Written by Are you confused about the planning for your email marketing? Watch this video for my five strategies for success.
If you’re confused and frustrated by the strategy that is necessary to structure your email marketing and it leaves you wanting to throw in the towel before you even have a chance to get started, by the end of this video, you’ll have five strategies that will leave you feeling confident and eager to draft your next email marketing campaign.
Email Marketing Planning Strategy 1
You’re going to want to find a good email service provider software. What this ESP software will do is store the names and email addresses of all of the people who want to be on your newsletter list. Not only does it store these names and addresses, but it also allows you to create what we call autoresponders, which is a series of emails that go out as soon as someone signs up to be on your list.
I use GetResponse because it’s very user friendly and allows you to automate quite a bit of the process for you so you don’t feel chained to your computer. We’ll go ahead and provide a link below so that you can sign up with GetResponse if you choose, but whichever direction you decide to go in, you will want to find a good email service provider software.
Email Marketing Planning Strategy 2
Step number two is set up autoresponder messages. Autoresponder messages are a series of anywhere from say two to five emails that will automatically go out from your computer as soon as someone signs up to be on your email list. Now these emails can be a range of things; for example, a welcome email message that basically confirms that they’ve signed up to be on your email newsletter list. Another autoresponder message can be an introductory letter that lets them know what they can expect to be receiving from you since they’re on your newsletter list, things like how often they can expect to be receiving emails from you, what kind of content you’ll be providing from them, a series of messages on quick tips that you can be providing great content for them.
You’re really limited by your imagination here, but the reason why you want to set up autoresponder messages is not only to give them that introductory feel for what they can expect to be receiving from you and confirmation that they have in fact signed up to be on your newsletter list, but it also prevents you from having to run to your computer every time somebody has signed up to be receiving your email newsletters. So step number two is set up your autoresponder emails.
Now the other cool thing about autoresponder emails is it really paves the way and kind of sets you up perfectly to be talking about the services that you provide in your practice. However, you don’t want to get to that too soon. You don’t want to come off as being really salesy, so autoresponder messages really pave the way to set you up to be talking about the goods and services that you provide in your private practice.
Email Marketing Planning Strategy 3
Don’t be salesy. I’m sure all of you can relate to email messages that you’ve received after signing up to be on someone else’s email list where they’re coming out of the gate just blasting you with their sales pitch. It can feel really intrusive and just plain gross, can’t it? So we want to make sure that we don’t push too hard with pushing on sales and marketing your practice too heavily.
A general rule of thumb is to follow the 80-20 rule. 80% of the time you want to be delivering content that’s either educational or informational to the people who are in your target market, so provide content that’s most relevant and helpful to them. The other 20% of the time, you can provide sales-type information, talking about a workshop that you’re hosting or an event that you’ll be at or a special that you’ll be running, but remember, that’s 20% of the time. 80% of the time, you want to be focusing on providing valuable content to the people who you consider to be your ideal target market.
Strategy 4
Be consistent. We talked earlier about the importance of setting up autoresponder messages that will go out on your behalf automatically. In those messages, we talk about letting people know how often they can expect to be hearing from you and the type of content they can expect to be receiving from you, so we need to make sure that we’re consistent, especially when it comes to talking about how often people can expect to be hearing from you. If you’ve made a commitment to be sending out newsletters once a week, then make sure that you’re sending out newsletters once a week. If it’s once a month, great. Make sure that you’re sending out newsletters once a month. The same is true with the type of content they can expect to be receiving from you. Make sure that you’re consistent and fulfilling the promise. That’s strategy number four.
Now, if you’re looking for other marketing strategies that you can implement consistently, check out my blog on consistent marketing in private practice.
Strategy 5
Do NOT put anyone on your newsletter list without their permission. This is actually considered spam, and you can receive a pretty hefty fine if you’re caught doing it. One of the reasons why people are so averse to getting involved with email marketing in the first place is because they have visions of just that, spam, a ton of emails in their inbox that they never signed up to receive in the first place. In earlier videos, I’ve talked about how email marketing is one of the best means of creating a conversion between someone who’s a follower and a paying client. That’s because they’ve made a conscious decision to sign up to receive email newsletters from you in the first place. So do not put someone on your newsletter list without their permission.
Now you know the exact strategies necessary for a successful email marketing campaign. But what about the marketing necessary to grow a faithful list of email followers? I’ve written a book on the subject, and I’ve broken it all down into a step-by-step process that’s easy for you to follow. The good news is, it’s free, and the link right here.
So here’s my question. In the comments below, I would love to know, how many autoresponder messages you feel are appropriate before you begin to talk about the services in your private practice? Comment below.