Three steps to an email content plan

There has been much talk this month in the Allotment about email content. The Business Sheds have been abuzz with ideas about planning email content to help grow your business (well, it was either the chat, or that massive fly on the window, so let’s assume the former).

I am a huge fan of using email content as a small business owner. It can be extremely cost effective (already, a massive tick in the ‘yes please’ column), create real engagement with your audience (double tick) and testing and measuring can be pretty simple (so many ticks).

And it is worth reiterating that whilst social media is seen as a small business’ best friend, it is prudent not to put all your marketing eggs in that particular basket. Showing the court exhibit 1: Twitter. A place where many businesses built their brand and created huge engagement until a petulant, middle aged man with a toy rocket in his pants ruined it all.

So let’s get on with the basics. You can slice the email content cake in so many ways depending on what you want to achieve, but if you’ve not got any email marketing happening in your business at the moment, or you need to gather a couple of the secret ingredients for good email content (a plan, sprinkled with consistency) then get your email boots on and take these five steps.

ONE | Grow your audience

Your audience – or to give them their more functional name – your list – are the contacts you have in your business you will be communicating with. Even if you are not entirely sure what you will be communicating, get this list growing. Collect WITH EXPLICIT CONSENT – yes, I am shouting, it’s important – the name and emails of your interested audience. There are so many ways you can do this - from an online event you run, to a free download you offer. If you have a legacy list, do some spring cleaning on it, and remove contacts that are no longer relevant.

Your list is like birthday cake (bear with me on this) – bigger does not necessarily mean better: it’s quality that counts. Small and tasty wins every time. Okay, the jury is still out on that analogy, let’s all just move on, shall we?

If you want ideas on how to grow your list, hop over to the Tool Shed and download Ideas to Grow your List (link at the bottom of the blog). There are loads of practical ideas up for grabs.

TWO | The long and the short of it

Email content and email marketing does not necessarily mean a newsletter… for which we are all profoundly grateful. I talk to my clients mostly about two different ways of marketing via email: regular comms and time limited engagement campaigns.

A lot can be said about both, good and bad, so let’s just nibble on a few nuggets:

Regular comms: otherwise known as a newsletter, but I implore you, do not call it a newsletter, because the five most ignored words in marketing are: ‘Sign up to my newsletter’. Have you ever read that and your heart skipped a beat with excitement? Of course not.

One positive nugget about regular comms: it is a fantastic way to engage your audience and make them advocates – and possibly clients. Done well, the email boffins with pointy inboxes say you can get up to a 40% return on investment with regular email comms. Nice.

One negative nugget: You have to create them. Regularly. At least monthly. You have to deliver value, quality, show your brand flavour and engage people consistently, along with the other 972 jobs on your to do list. That’s as hard as it sounds.

If you want to create regular comms, plan 3 to 6 months of topics in advance, linking with activity in your business. Aim for 80% content that informs, engages or inspired, and leave the 20% for marketing and promotion. If you really feel the need to include news, do ask yourself if your news will be fascinating to anyone else other than you.

Time limited campaigns: these are shorter email campaigns that tend to be focused around one specific idea. Done well they can be a fantastic audience builder, and warm up your prospects nicely to a gentle simmer. Think of these campaigns as your ultimate value delivery service, giving prospects a true flavour of your superpower. For example, you can create a micro course (‘Learn to cook 20 minute family-friendly vegetarian meals’), a challenge (‘Be a more confident presenter in 5 days’) or a guide (‘How to lead with collaboration’).

One positive nugget: You can link your time limited campaign to a specific product or service you wish to sell, and can tailor the content exactly to create the right buying thoughts in your prospects’ minds. Oh, and a huge positive for the recipient is that they know exactly how long it will last, unlike a newsletter that will plague their inboxes until the sun folds in on itself.

One negative nugget: the quality needs to be top notch if you are asking people to stay engaged, even for a short time, as it is easy for the audience to lose momentum and then ignore subsequent emails.

If you want to create time limited email campaigns, pick a specific topic or skill you want to impart, and know how that can lead the audience into a specific product or service you offer. Target a clear section of your audience so you can market easily to those people. Make it an evergreen campaign and it is a great way to continually build a new audience.

THREE | If you build it, they will ignore you

Just because you build your email comms does not mean they will come and subscribe. Treat the entire project exactly the same way as you would a new product or service. So:

• Give it a name that works with your brand and gives a sense of what it is all about. Get creative. Give it a tag line if you want, go crazy.

• Be clear on its purpose. What will people gain from reading / engaging with it? Think first about what you want people to do having read it, and reverse engineer the concept and content to single-mindedly create that reaction. Consider how you can make your email comms different from others. How are you going to create inbox standout?

• Think about format. Look at examples of campaigns you like, or regular comms you open every time they arrive. What ideas can you magpie?

• Market it. Focus on the people who you are trying to attract and the outcome they can expect. And this is why having news as a primary focus is a hard sell: people may read about your new team member / your new client or how many boxes of A4 paper you have just bought, but how does this move them – emotionally or actually toward a new thought or action? Think carefully about all the relevant places you can put your CTS (call to subscribe) and message it effectively.

Email communications can be such a great way to grow your business, but as with most things, jumping in without first getting creative, then second, getting a plan, is not going to end well. Plan it, get it out, test and measure it.

And it would be churlish of me not to mention that the Allotment has a regular email communication of its own – the Tool Rack. You’ll find business growth ideas and practical tips, along with ideas I have seen over the Allotment fence.

But if the monthly commitment to hang out at the Rack feels too much, perhaps 20 Days 100 Ideas is more your style, where you will get 100 new ideas for your business by following my daily emails for 10 minutes a day for 20 days

Oh, and hop on over to the Tool Shed for Ideas to Grow your List.