a “no-brainer” to your customer.
Here is when things can get tricky and where we see a lot of brands mess up.
They offer a sale or discount in an effort to entice the customer to buy from them. This thinking negatively conditions both the brand owner and the customer: the brand owner believes that they would hit their revenue goals quicker and get fast cash if they offer a discount; the customer becomes conditioned to only buy when there is a sale available, undercutting the value of the brand to begin with, which overall cuts into your margins that you will have to make up for.
With the nut-based milk company, instead of offering the customer to buy one, 3-pack of 12 oz. milk bottles, they’d offer the customer to buy two cases of the 3-pack at a slight discount. That way, you’re selling more units while playing into your customers’ emotions to where they feel as though they can’t live with your product because of its feature value, benefits and the enticing offer.
Take this framework to apply it to your next email campaign planning and tell us how it goes for you. You can send us a personal email to hey@heyintercom.com or shout us out on Instagram at @heyintercom.
