Email marketing is still one of the most successful ways to sell, especially in the digital space. According to Oberlo, for every $1 that you spend on email marketing, you can expect $42 in revenue.
It has also been found that 49% of consumers said that they would like to hear from their favorite brands on a weekly basis. So, not only can you get a really good ROI with a good email marketing strategy, but it’s also a great way to stay connected and build a relationship with your audience.
This way you can serve them with value while priming them to become buyers of your products or services. Today I am sharing three types of email marketing strategies you may not be leveraging in your business.
Types of Email Marketing Strategies You Should Leverage For Your Business
There are three types of email marketing strategies that I will discuss in great detail that are key to your businesses email marketing success. They include a welcome sequence, nurture emails, and re-engagement campaigns.
Get all the details on how to implement each one and why below.
Types of Email Marketing Strategies #1: Welcome Sequence
A welcome sequence is a series of emails that will be sent to every new subscriber in a certain and strategic order. They can be a sequence of as little as 3 emails, or of many emails that are dripped out in a strategic sequence over a longer period of time. An welcome email sequence is designed to kick off your relationship with your subscribers when they are the warmest (right after they’ve just opted into your list).
To determine the welcome sequence’s length decide on what you want to achieve with the it and the content you will be sharing to achieve that goal. The welcome sequence is the perfect time to start building a relationship with your new subscribers.
Remember, they just opted into something you offered them so you are fresh in their mind. They have also just proven that they are interested in what you are offering. That’s what we call a warm lead.
And your new subscribers are possibly at their warmest and most engaged at this point of joining your list. Your welcome sequence is your golden opportunity to offer great value, position your authority, and build trust with your new subscribers.
Whether you are someone who is just starting out on your email marketing journey and beginning to build your list, or you are someone with validated and successful offers, you can use the welcome sequence to introduce yourself, let new subscribers know what they can expect, and invite them to take the next step on their journey with you.
That step could be to follow you on other platforms, join your free community, buy a low ticket offer, or book a call.
How To Create a Welcome Sequence For Your Email Marketing Strategy Plan
- The first email: This is typically the email that will contain what your new subscribers opted into your list for. This is also where you could introduce yourself and your brand, Then, set the expectation for what type of content and value they will be getting from you, as well as how often.
- Tell a story and tie it into your “why”: Storytelling is really powerful in emails. Tying it to why you do what you do will start to give your new subscriber an idea of what your values are. Having an email in your welcome sequence that tells a story about you, your mission, and why you serve the people that you do can make for really engaging content.
- The “give only” email: This is the email that purely adds value with no call to action attached to it. This could be in the form of valuable information you have learned on your own journey or something that you teach your clients. It could also be another lead magnet or something else that will help to create a quick win for them. This will greatly help you develop the “know-like-trust” factor because people start to recognize you as a generous service provider.
These are just some of the many content ideas you could play with.
Welcome Sequence Example
- Email #1: Deliver what the subscriber signed up for and officially welcome them to your list.
- Email #2: Introduce new subscribers to your vision, your mission, and your story to get them hooked into why you are so passionate about what you do.
- Email #3: Let new subscribers know what to expect from following you, what kind of content will you be sharing and how often, and how else they can stay connected to you. This is a great place to drop your social links and get more followers!
- Email #4: Give more value. Share a ‘best of’ for your top training with new subscribers. This will start to build the know, like, and trust factor to position yourself as an expert.
- Email #5: Collect data. Ask your list a simple question that will:
- Help you to determine what type of content will best serve them.
- Segment them or inform your marketing – i.e. what’s their biggest pain point or how do they like to consume content from you.
- Email #6: Sell. Depending on what you are selling, while you’re building a rapport through a series of initial emails, give your new subscribers the opportunity to find out what it’s like to work with you. You could:
- Invite them to your signature webinar or training.
- Offer a low-priced product that will help them get a quick win and start encouraging them to say yes to investing with you.
- Extend the invitation for them to book a call so that you can learn which of your offers may be the best fit for where they are in their business journey.
Remember your welcome sequence doesn’t have to be very long. But know that the longer you make it, the more opportunities you have to create and build that relationship. And the deeper that relationship is, the more primed your subscribers will be to accept a paid invitation from you.
As you create your welcome sequences avoid sending your new subscribers other one-off broadcasts or email blasts. You do not want to confuse them or pull them out of this flow that you’re trying to create with your welcome sequence.
Additionally, don’t be alarmed if your open rates begin to drop after the first email or two. This would mean by the time you extend the invitation to the webinar or the purchase of your low-priced product, the open rates are much lower than when they first joined.
This is quite normal. Just remember that those who do open your emails are going to be the people that are most engaged and likely to buy in.
Types of Email Marketing Strategies #2: Nurture Emails
You may be surprised by how many people promote opt-ins to build their list and then don’t ever email them (full transparency… I’ve been that person before in my business).
Remember, the whole point of email marketing is to create a relationship with people, provide them with value, and eventually ask for the sale. If you never email your subscribers until you are getting ready to sell something, you will come across as spammy and salesy.
Chances are they don’t even remember how they originally got on your list and will likely click on the ‘unsubscribe’ button faster than you can type ‘buy now’. Or even worse, never open up your email.
Sometimes we feel like we don’t have time in our schedules to create content. Sometimes we’re not sure what to say in our emails. Or sometimes we get so bogged down in the day to day and trying to get new leads, we just forget to nurture the ones we’ve got!
The truth is, if you’re not emailing your list you are leaving relationships AND money on the table. Consistency in your communication with your email list is vital.
So, what is the optimal frequency to email your list?
Based on studies, it is between two to three times per week.
‘What?! How am I going to find time to create enough content to email my list three times a week?’
If you’re saying that to yourself right now, I want to let you in on the power of… repurposing! Think about all of the other things you may be doing in your business that can either be turned into email content or simply repurposed.
Further below you will find a list full of ideas of things you can repurpose as part of your email marketing strategy.
Types of Things You Can Repurpose for Your Email Marketing Strategy Plan
If you’re looking for some ideas on items you can repurpose as part of your email marketing strategy, check out the list below of things you are already doing that can be repurposed into an email to your list.
- FB lives: Before you go live on your page, send out a quick email reminder to let people know and send a link to your biz page. If you don’t schedule your lives and do them impromptu, when you’re feeling inspired send out a replay email. Use a catchy subject line and invite people to watch the replay.
- Blog posts: Anytime you release a blog, you can repurpose it into a written email that either encompasses the entire blog. Or if it’s too long, just a preview of the blog that then directs them to ‘Read More’ by hyperlinking to your website.
- Personal story: How many times during a regular day does something happen that connects to what you do or how you serve – a lesson, an anecdote, something that made you laugh, or even pissed you off. Infuse your personal story into emails that capture a quick lesson or interaction that could give an a-ha to your list.
- Best of email: Go back through training, blogs, podcasts, and share some of your best ofs.
- Client highlights and successes: Did a client recently have a win that you could share with your list?
- Favorite things: It’s great to sprinkle in some lighter more personal content around the things you use in your business. If you’re building a lifestyle brand this could be things you use in your personal life. For example you could share a favorite podcast. Just make sure it is something complementary to what you do and does not create any direction competition.
- Block time in your calendar to create content. Think about when you feel the most inspired to create. Block off time in your calendar each week or every other week to create content in one batch that can be scheduled throughout the week or month.
- See what’s trending and share your take on it. Take a peek at sites like Medium or current podcasts and see what topics are trending and at the top of your audience’s mind.
- Ask them something. Create an even deeper connection with your subscribers by simply asking how they’re doing, what they’re struggling with, or what’s new in their business. This not only helps to connect with them, but can also inform your marketing when you find out what your followers are actually dealing with in real-time.
Make it a practice to ask your list to take action on something, such as asking a question and specifically asking them to reply to you. Be sure to monitor the responses and email back – keeping the conversation going. This will help build that much needed relationship and foster a culture of taking action.
Nurturing your list is a long-term process. It never really stops unless you are in a launch period and are specifically selling. Once the launch and selling period is over, you go right back to nurturing and providing value to your community.
Reintroducing Nurture Emails As An Email Marketing Strategy Plan
Nurture emails are one of my favorite types of email marketing strategies! But, what if you haven’t emailed your list in awhile? Do you just pick up and start emailing them three times a week?
You can use this as an opportunity to re-introduce yourself with an email that acknowledges:
“Hey, I know you haven’t heard from me in a while. Here’s what’s been going on. And here is what you can expect going forward.”
Or you can just get back in the flow of emailing them value-based emails until you build back in some consistency.
Types of Email Marketing Strategies #3: Re-Engagement Campaign
A re-engagement campaign is a set of emails that as the name implies, attempts to re-engage your list. The end goal of the re-engagement campaign really is to see who wants to continue to hear from you (these are your people), and who doesn’t (these are not your ideal clients).
A re-engagement campaign is typically sent to a segment of your list that has not opened or engaged with your emails in a while but that you’re still able to email. Email marketing systems have the functionality of segmenting your list by subscribers who haven’t opened or engaged with an email in a certain amount of time.
A general rule of thumb for this is subscribers who haven’t opened somewhere within the past 60- 120+ days. The larger that segment of subscribers who haven’t engaged in your emails grows, the more it affects the deliverability to your entire list and you’re also likely paying for those subscribers in your email subscriber count.
The fewer subscribers that open your emails trigger the email deliverability gods to suspect that you have a negative sender reputation or poor list quality. This means that less of your emails will end up in your subscribers inboxes and will instead go right to spam.
Re-Engagement Campaign Sample
A re-engagement campaign typically consists of around three emails that are sent over the course of 5-7 days. Most email marketing systems like Ontraport offer re-engagement campaigns templates as well as the segment it will get sent to. All you need to do is upload the content of the emails.
Here is an example of what a re-engagement campaign might look like:
- Email #1: “Hey, I noticed you haven’t opened an email in a while, are you interested in continuing to hear from me? Here is a new lead magnet or training I did that I thought might interest you…”
- Email #2: ‘Hey, I sent you an email and wanted to make sure you saw it. I only want to send content to people that want to receive it. So if you’re still interested in hearing from me, great, just click here to access this amazing training I just did. If you’re not, after 5 days, I’m going to be removing you from my list.”
- Email #3: “I still haven’t heard from you that you want to stay on my list. Click here to stay connected (link to a lead magnet or training). If you don’t want to hear from me anymore, no action needed and I send you off with love!”
What happens if they don’t re-engage? Then they are ‘scrubbed’ from your list. Which means you essentially remove them from your database.
Re-Engagement Campaign Benefits
I have had clients who have been reluctant to remove non-engaged subscribers from their lists because they were concerned about the drop in the number of email subscribers. This is very understandable because they have spent time, money, and energy building that email list.
Simply put, if your open or click-through rates are really low and your subscribers are not engaging, that email subscriber list number wouldn’t really matter. What every entrepreneur needs are people on their list who are engaged, benefit from the value you are offering, and who – when the time is right – will step into working with you at the next level.
When cleaning out your list, do take note of your hard bounces (emails that never get delivered likely because the subscriber’s email address is invalid) and your soft bounces (emails that are not getting delivered for numerous possible reasons but usually temporary in nature). See which of those can be taken off of your list too.
What is the benefit of actually removing email subscribers using a re-engagement campaign?
- You won’t be paying for subscribers that aren’t engaging in your emails.
- Your email list will be full of people that actually want to hear from you (i.e. your ideal clients).
- Your engagement metrics will be more accurate and likely will increase and so will overall deliverability to your list.
But what if I don’t want fewer subscribers on my list? The number of subscribers you have on your email list, to a certain point is a vanity number.
You may have 17k on your list, but if only 10% of those subscribers are opening their emails, that means only 1,700 of them are opening your emails and you don’t have an engaged list.
However if you scrubbed your list down to 10k, your email deliverability increases. This means more people on your list are getting your emails to their inbox instead of their spam, and your open rates could increase to 30%.
Now, 3,000 people are engaging on your emails. Much better right?
What Email Marketing Systems Should I Be Using?
I can’t tell you how many times random people have asked me this question or I’ve seen it posted in my clients’ programs by their clients.
And the answer is, it really depends on where you’re at in your business.
If you’re just starting out, there are many email marketing systems like Mailchimp that offer a free option. However, with that comes limited functionality for things like segmenting and automation.
If you’re looking for something a little more robust but still at a reasonable price point, two great options are ConvertKit or Ontraport.
In reality, Ontraport is a CRM, which means it offers far more features and functionality than just an email marketing system. CRM stands for customer relationship management, which means it provides features that allow for higher-level data analysis on all aspects of your relationships with your customers.
Understanding types of email marketing strategies and establishing an email marketing strategy plan are vital keys to growing your business.
There it is. Welcome sequences, nurture sequences, and re-engagement sequences – those are the 3 types of email marketing strategies you should be using in your business.
And you if you aren’t, start right now!
