Broadly, email marketing can be split into three clear segments: the authority email, the cold sell email and the warm sell email. Each has its place in the marketing lifecycle.
1. The authority email
The goal of the authority email is to share knowledge with your audience, not only to keep them up to date, but also to place yourself in their minds as someone to turn to for your services. Our regular articles cover different topics that fit within our scope of work. You will note that I don’t do any hard sell; I’m just trying to share knowledge I’ve gained over more than 30 years in messaging.
What does an authority email actually contain?
Something worth knowing. A change in the industry, an explanation of a problem you keep seeing, or a practical suggestion that saves the reader some trouble. It should show that you understand your subject without turning every paragraph into a sales pitch. That is easier said than done, because naturally we all want to talk about how wonderful our own businesses are. But the useful information needs to come first.
This type of communication can also help build a positive relationship with recipients who actually want to hear from you. So there is method in my madness… well, some anyway!
2. The cold sell email
The goal of the cold sell email is to get your name and services out to a new audience with the hopes of growing your audience and client base. This needs a whole different set of rules. You may not yet have an established relationship with these contacts, so relevance, permission and a clear introduction are particularly important.
Your goal here, beyond obviously new clients for your wares, is to build relationships with people who may eventually want to hear more from you. Not many industries will get an immediate sale from one cold sell email.
The best course of action is to build a campaign that reacts to meaningful actions taken by contacts. Someone who clicks through to request information may be ready for a useful follow-up. Someone who has not shown interest may not be. A campaign can help people self-qualify and provide your sales team with people to call, but an open-tracking signal alone is not reliable proof of interest or consent.
There is an important distinction here. “Cold” does not mean “send to every address you can find and hope for the best”. In Australia, commercial electronic messages are subject to the Spam Act, including consent, sender identification and unsubscribe requirements. A purchased list is not a shortcut around those rules. Before building a campaign, work out who you can lawfully contact, why the message is relevant and what you are actually offering them. Warming up a sending domain doesn’t give you permission to email a purchased or unconsented list either. Warming is a different job entirely, and I cover it in how to warm up a new email domain.
And when you do follow up, let the recipient’s actions guide you, but be sensible about what those actions mean. A click on a link can indicate interest in that particular subject; an open alone is much less reliable. Someone who asks a question deserves a useful answer. Someone who unsubscribes deserves to be left alone. It sounds obvious, but you would be surprised how often the obvious gets forgotten. And if nobody responds at all? That’s not always the bad news it seems, as I explain in what to do when people don’t respond to your marketing emails.
3. The warm sell email
The goal of the warm sell email is to tempt existing clients and an established audience to take a closer look at your products or services and ultimately buy them. You are really aiming at them giving you a call or communicating in some way. Often this might be a special offer, or information about a new product or service. Again, a campaign that reacts to what people actually do can help them self-qualify and give your sales team people to call.
Warm sell does not have to mean a discount either. Perhaps an existing customer is using one of your services and has no idea you offer another that would save them time. Perhaps a new feature would make their day easier. That is a perfectly good reason to get in touch, provided it is relevant. The strongest message is usually the one that helps the customer understand why they should care.
So does email marketing actually work?
We don’t only share authority-style articles. We also run campaigns to introduce our services and, on occasion, send warm sell offers ourselves. We literally practise what we preach!
So does email marketing actually work? I’ll leave you with this last thought. If it didn’t, we wouldn’t still be here nearly 30 years on, doing what we do. And if you’re still on the fence, here’s why email marketing still matters.