Is Your Email Marketing Leaving Money on the Table?
One of the most underutilized marketing tools in businesses these days is the use of emails.
If you have 5000 people on an email list and you increase the effectiveness of your results by 5%, then you will have 250 MORE people that want to buy from you. Multiply 250 x how much a customer is worth to you. That is how much money you are leaving on the table. Do I have your attention?
Want to take it off the table? (duh, of course you would!)
Ok. so how do you do it?
…. with effective email marketing.
Let me tell you a story…
I suffer from a case of a constant conundrum. In my professional life working with clients, I like to be bottom line pure information. In my personal life, I like to play, goof off, have fun and tell stories, especially with my wife and 4 kids.
So what’s the conundrum?
Someone told me a long time ago that “people buy from people”. If the whole relationship I have with my clients and my email list is purely professional, then how much of a relationship do I have?
If I’m so focused on facts, figures and “how-to’s” (all important) that I forget to be personable with clients and my email list, then a relationship is NOT created.
I recently had someone say to me, “I wanted to work with you because of the pictures of your family on your website. You look like a nice guy that knows his stuff.” People will come to you for your knowledge and stick with you for the substance of who you are. (That’s how it is with dating and marriage too isn’t it?)
Shameless confession, I used to write a weekly email newsletter diligently for years until I got burnt out. It was great at the beginning because I started by telling stories and entertaining while educating. Then I switched to “How to’s”…
- How to double the number of leads from your website with one strategy you can implement in the next hour
- How to get a continuous and never-ending flow of high quality leads to your professional practice for $20 each
- How to – ugh, if this is all you do you will get burned out too!!!
I got tired of the how to’s. I got burned out. I wasn’t having fun. I was beginning to feel like a mechanical robot.
And when I was doing purely “how-to’s”, the feedback and comments I got dwindled significantly – you could say it fell faster than a fat boy falling off a cliff! 
… meaning – the people I was emailing got burned out too.
To make your email marketing effective, yes, have pitch content, have “how-to’s”, and please, please, please, please, please have the personal touch.
When you do this, you will be pleasantly surprised at how your sales (and enjoyment) will increase.
To your success,
Blessings eh!
P.S. Opt-outs are ok. They will happen. If people opt-out because you are being who you are, then why would you want them around?
How Chuck Doubled His Business from $6.8M to $15.2M In Uncertain Times
I was reading an article that had links to a kazillion different related articles on every internet marketing topic under the sun – 5 Ways to Use Social Media in Your Business, Get Paid to Post on Facebook (yes, people pay people to post on their Facebook pages to make them look more credible – ridiculous eh?! What would be a good sarcastic comment here?), Use LinkedIn SEO PPC and your Magic 8-ball (remember those?!!) to get Quality Leads Faster.
I’m sure the articles had valid content. The point is that I think business owners are too easily seduced by bright shiny objects. Sure you can use many of them to make significant gains but they are NOT, and should never be the focus of any marketing campaign.
Case Study: It’s About The Customer
Chuck hired us to help him. He owned a manufacturing company that made parts for Fortune 100 companies. His sales had been steadily growing for a number of years through his team’s hard work. But then two unexpected things happened: the economy tanked and secondly, his biggest customer decided to discontinue a product and cancel their orders. Ouch.
Tough pill to swallow. Chuck was now faced with hard business decisions – does he lay employees off, slash prices to win some instant cheap business, move to a smaller production facility to cut expenses, or does he do something else? What??
He asked us to help him and here’s what we did….
Fantasy Scenario: we setup a Twitter, Facebook and Pinterest account with lots of bright fancy-schmancy colors and graphics to portray an upbeat happy professional image that would be appealing to the diverse group of potential clients. We brought in Suzie Sunshine to tweet and post about all the happy things going on in the company. Every picture showed everyone smiling and happy. We built a great new website and ranked #1 on highly searched keyword terms and rolled out email blasts showing how wonderful we were. Sales skyrocketed faster than a speeding bullet and everyone was happy, held hands, swayed side to side and sang “kumbaya”. And we did this in 30 days.
… did you pick up the hint of sarcasm there?
Reality – What We Did To Stop the Hemorrhaging, Right the State of Ship and DOUBLE His Business: Understanding that not every tactic works for every business, we came in and analyzed the situation. We were looking for where the biggest holes and opportunities were. We looked at his sales and identified his best clients. Something interesting revealed itself here – we found that all his best clients had almost the same emotional DNA. Their pschyographic makeup (personality, values, attitudes and interests) were almost identical. We dug deeper and thoroughly understood their hot buttons, their emotional buying language and all the B.S. that drove them crazy.
We then came up with a list of high profile potential clients in different verticals that had three characteristics:
- They had money
- They were NOT interested in the cheapest price and instead were willing to pay more for value-add
- They matched the psychographic makeup of their best clients
We did not go after every company. We pulled a very tight list and developed a very clear and succinct marketing message. We crafted a strong value proposition. We had proof out the wazoo to validate all our claims. Then we rolled out the tactics. We used a list, direct mail, email and yep, we even used their sales staff (by the way, good ‘ole fashion sales works wonderfully in this economy when used with proper marketing strategies).
The result?
Sales stopped sliding downhill. We gained footing and started moving uphill. The growth was gradual at first and then gained the momentum of a freight train. Sales went from $6.8 Million per year to $15.2 Million per year. And the sales were spread out over a number of verticals giving them security in case something happened to one of the verticals.
Chuck was happy.
And guess how long this whole process took? …. 30 days? 90 days? 6 months? …. Nope. None of these. It took 2 years to make this happen. When you’re making core level changes, sometimes change doesn’t happen overnight. (The snake-oil salesman of internet marketing and social media hype will get mad at me for saying this, but oh, well, I’ll get over it!)
Key Lessons Here:
#1: Know your customer. Whoever understands the customer best wins.
#2: Develop your strategy around your business’ strengths and objectives. NOT whatever bright shiny object is pitched. Remember fish chase after bright shiny objects. They also end up dead on the dinner plate.
#3: Get your core marketing in place – your unique selling proposition and your value proposition.
#4: Develop the right media mix FOR YOUR BUSINESS. Even though most of our business is internet marketing related, we still look to phase in traditional media where it makes sense.
#5: Be patient. It takes work and energy to make BIG gains. Don’t expect to make radical changes and dominate your market in 30 days. Turn “Hype-TV” off and have a 12-24 month (or more) growth plan.
And lastly, go after it with FOCUS and DETERMINATION.
Blessings,
P.S. If you have questions or want help with your situation, email me at Chris@ChrisGoegan.com or Click Here to Request a Free Consultation
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Three Major Forces Changing Internet Marketing
Read this if you are not yet in the game but want to get in, or if you want to win bigger:
The vast majority of people you have met in the last few months have told you that internet marketing is flat and that nothing has changed for some time except for some changes just recently to Google’s algorithms. But if you start challenging the way these folks are thinking, you can start to see the market from a different perspective. The perspective we use.
Let me explain…
Internet marketing and the Big G (Google) have been changing over the last several years. A few years ago you could slap up a web page, send people to it and you’d have instant business. It was a gold rush. Now things have changed significantly due to the three market forces which I explain below. 80-90% of companies are failing or struggling while 95% of the spoils are going to the top 1% of businesses. The rich get richer and the poor struggle. The good news is, you get to pick what camp you are in – if you understand these forces and act accordingly.
Three market forces that we follow very closely have formed an important window that we can step through – if we time it right. We don’t know how long the window will be open, but if you get into action now, you can grow your business 50% or maybe even 2x faster than using any other marketing medium out there.
Here’s our analysis of the way the market is moving:
#1 Competitive Factors – everyone and their brother are jumping into the market. With the insurgence of competition in internet marketing, the prospect has many more choices. Most competitors are marketing wrong and it will take some time for them to figure it out. You have to be wise on how to position yourself.
#2 Economic Factors – With more competitors jumping online, and with Google working really hard to reduce the inventory of searches, the cost of getting traffic is increasing. Click costs that were $0.50 a few years ago are now up to $5 and in some highly competitive markets $50 – $100 per click. There is still a window of time to have a feast of business if you hunt the right keywords and have a wise engagement and ascension plan.
#3 Technology Factors – A lot of other media is clamoring for your marketing and advertising dollars – with Facebook, Pinterest, Mobile, Twitter, YouTube, etc., Most of the advertising platforms are weak with a lower proportion of buyers and they are struggling trying to figure out how to gain profits. We know a strategy that will shortcut your success and allow you to climb to the top of the heap of whatever traffic source you choose. How long the window is open, I don’t know.
This may or may not be news to you, but this is what is going on and how the market is moving NOW. All three forces are essential to your online strategy.
Again, if you’re not in the market and want to, or if you want to win bigger, then you have a short market window to step through.
If you fight against these forces you will struggle. If you hit it right, though, you’ll be one of the few businesses that gets through this small window with a wide grin on your face.
You get to choose – what will it be?
Blessings,
P.S. If you have questions or want help with your situation, email me at Chris@ChrisGoegan.com or Click Here to Request a Free Consultation
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