Although social media has been grabbing the headlines for the last few years, email is still the king of marketing on the internet. I am still far from perfecting the art of marketing people, however you can learn a lot about email marketing by looking at what other people are doing. This is particularly true within the world of eCommerce.
My first ever marathon is four weeks away. Training hard and eating healthily is always something I have done, though I have obviously stepped it up a gear because my upcoming marathons. Last month I placed an order of whey protein and milk protein from Myprotein: One of the largest online nutrition stores within the UK. After creating an account, I soon saw how well they have optimised their email marketing strategy.
I was initially unsure about which protein to purchase so after adding several items to my cart, I went to bed and decided to place the order the next day. It was only a few hours before I received an email from the company asking if I had any problems with my order. The email detailed every item I had added to my cart the night before. I was planning on making an order anyway; however I was impressed with how the items in my cart had been tracked and then emailed to me.
To say that the company has an aggressive marketing department would be an understatement. Every day or so they have a new deal. There is always something going on sale that will entice you back to the store. It’s a smart move as people who train regularly will purchase protein and other nutritional items on a monthly basis.
Since signing up, I have received an email from them every week without fail. Normally, this pushy sales method would make me unsubscribe, however I have so far resisted doing this incase a good offer comes up.
Below is a screenshot of the mailing I received this morning:
I have always been conscious about emailing my newsletter subscribers too much. I tend to just email them whenever I have a really good offer or deal. Most full time marketers do not share this opinion and use aggressive direct marketing techniques. It is common for many marketers to email their list every day.
There is no doubt that emailing people more often will cause more people to unsubscribe, however it will give you a better relationship with those who do not. Over time, it should make your list more loyal and more receptive to buying products and services from you. I would take a responsive list five hundred subscribers over an unresponsive list of five thousand any day.
I know that many of my readers are bloggers. Many of you are in a similar position to me. That is, you send an email every week with a list of recent posts and send out another email irregularly about any special events. Third-party email services such as GetResponse make it easy to collect email addresses and send an email blast to subscribers; however their service is not free.
We should be doing more and emailing our subscribers more often. I do not see me ever emailing my subscribers every day, though I believe I could build up a good relationship with subscribers by sending out an email once a week.
If you are not taking the time to connect with your subscribers, generating a list is a bit of a waste of time. I recommend examining what other people are doing and see what can be applied to your own campaign.
Good luck,
Kevin