Email Marketing 101: How to Add Value, Not Noise, to Your Clients’ Inboxes

Email marketing puts you in direct contact with your clients, from marketing through transactions.How many emails are in your inbox right now? We’re betting your answer is something like “too many!” In fact with millions of emails sent every minute of every day, maybe the better question is “how many valuable emails are in your inbox?” And how many are just junk you wish you never subscribed to?

These days, it seems like everybody is sending emails about their product, business, service, etc. And let’s start with the obvious - we’re some of those email-sending people. 

Why is that? Because we believe that in spite of today’s junk-filled inboxes, email marketing is still a great way to connect with your clients. The key is to make your emails valuable and not just more noise clogging up people’s inboxes.

Should you use email marketing?

Here’s the good news - if you’re doing any outreach to potential clients or any friendly follow-up with current clients, you’re already doing some sort of email marketing. The whole goal of email marketing should be to enhance your relationships with new and potential clients. Email is the most reliable way to directly reach the people you want to work with. Because you can’t send emails without being given the address - unlike digital advertising online where users haven’t directly opted in to hear from you.

In other words, if you have a business, you should be using some sort of email marketing. 

How do you use email marketing?

Email marketing can be as simple as sending notes checking in on a potential client or as sophisticated as long-running drip campaigns sent to prospective clients. While you’re probably doing simple email marketing, more complex efforts generally require some sort of CRM and/or email marketing platform. Why? Because sending email takes time! These tools allow you to set up automated campaigns that go to subscribers based on certain actions or events. Even better? Quite a few of them are free to get started. You can see our recommendations for the best email marketing platforms here.

But before you start firing out dozens of automated emails, remember: you need to send something valuable!

How do you make your emails valuable?

First and foremost, when it comes to email marketing, more isn’t better...it’s just more. With so many different channels begging for our attention these days, sending emails just to send them is simply adding to the noise. 

Like with any other kind of marketing, you need to find a way to make your content useful. You also need to consider what you can realistically keep up with. Even with the best of email automation systems, setting up a marketing campaign takes time. You want to create campaigns that are useful and easy for you to maintain.

The best place to start is to think about your own inbox. What are the emails you actually open? What about the ones you always delete or even mark spam? 

You should also think about what your clients want to hear from you. Emails congratulating them on their closing make sense. Emails informing a recent buyer about your great options for selling? Not so much. 

Start simple! Send emails to prospective clients you’ve recently met and congratulatory follow-ups to those you’ve just finished working with. Then go from there! Create newsletters to stay in front of clients from the past. Use longer campaigns to stay in front of leads that haven’t quite come through yet. Just be sure to ask yourself “would I want to receive this, and would I bother to open it?” each time you’re about to hit send.

Bottom Line

Digital marketing is all about finding a way to get the right message in front of the right people at the right time. Email marketing is great for getting in front of the right people because it’s your own contact list, rather than some group identified by Facebook or Google. It allows you to directly speak to your own custom-built audience in a way that no other platform can. For this reason, email is a crucial part of any digital marketing plan.

Of course, having the right list is just as important as having a strong email marketing plan. Stay tuned for our list-building tips to get the most out of your email (and other digital) marketing efforts.