on June 20th, 2022
Adding Familiarity to Email Marketing
I never suggest using an email list that is filled with leads that were bought, or using a plain cold email list. The stats on these are abysmal. However I understand that sometimes there is not a choice when the call comes from higher ups. Use this strategy to make the most of a bad situation.
Honestly the most cumbersome type of email marketing is straight cold emailing a list. Most of the prospects on your list ignore these emails no matter how good your subject line and offer are.
They ignore these because of a missing piece, something that is not often thought of when measuring email campaign success.
Familiarity
Do they know who you or your brand is? Most likely not. There are thousands of not millions of companies and individuals trying to break through the noise everyday and most of us won’t know or recognize more than a handful. This is one of the main reasons why we don’t respond to most marketing emails, even if we read them. Of the recipients don’t know who you are, your deleted without a response.
This is a big reason you will see email campaigns that are 5-12% open rate and zero clicks, zero replies.
Here is a path I recommend you take to improve your familiarity with the key targets of your next email campaign.
1-Create Small Batches
Instead of the big list l, create smaller batches of no more than 100 targets at a time.
2-Connect on social media
LinkedIn is the easiest one to use, but find these prospects on twitter, Facebook, anywhere you can and try to connect with them.
3-Engage Them
For at least a week or two fond ways to comment and like their posts/work. You need to add to their posts or ask questions. Contribute in a meaningful way so they notice and interact with you.
4-Email Copy
You should always have good copy for your email campaigns, but I’ve worked at places that don’t want to invest in good copy on cold emails (Because it’s low success). But with thoughtful copy and if possible reference to some of their post topics you can prove familiarity and instill some trust. And you need to open with this, don’t let it get lost if the reader loses interest.
5- Have a clear and friendly CTA
Extend the feeling of familiarity with kindness. This is a top of funnel CTA and should be for something like feedback, trial, invitation for an event, some sort of PDF/One Sheet/White Paper or just to visit your website.
I will always believe that a warm list is the best possible investment in email marketing. The big ROI numbers that are shown everywhere are due in large part from having warm lists that are subscribed to by prospects that already have the familiarity with you and your company.
I do understand that there are times you will be asked to try and maximize a cold email campaign, I’ve been asked many times when I was working under the direction of other agencies. This is the best way I’ve come up with to improve the Open and Click rates and I encourage you to give it a try next time you are tasked with any cold email campaign towards targeted leads.