Plan your email marketing campaigns to sell steadily

If you want to sell steadily, you will need to plan your email marketing campaigns.

We don’t recommend sending only seasonal campaigns, as if you don’t send email marketing throughout the year, your subscribers will end up forgetting about you.

However, before you start sending more emails, you need to answer this question: What exactly are you going to send to your subscribers?

That is usually the problem.

It’s one thing to send a newsletter with an offer on Black Friday, for example, and another to send 1, 2 or more emails a week.

In the first case, we can sit down, prepare the design and send (there’s a lot to think about, but it’s a single message). In the second case, it will be necessary to plan the content of several emails.

How do we solve this problem?

We will see some recommendations in this post.

· Define how often you will send a newsletter

My suggestion is that you start with at least one weekly campaign.

To see if it would be interesting to send more often.

Before increasing the frequency of sending, you could consider the following factors:

To get an idea of how many times you would have to send to sell.

Remember that most people don’t buy in the first interaction, which means you’ll have to create a multi-step strategy.

In theory, the more you interact with your customers, the more likely you are to convince them to buy.

You can use Google Analytics to get a rough idea of the number of interactions needed.

This is an essential point that you should consider.

That done, we can move on to the next point.

· What does your buyer persona need?

Why is your product or service vital to your customer?

Never forget: Stopping to think about the customer’s real needs can be very useful.

I’ll give you an example.

Most Mailrelay users don’t need to “specifically” send a newsletter, what they do need is to “sell more.”

It turns out that email marketing is a very good selling tool, and therefore Mailrelay helps to sell. So, the promotional approach that we can try is precisely this; Mailrelay helps to sell.

Consider this point, as this will help you plan your campaigns and write your emails.

► How urgently do they need what you are selling?

This will also help you to get an idea of the required sending frequency.

For example, if it is a non-urgent purchase and the decision may take weeks, it may be useful to send a weekly email to encourage the purchase.

However, if it is urgent and the customer needs the solution right now, you can send several emails weekly or even daily (if you know that your customer will buy the product immediately.)

At this point, we already have enough information to answer another critical question.

· Scheduled automated series or custom campaigns

Depending on what you have detected after reviewing the previous aspects, you will have to decide whether to create automation or send a personalized campaign.

For example, if you calculate that the purchase decision-making time is 1 to 3 days, you should consider scheduling a series of three emails to guide the prospect during this period.

However, after 3 or 5 days, planning a series of emails becomes quite complex.

If the purchase process is longer than an automated series, I prefer content planning, which allows for some adaptability and the possibility to make adjustments when necessary.

Ultimately, both options respond to different philosophies or strategies:

► Fixed sales funnel

If we follow this philosophy, we will see the sales funnel as something very fixed and stable, where customers go through different phases and, therefore, the content to be sent in each stage of the funnel can be established in advance.

Perhaps it is a very rigid view of the process, which seeks exactly that, to differentiate the strategies and messages of each phase, to guide the potential customer towards the sale.

► Constant impact strategy

I like this strategy better, although it may require more work.

In that case, you need to be constant, and to do so, you must plan content that:

To sell steadily, we need to keep contacting prospects regularly by email, to generate more sales opportunities.

Following this strategy, we have the advantage of not being limited to a specific number of emails, which means that we can adapt our approach depending on the purchasing decision-making processes.

And we can also use various strategies to close sales, include discounts, etc.

In general, it is a more dynamic and versatile option.

We already talked about this on our blog.

· Email marketing and content campaigns

At this point, we have a few things clear:

Obviously, there is no need to create content to send emails.

You can sell a lot just by writing emails (and sending them, of course)

However, posting content, such as articles to your blog, videos or even publications on your social media can help in a very specific way:

[Attracting traffic and helping us to get new contacts]

Attract organic traffic and improve your conversion rates.

Thus, the opportunities are multiplying; on the one hand, we have something to send to our contacts, and, on the other, we can obtain new leads.

Here the problem is usually in the planning, right?

Well, we will solve this in the next point.

·  What topics can we address in our email marketing campaigns? What content and emails can we prepare?

First of all, I would like to clarify an important aspect:

Repetition in marketing is essential

You shouldn’t be afraid to repeat it. What does that mean?

That doesn’t mean that we can send the same message week after week.

But some concepts will be repeated from time to time.

So we need not be afraid to address a topic, just because we talked about it two months ago. This is not a problem, we can talk about the same subject again, if necessary. In fact, it is recommended that we do so.

Don’t suffer for it when planning your next campaigns.

Also, don’t worry about talking too much about your product or service; if your subscribers are not sure about your product, all of this information will be valid to help them take the next step.

And, of course, remember the special dates and all the factors that somehow affect or could potentially modify your calendar.

► 1) Choose the main topic, perhaps your main differentiator?

It is easier to do things that way.

If we have a product or service, it certainly stands out in something, there will be something that distinguishes it from the competition, and that is what customers prefer.

This primary advantage could become the center of your communication strategy.

For example, imagine that you have created a service that will deliver groceries to your customers. We are not talking about cooked food; they will just receive the ingredients and recipes in a box.

Your differential could be:

Save time and eat healthier food all week

This business model could attract customers who don’t have much free time but want to improve their health.

But it might not be enough.

But we have another option:

► 2) Divide the central differential into sub-benefits

That is all the advantages that the main benefit encompasses.

In the case of “Save time and eat healthy food all week,” we could have:

The more we can divide the topics, the better the results will be.

We have to talk about one last relevant aspect.

► 3) Personal factors that affect the purchase process

We should also consider that, of course.

What factors affect the strategy?

Think about your prospects and their personal situation.

We already have all the necessary points.

· Mix, plan and send mail campaigns

Mix, plan and send email marketing campaigns.

Now, we have to select all the information from the previous points:

And, in an excel or similar, we will cross the two values to extract ideas and create content, for example, we can conclude that receiving the ingredients at home is more convenient because the user will not have to go to the supermarket whenever he wants to cook.

That way, we will have more content ideas to work with.

► When sending your emails

You should be brief, get to the point, and highlight the main advantage of your offer.

We should avoid, as much as possible, to not bore our subscribers, because we want them to continue receiving and opening our emails.

And we want them to take some action, after reading the message.

I recommend that you read the post:

5 persuasive email templates to promote your latest article

Well, it includes some very interesting tips.

And of course

► Write a sales email.

We have talked about this several times on our blog, and as it is a complex topic, we recommend that you review the article:

How to write an irresistible sales email (without feeling uncomfortable)

· I’m finishing

We saw many interesting aspects in this post, but you need to put them into practice, gain experience and see what works best for you.

I won’t lie to you, it takes time, but I hope these tips help you.

I hope you liked this post!

Translated by Micheli.