An Introduction To Email Marketing Streams & Strategies
Main benefit of this post? You’ll understand how versatile (and powerful) email marketing really is. It will light a fire under your ass that gets you thinking. Ideas will flow. And you’ll want to run to your computer and start banging up some fresh email copy.
What do you say we talk about some S&S?
I’m talking about Email Marketing S&S. Streams and Strategies, hombre.
Now, I’m not the first person to say this but… email marketing is immensely valuable.
Your business offers something of value to people. You ask them for money in return for providing that value. And that sweet-ass cycle kicks on, chalking up wins for everyone.
As long as your business is thriving, of course.
In order for that to happen, in 2021 as far as I know, you need to communicate with people. You have to get some kind of message in front of them. That message bids for their attention and tries to CONVINCE them to want your offer.
There are tons of ways you can get a message in front of people. But today I want to talk to you about email.
Email is extra special. It’s personal. It’s where you can talk to your prospect right next to their lawyer, their accountant and their mother.
And it gets even better… because email is the marketing channel that YOU OWN.
It’s unlike traditional mail. There you have to pay a company to actually deliver your messages. Nope — email runs on protocols that are a PART of the internet. They’re public. So you don’t have to worry about “Email Inc.” going bankrupt and blasting your business to bits.
Sound like a good place to do business?
I think so too.
Let’s break down a few ways you can use it.
Subscriber Marketing (Your Own List)
Most people only think of this “stream” when they think of email marketing.
And for good reason. This is the foundation of your email marketing endeavors. You might choose not to use the other strategies I’m going to cover. But this one is a given.
You build a list, and it becomes your invaluable asset.
I still think of it as a marketing stream because when you want to promote something it’s a place to get attention. But truthfully, it SHOULD be seen more as a fanbase. And you’re really cooking when you see each email as a one-to-one chat with each one of those fans… rather than a presentation to an audience.
You write each email as a message from your heart and soul.
Is that the only way to do subscriber marketing?
No, there are others. I break all of them into three groups…
Three types of emails
So far I’ve found three main strategies you can go with when you create subscriber emails.
One… you can do what most businesses do and send… eGarbage!
What I mean is, you can pay a graphic designer $2 to slam together ten “eFlyers.” They’ll have huge pictures, vapid, hype-y copy and lots of discounts. You can find them living in the “promotions” tab.
Now don’t get me totally wrong here. I’m spewing some hate but, perhaps there’s some value to these. People who don’t mind scanning a pile of shallow advertisements and, might already be itching to buy EXACTLY what you’re offering at a discount… they’re the perfect prospects.
But they won’t be thinking about your emails, waiting for the next one to hit the inbox.
And they won’t be introduced to a problem they didn’t know they had…
…and CONVINCED to give it a shot (without a discount).
These direct offer, brand copy e-flyers are the dollar store version of subscriber email marketing. If your brand is loved regardless, you can generate sales easily by throwing these together. But you can’t expect people to truly care about your emails. And you’re going to atrophy the perceived value of your products if you discount them regularly.
Not to mention the list is ordinary at best. They’re usually leads who want discounts… i.e. friggin’ everybody.
Two… you can craft and send smart direct response offers regularly.
This will require skill — probably the most skill — and it may not be a good long term strategy depending on the market.
Whether you’re promoting your own products or the products of affiliates, the premise is the same. The emails you send combine some form of value and, either make an offer or point them along a funnel that does.
The balance of value and offer is like a gradient… you can be anywhere on that line.
But this strategy is marked by the fact that your prospect sees you as a business. As long as they need or want the stuff you offer, the two of you have harmony.
You can test different offers and hooks. You can create longer emails that do the selling. You can create shorter ones that just build curiosity for a landing page. You can educate them about your industry or niche.
In the supplement and financial spaces, this strategy is common and effective. The reader wants more. If your emails are educational AND contain good products or services, then they want to be on your list.
The best place on the value to offer scale depends on the nature of your market and your business model.
But if you keep ramping up the value and toning down the offers, you get…
Three… you can build a real, lasting relationship with your audience.
This is the ultimate investment in your list.
You are fortifying and screening your subscriber list into a collection of TRUE fans. In order to do this, you need to connect all the time. Be authentic and share stories and intimate facts. Put EFFORT into sharing entertaining or interesting things, relevant to your industry.
Your audience will see you as a person, not *just* a business.
This is the ultimate strategy for personal brand and information-based businesses. Courses, books and other info-products are best marketed in this way.
But you can build a killer fanbase in a physical product business too. If you have an ecommerce store, you can bond DEEPLY with the receptive segment of your market.
They’ll become so loyal, you’ll never have to worry about struggling to make sales or stay in business again. (Unless you break their hearts by changing things and, they no longer feel connected with you. Or if they grow past wanting whatever you offer.)
This requires skill. Maybe not as much as building direct response offers — those require “psychological engineering.” But you will need to be good enough at writing to make your thoughts and feelings hit the page. You’ll want to have some idea how to build attention and desire through print. And you’ll need to be thoughtful.
If you are a brilliant copywriter, vivid storyteller and thoughtful conversationalist… you’ll kick ass at this strategy. Otherwise you’ll want to pay up to get someone who is to capture your voice and philosophy.
The leads will be VERY good. The lifetime value of the list will be amazing. You will be able to sell to this list for the long haul. It will cost more, in either your time or the cost of a marketer to do it for you. But it will be worth way more than what you put in.
So now that we’ve looked at the foundation email marketing stream, you must be wondering… what other streams are there?
Email Drops
Imagine you have something you want to sell but your list is small (or you don’t have one).
This email marketing channel can get you huge results, and FAST.
You reach out to an information publishing business who has a big list already. You pay a fee to get them to send your email to their list. And all the readers who click through and convert? You capture their email address and they become YOUR customers.
That’s it in a nutshell.
This is a DEAL-CENTRIC marketing channel… meaning you’re making a DEAL to tap into an audience.
The business could be a news outlet. Or it could be an info-product business with their own offers as well.
It could have an enormous demographic reach. Or it could be ‘niche-as-hell.’
For obvious reasons, you want to make sure their readership contains YOUR market.
So if you want to sell keto protein bars (and you’re new), you might want to focus on ketogenic diet publishers. If you want to sell joint health supplements to older folks, maybe a mainstream conservative news audience would work.
Another note… since it’s deal-centric you’ll have to play by the publisher’s rules.
That might mean your email gets ‘embedded’ into their weekly newsletter, making it obvious that it’s an ad. Or maybe your copy has to follow their guidelines and get its balls chopped off.
In other words, you might have to scuff your offer up a little and suffer lower conversions as a result.
To quickly summarize: Email drops are like advertorials. You’re buying space in a some publication that already has an audience. If it’s the right audience and your message fits in smoothly… you might end up with some FAT POCKETS.
Affiliate Email Marketing
Affiliate marketing is responsible for TONS of content online.
That includes review articles and videos, niche news sites, little program “widgets” and generators and the rest of it.
First an affiliate creates content that gets a lot of attention…
…then they broker that attention to someone with a product or service.
In other words, they promote your product to their audience. And so, affiliate email marketing is the same thing but with email instead of websites.
It sounds similar to email drops… but there’s a big difference.
You’re still getting access to someone else’s email list to pitch your product. But with affiliate email marketing, you pay a commission to your affiliate. You are partnering with them on that promotion.
So this email marketing channel is even more deal-centric.
In most cases your offer will affect the affiliate’s identity — especially if they’re any good. They’ve invested time and energy into building a content library and audience. So if your business and offer don’t appeal to THEM FIRST… they won’t be keen.
That means niche is even more important in this case.
If everything is peachy and you decide to partner, you could end up with AWESOME leads. They’ll be loyal to the affiliate, and so you’ll have more rapport from the get go.
The trade off is that you make less profit on affiliate sale… but getting access to a new list of qualified leads is worth it. The affiliate will vouch for you since they’re getting a commission. And you’ll gain the customers that convert.
Affiliate Swipes
The copy that your business needs for an affiliate email campaign is an “affiliate swipe.”
This is a sales email written for a new audience, albeit in your niche. So it will need a saucy lead that grabs attention and builds interest. And depending on your landing page (or the affiliate’s needs) you might need to include details.
The affiliate might take ideas and information from it and write their own email. Or they might tweak it based on what they want to send to their list.
How the copy gets adjusted and finalized will be part of the deal.
Overall, this is a badass way to get the ball rolling when you’ve got no list of your own.
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How’s that fire coming along?
Is the seat of your pants burning, making you want to LEAP out of your chair and get to it???
Hopefully you learned a thing or two about email marketing here today.
This powerful marketing tool gives you multiple streams to work with and many ways to execute regardless of your niche.
Do you want an email marketing expert to help you take action on what you learned today?
Shoot me an email at aba.gator@gmail.com with the subject line “Email Marketing” and tell me about your business.
