We were excited to meet with a prospective client partner and learn more about their branding and marketing needs. The company is in the B2B space.
Well into the conversation, my pulse began to race, my leg started to shake and my voice rose an octave.
You see, they have been meeting with several potential marketing partners and being very thorough about their due diligence in selecting the right one. One agency told them that they could … wait for it … manage and execute all their email marketing for the entire year for an annual fee if they handed over all the email content in one meeting.
Whoa! Really?!?!
It sounded good to the prospective client. This was:
- Very cost effective
- Low effort on their part
- Efficient with their time
- Worry-free. They wouldn’t have to think about their email marketing for an entire year.
Yes, friends, but this is wrong in so. many. ways. Hence, me physically reacting to this idea.
Effective email marketing campaigns are, among other things:
- Useful. If you are sending content to your audience that is several months old, you are missing the boat. “We try to include something useful in every email,” says Ben Chestnut of MailChimp. “If the announcement was totally useless, let’s at least give the recipient a case study, or something educational (even if it points to some other resource).”
- Fresh. Our world is changing daily. What is relevant or newsworthy today is not going to be tonight or tomorrow, never mind months from now.
- Personal and relevant. Your current and potential customers’ needs and businesses are constantly evolving. What they want and is the crisis du jour changes hourly. You may learn something in a meeting or on a call with them that you have never thought of before that could be a new product or service offering for your company or a nugget of wisdom for your next company email. Sorry, too late, you can only submit your content once a year … Ugh …
The reality is email marketing takes experience, work and expertise. The good news is we’re here to make it easy, effective and right for your brand.