Your Email Marketing Campaigns: What’s The Point?

Posted July 16th, 2010

by Josh Nason, Inbound Marketing Director for SendLabs, a New England-based email marketing software company with great customers across the street and around the globe.

In a lot of cases, the answers to the great marketing questions of our time can be figured out by simply asking a much larger question: what’s the point?

Email marketing is no different. Our inboxes are crammed these days with messages from everyone: your boss, your sister, your old friend who wants to connect on Facebook, Target, that store you shop at that you would never admit you shop at, etc, etc.

I get asked a lot from clients about how they can break through, how they can clear through the clutter and how they can make an impact in the inbox. I always start by asking why types of emails they send out and what the point is of those forms of communications.

There are occasional glazed over looks and sometimes I’ll get asked, “What do you mean by the point? We’re sending out emails. That is the point.”

No, not really. Here’s some examples:

Monthly Newsletters
Ideally, the point should be a regular communication with your email list updating them with several different quick-hit aspects of your business. In other words, avoid the long-drawn out narrative that people will stop reading after two paragraphs.

What the point shouldn’t be: a junk drawer of random stuff. A good rule of thumb is that if you’re struggling with content, your readers will probably struggle with reading it. There’s no law saying you need to send out a monthly newsletter. If one doesn’t make sense to do for July, then wait until August.

Promotional Emails
The point should be a promotion of some sort with a distinct call to action. Unfortunately, the call to action is one of the most overlooked aspects in today’s marketing world because we are always trying to cram too much info into one form of messaging. You’re sending an email, not a last-chance love letter where you say everything you’ve always wanted to say.

(Not that I have any experience in that, by the way. Let’s just move on…)

If you’re promoting something, the look and feel should be distinctly different from your monthly newsletters but nothing too foreign. Ask yourself if the promotion is something that will stand out to people when they get it and push them to a specific desired action. If it’s passive, there’s no point. You’re simply interrupting.

Sales Emails
Many of the same rules of promotional emails apply, but if there’s any reason to really make a distinct call to action, it’s the sales email. Why? Because you’re looking to SELL SOMETHING. It’s the same frustration that many sales managers have with their reps. Just ask for the sale! The worst a recipient will say is no or in this case, they will simply delete the email.

These types of emails should be designed solely around the sales push with no distractions away from the main point. I’d also recommend not putting a big sales push in your monthly newsletter, but rather use the opportunity to make a bigger splash with a one-off sales email.

A quick example: we helped design and deploy a sales-only campaign to a targeted list of existing customers for a Fortune 50 client. It was for a unique service that was only available for a limited time (I sound like Vince from Shamwow!) and they ended up with $500k in sales in roughly a week. Yes, this can happen for you.

What Did We Learn?

Every email you send should have a clear and concise point.
If you’re struggling with content in an email, your readers will struggle reading it.
Sales-related emails should be clutter-free. Don’t distract away from the main point.

You can follow Josh Nason at twitter.com/joshnason and twitter.com/sendlabs.