You’re 4 weeks into writing a brand new sales campaign for your new product coming out. You’re working with a great team that has strategized your campaign, planned out your email marketing strategies, written a lot of the content and now you’re only 3 weeks away from launch.
Then it hits you and it hits you hard. I HAVE to launch now!!!
Instant desperation and panic sets in. You start asking yourself why it’s taking so long, why you can’t launch sooner, and want to send some of it out now.
You rush to your team the next day and tell them we have to launch this week!!!
This example right here is not a desirable outcome. While I do enjoy moving fast and taking massive action in both business and life, there are aspects of business that simply just take time.
Stop Taking Shortcuts – Great Marketing Takes Time
Look back at your previous campaigns – did any of them succeed by moving fast, cutting corners and putting “whatever” out there? Likely not. Not unless you have a 200k person email list or you are throwing spaghetti at a wall.
I’d argue that this approach would work in that case, because converting 0.5% of that list to a purchase is easy. You could throw any offer into a sea of emails and you’ll get a bite. If you’re selling a $297 product, you just made $297k.
Chances are, if you have been marketing without intention, then you don’t have a 200k list (yet). Building a business asset of that caliber takes time, finesse and a lot of love for your people. Don’t skip steps and don’t skip out on providing your people value. You don’t take shortcuts on the ones you appreciate.
Don’t appreciate your list or your people? Get off mine.
But the truth is, if you don’t have the benefit of a lengthy list at your disposal, then 0.5% is nothing. Have a 5k list? You just made 25 sales. Not quite worth the effort of taking shortcuts now is it?
(If you’re still learning about conversion and trying to understand numbers, check out this guide that can help you navigate it a little easier.)
I’ll Repeat it Again: Great Marketing Takes Time
Wouldn’t you rather take 3 more weeks to get a far better campaign built and raise that 0.5% to 1%? That’s 100% better!
Chances are if you do things right without taking shortcuts or cutting corners, you’ll have systems in place to see where the campaign can be optimized and improved after launch as well… raising that 1% to more like 1.5% – a 200% increase.
If you are selling to a 10k person list, you just increased your returns by $29,700 for a total campaign value of $44,550! All by waiting a few weeks to do it right versus doing it now.
If you’re desperate to send out a sales campaign, chances are you are neglecting your list by not sending quality and engaging content in the interim. Send emails linking to great blog posts, testimonials and case studies about your product, help your list experience growth and trust before sending the sales campaign.
The best part is these numbers explode the bigger your list gets.
Don’t Rush the Relationship with Your Email Marketing List
I’ve had campaigns going out to 200k+ person email lists. I found that taking the time to get to know the personas on the list, sending them quality content (non-sales) emails over the course of a few weeks and THEN sending a sales campaign you’ll get a massive result. This approach is much more successful than the alternative short-term idea of “just send the whole list the sales sequence NOW!”
I’m not even that concerned about getting unsubscribes by sending too many non-relatable emails. That’s not what’s at issue here (even though unsubscribes will inevitably increase if you mainly send sales emails).
What I’m looking for is avoiding poorly crafted and rushed email content that turns off your audience. My only target is creating an email marketing customer journey that will convert those on your list. I’ll do this by providing awesome content that offers a positive transformation for your people, builds trust with the company, and contributes to the campaign goal we set out to accomplish – get your product into more people’s hands.
Use Experience to Maximize Success
A massive side benefit of not cutting corners, is that you’ll have campaigns at your disposal that worked. Plus, you’ll know the rate at which they worked! You’ll have campaigns you can deploy at any time- in your funnels or on the fly! Your email marketing customer journey will be optimized.
This opens the door to SO many possibilities. You could effectively spend an entire year crafting and creating specific holiday campaigns, engagement campaigns, sales campaigns and/or transformational campaigns. After you’ve created them, sent to your list, and captured the conversions you’ll be able to evaluate what did and didn’t work. This information will only help you improve for next year!
For the campaigns that crushed it, you now have a lock-and-loaded campaign ready to use at your disposal! Next year, you’ll be able to craft new campaigns to disperse among customers engaged with your brand.
You’ll continue to grow your list(which eventually results in more sales) and continue to transform the lives of those on your email list.
Why Am I Not Concerned about Unsubscribing?
I know this goes against most other experts’ opinions, so hear me out. People who selectively unsubscribe do so because – in your mind – they think you email too much.
Maybe. Only Maybe.
But let me ask you this – the last email you unsubscribed from – were you actually ever going to purchase from them? Likely not. So your list just got stronger.
Instead of having a straggler inflating your email list size who will never buy, your list just got smaller with people who are most likely to buy, which just made your list a more valuable asset to your business. (More about this later)
There have been times I’ve unsubscribed from companies I ultimately buy from, but it’s not because of them emailing me too much. It was because they kept emailing me coupons and sales offers too much.
Here’s the thing, if you email me nothing but sales offers, I’m gone.
Two things happening here:
- I am getting no benefit out of being one of your email subscribers, because you are only discussing yourself. (It’s just a constant buy me! buy me! buy me!)
- I know that I can go to your online store at any point in the year to get a discount on what I need.
I have no FOMO.
I feel no urgency.
So I unsubscribe.
The specific company I’m thinking about offers tailored suits online. Killer company, great product, but their marketing team is failing them.
If this company sent me quality content on things like how to dress better, what to look for in tailored suits, what shirt designs go best with suit patterns, how to wear different variations of ties, how to tie a bow tie (one day I’ll figure this out), when to wear a black suit (hint, it’s only 3x in your life), how to properly wear a suit jacket, I’d stay on the list still because you’d be actively helping me dress to be a better man!
Yet all I’m provided is an inbox hit every other day with a sales offer. You’ve trained me to know that there will always be a sale of some kind whenever I want it!
Sell them Their Dream!
Of course, they are likely a company with a 1M+ person email list and making 100’s of millions in revenue. So their marketing team hitting the list with sales offers ends up translating to 0.5% conversion of the list.
You do the math. 5k sales at an average order value of $500 is $2.5M in revenue. All these numbers are made up for this company because we don’t actually work with them, but I know if we did handle their automations and email campaigns, we’d increase that conversion to 2% easy.
All these companies think that everyone is budget conscious. The truth is consumers aren’t. We just need to be sold on what you sell.
The best email marketing happens when you create your campaign knowing exactly who your customer is, their specific customer experience, the pain points they are feeling, and what dream state they are craving. This will help you sell them on what you have to offer.
Believe me… the dream state is not “saving $100 on a suit”. The dreamstate is hearing a stranger say “holy crap, that suit looks soooo good!!” while you’re strutting along Fifth Avenue in New York.
Or being at an event and someone tells you and your wife, “I had to stop you both and say you guys must be the best dressed and most beautiful couple here. You just gave my wife and I relationship goals.”
Or when you compliment someone else’s suit and they tell you, “I’m just trying to hold up to how good your suit looks, my man!”
No joke, all those cases have happened. That’s the dream state. Potential customers would definitely pay $10k for a suit that did that.
What Does this all Have to do With Your Business?
If you rush it, you leave money on the table
That’s it. And for what? To capture revenue 3 weeks sooner? It makes no sense! Take the extra time to develop a killer campaign.
Why? Because the alternative is rushing it, bombing it, and throwing your hands up in the air complaining that it didn’t work.
You can read more about actionable items that will help you grow your business (without compromising quality) here.
Email marketing doesn’t work when you cut corners
You have to respect the people on your list and send them quality, valuable, and engaging content. Think about them first as people and Then as consumers who are navigating your planned email marketing customer journey.
Take the time to draft the proper campaign and put all the measures in place to manage the campaign results appropriately. Then watch those metrics like a hawk.
The moment a campaign is launched – it’s on. Time to split test and get more conversions out of the campaign.
Campaigns typically don’t work perfectly out of the gate, they take finesse, respect, love and attention. Give them the proper time needed.
There’s a fine line between taking the time necessary to craft a great campaign and perfecting the PERFECT campaign. Don’t fall into the latter basket. I see too many campaigns never launch because it “needs to be perfect”. That’s WORSE than the desperation to launch early!!
Your campaign doesn’t need to be “PERFECT”. But it should be “GREAT”.
You simply don’t know how your people will react to your campaign. So spend the appropriate time to “do it right”, launch it, then watch it. Then comes time for CRO (conversion rate optimization) on the campaign to improve conversion at every squeeze point in the campaign.