Email Marketing 101 - A Strong Foundation

Matt Burghdoff 2

Why should anyone ever want to sign up for our email programs?  More importantly, can you answer that question for your organization in six seconds?

This is a test which, unfortunately, most of us seem to fail miserably at - and six seconds is TWICE the amount of time we have to convey the same message to the general public.  Chances are, you fell into the larger, (sadly) growing group of marketers who lack the core component of email marketing – the value proposition.  For those who’ve never heard this term before, the value proposition essentially is the three second answer to the question posed at the very beginning of this article – what your subscriber is going to get from being part of your email program. 

Maybe you fall into the small and admirable group who actually can answer my question in six seconds.  Kudos to you, you’re on the right track.  Now ask someone who isn’t in your organization to look at your sign-up page.  Can they see the value proposition you’ve worked so hard to develop immediately?  This is the other pitfall that so many organizations fall into - the value makes sense to someone within the organization, but no one outside of the org - the people you really need to recruit - gets it.  Important fact: a value proposition does no good if no one can see it.

Why is it so hard for us to get this critical component right?  Most of the time, the answer is simple – our emails are meant to serve US, not the user.  For-profits have a bit of an advantage (they can at least offer discounts on their products being sold), but we are especially bad with our messaging.  Let's face facts, most of our emails - just like our direct mail pieces - boil down to, “Hey, here’s this month’s special invitation for you to give us money!  It’s exactly the same as last month, except it’s going out this month with a slightly different recycled gimmick!”  This delivers no real value to our constituents, and is very obviously meant only to serve us - our constituents aren't all stupid.

Take a step away from your desk and ask yourself, “How many times will I open an email – even from my best friend – when virtually every contact is asking me to do something for them?”  I’ll bet the answer is not many.  Add to that the fact that you have 50 “friends” doing the same thing and how long will it be before you completely stop checking your emails?

So, how do we set this right?  Easy enough stated: Define an actual value for subscribers of your email program while still accomplishing the org’s objectives.  Fine tune your program to provide something unique, something of interest, to your subscribers that they can’t get anywhere else – and that isn’t going to break your budget. 

How to do this is complicated, depending on who you are.  Again, for-profits have a slight advantage, but we definitely have some good values we can offer.  Non-profits can offer “chances to change the world,” larger social communities, educational opportunities (both standard "school-type" education and broader "news-type" education).  Animal-based organizations can offer tips and tricks to curb unwanted behavior, or health advice for your pet.  Non-profits certainly have value to offer, just be sure that you develop a value proposition that you can deliver on. 

It takes a little bit of creativity, but the results are well worth it.  Just remember the three pieces to a strong value proposition:

1)      1.) It has to be immediately clear.

2)      2.) It has to be something I (the general public) want.

3)      3.) It has to be deliverable in a clear and timely manner.

Pull all three of these together and you’ll have a strong framework for starting (or overhauling) your email program.  You’ll probably also find speaking intelligently about your program, where you want the program to go, and how you intend to grow the program much easier.

If you've found this helpful, please let me know.  I can contribute more pointers similar to this if they are of real value - there's that word again - to the community.