He is right. I mean they are not exactly the same as I imagine oxygen is probably a tad bit more important to your body than communication is to a relationship. But the sentiment is true. You should be communicating with your clients, and you should be doing so on a regular basis.
As we are dealing with email marketing this week, I will talk about communication via email.
So the question is; how often should you send an email? Well, the answer is, it depends. That’s why I get paid the big coaching bucks, to come up with precise answers like, “it depends”. But it really does. It depends on your email subscribers, it depends on your ability to write engaging emails, and it depends on whether you have anything of value to say.
Ok, here is something you can sink your teeth into. It depends, but you should be sending your email subscribers at least one email a week. If you are, or indeed want to, send emails more than once a week, then you should certainly do so. I encourage most of my clients to send between 5-7 emails a week. You should be aiming for at least 2-3 emails a week, but you should be sending at least one a week at a minimum. Why? Because I said so. And because if you don’t send an email once a week, people on your list will forget about you and your products. They may even forget your name, and when you eventually get around to sending an email, they will hit the unsubscribe button!
What should you send? The great thing is that you don’t need to be a great Dickensian author to send great emails. Nor do you need to worry overly much about grammar or style. The only thing that matters is that you connect emotionally with your (email) audience. If you have the right audience, you should just be yourself. I don’t like the word ‘authentic’ because it has in the past been used by some of the more hippy sets of the personal development to bash me over the head with and that’s why I normally shy away from it. But when it comes to writing emails, be your authentic self. If that means swearing, then do so. If it means railing against dark forces, then do that too. If it means being all excited and using too many exclamation points who is to stop you? It is your communication!!!?!!!
If you aim to send an email every day, you shouldn’t feel you need to write massive tomes. You can share short stories or observations you had during your day, and you can relate that to your market or something that your clients are struggling with. Or you can share tips or quotes about your market; I am sure if you sit down and think about it, you can come up with lots of ideas on what to send your subscribers. And you will eventually get into a rhythm, and the emails should take no time at all to write – you could even write them in advance. I am too lazy to do that, I write all my emails on the day I send them, but some of my clients are disciplined enough to write a whole bunch all at once.
But whatever you write, it must be interesting. And it must give the readers some value. Teach them or show them something of value, and they will stick around. Be boring and provide no value, and they won’t.
It may be hard at first to write something. If you are stuck, write about a problem that your customers are struggling with and write something that will help them with that problem. Simple. And clients always ask, ‘how much can I give away?’. Give it all away. Share everything. This is the way to build trust, and then you will always have loyal customers ready to buy whatever products or services you are selling.
Once you have written emails of value, and are building trust, only then should you be looking to send emails where you are pushing your products or services. There is no hard rule, but you should be looking to send 80% value emails and 20% sales emails. And even then, you can mix it up so that your sales becomes more subtle.
By the way, if you would like help with crafting an email marketing strategy, why not take a coaching session from me. In fact, the first 10 people to take up this offer will get 25% off. Yes, that is 25% off. Email with the subject line ‘I want to make more sales via email to ross@rosshargreaves.com for more details.
See what I did there? See how easy that was? Do you feel sold to? Now imagine I was sending this email to 12.000 people, and 2% of them decided to take me up on this offer. Why, I would soon be a solopreneureal millionaire.