Email Marketing is Outdated! Just FYI!

Ok. I woke up this morning, grabbed my phone to do a quick scan of my email, and check in on Facebook and Twitter. Last night I posted the Infusionsoft’s Biggest Fan article and I shared it on my social networks.

When I checked in with Facebook this morning I saw that a friend of mine commented on the post (Don’t go looking to see who posted it. I deleted the comment so there wouldn’t be any embarrassment), and here’s what he said:

“Email Marketing is Outdated! Just FYI!”

I couldn’t believe I was actually reading this statement. I actually laughed at the ridiculousness and ignorance of this comment. Was he serious? There was no way he could really think that right? I was a bit more than surprised and had to tell Brian what I just read.

His response to my question, “Can you believe that statement?” was interesting. He said, “Yes I can.”

WHAT!?! I was getting ready for an argument because he knows that email marketing is a highly effective marketing tool for our business, for our clients’ businesses and many of our friends’ businesses.

But then he continued, “I can see that point of view, because if you’re not really using email marketing the right way and you don’t do any marketing to support your email marketing, you aren’t going to see good results and you might say that.”

Here’s the Email Marketing Problem

You see, I think some entrepreneurs and small business owners get sucked in by the often used sales pitch that email marketing is a quick and easy marketing magic pill. They fall in love with the idea that they can simply send an email once a week, or once a month, and then new clients and new qualified prospects will start beating down their door. They get bamboozled by the idea that all they have to do is add an opt-in form or subscribe form in the upper right-hand corner of their website and suddenly people from all over the web will flock to their site and their list will grow and grow and grow.

But that’s not really how it works – at least not in the real world. But they don’t know that.

So they keep sending out their emails and they keep seeing little to no results. And they’re sitting in front of their computer wondering,

“Why isn’t anyone buying my stuff? Why isn’t anyone registering for my classes, workshops, teleseminars, or webinars? Why isn’t anyone clicking on my links?” And then they get frustrated and say, “Email marketing doesn’t work. Email marketing is outdated.”

Um… Email Marketing is Not Outdated.
You’re Just Doing it Wrong

Since his comment was in response to my Infusionsoft’s Biggest Fan post, I need to point out that Infusionsoft calls their approach: “Email Marketing 2.0″ It’s because the old way of email marketing… ok, let’s be honest, the LAZY way of email marketing isn’t going to work anymore. Today’s entrepreneurs and business owners are too savvy for that.

You can’t be lazy about your marketing, not really try, then send out an email and expect magic to happen. To be successful at email marketing you need to embrace Infusionsoft’s Email Marketing 2.0 approach.

Here’s a quick run down of what I interpret to be the differences between Email Marketing 1.0 (the old lazy way that used to work) and Email Marketing 2.0 (the new kick butt approach that totally works).

Email Marketing 1.0: Blast all of your current and past clients, prospects, vendors, and partners with a marketing sales message and hope that it resonates with someone.

Email Marketing 2.0: Tailor separate versions of your sales message for each segment of your list: current clients, past clients, vendors, affiliates, partners, prospects, etc. Each group gets a highly targeted email that speaks right to their needs and problems, which makes them instantly feel like you know exactly how they feel and your conversion rate increases.

Email Marketing 1.0: You use it only for your weekly, or monthly (not as effective) email newsletter to your whole list.

Email Marketing 2.0: You use it for your newsletter, small targeted sales messages, and all different types of multi-step follow up like the ideas listed below.

• The “Hey great to meet you at…” follow up sequence
• The “Thanks for subscribing…” follow up sequence
• The “Congratulations on your purchase…” follow up sequence
• The “Holiday Message…” stay in touch sequence
• The “Did you know…” stay in touch sequence

Email Marketing 1.0: Your follow up email is inconsistent, mostly just a single email and that’s it.

Email Marketing 2.0: Your follow up emails are pre-written, planned, and tested. They are not a single message, but instead a sequence of emails that build off of each other. Your follow up sequences can be 3 emails, 9 emails, 12 emails, or more, and they can be spread out over a couple weeks, a couple months, or even a year or more.

Email Marketing 1.0: You send your email newsletter and sometimes look at the report, but you mostly just wonder why it’s not working.

Email Marketing 2.0: You integrate Google Analytics and you track, measure, and test everything, looking at the reports from your email marketing service provider and Google Analytics to see what is working and what is not working, then you adjust your marketing accordingly.

Email Marketing 1.0: You operate in an email marketing bubble and you don’t put much effort into other forms of marketing to support your email marketing.

Email Marketing 2.0: You’re everywhere! You’re regularly posting rich, valuable, content to your blog or website, you’re sharing useful and helpful information across your social networks, you’re attending live networking events, you’re using direct mail, and you’re staying in the conversation with your audience, working to build strong, trust-based relationships.

Email Marketing 1.0: You’re thinking “I sent it, they will click it.” You wonder why you’re not seeing results. You never think it could be because you’re doing it wrong… Nope. It’s not working because email marketing is outdated. (FYI).

Email Marketing 2.0: You are reaping the benefits of an integrated marketing strategy. When you send out your email newsletter, or sales-oriented solo email blast, your community takes action. You see a spike in your website traffic, you see a significant jump in registrations and/or purchases, and you receive emails in response about your great article or about how excited they are about the purchase they just made or the class they just registered for.

Email Marketing 1.0: You use a general opt-out or unsubscribe link that removes them from all of your lists and mailings.

Email Marketing 2.0: You use custom opt-out or unsubscribe links that let people change their contact information, choose when they hear from you, and choose what topics they want to hear from you about.

Proof That Email Marketing Still Works and is Highly Effective

At Bourn Creative, we use an integrated marketing approach for ourselves and our clients, which means we weave a wide range of marketing strategies together so they all work together and support the efforts in each area to work toward one single comprehensive goal.

We use social networking to build, nurture, and enhance relationships. The people we connect with on Facebook and Twitter, end up clicking a link we share and reading a blog post on our site. While they are on our site they opt-in for the newsletter. Once they are on our newsletter, and when it is the right time for them, one of our messages will strike a nerve and they will become a client.

Now this process is pretty standard, but there are some things you have to take into account to make sure that this process actually works. For example:

• You actually have to work at connecting on Facebook and Twitter. Just posting links and retweeting or liking other people’s stuff isn’t enough. You have to have conversations. Would you walk up to someone at a live networking event, shove a printed copy of your special report in their hands, walk away, and expect them to hire you? No way! If you did that, you know where your report would be? In the trash (and they probably wouldn’t like you).
• When people come to your site, they need to be in awe. If your website stinks, it doesn’t matter how much you market or how hard you work at your marketing, your efforts will be wasted because the visitors you get there won’t convert.
• Your opt-in or irresistible free offer also needs to be AWESOME! It needs to be so good that your site visitors feel like they have to have it – like they need it and can’t leave your site without getting it. If it is just okay, if it is just something you decided to offer because you think its good, if it doesn’t solve a painful problem your audience is aware of, it won’t work.
• Your newsletter needs to be fantastic week after week. You need to regularly provide useful, interesting, and when you can, entertaining content that will help the reader. You need to make it personal so they get to know you a bit, relevant so it speaks to their needs, and valuable so they don’t unsubscribe. Remember, people buy when they are ready not when you are ready. So you need to keep publishing great content and when they’re ready, they’ll work with you because you stayed in the conversation. For example, we recently had a subscriber who has been on our newsletter list since 2008 finally pull the trigger and hire us for a monster project. This is an extremely valuable connection for us and when we asked why us and why now, they told us that they loved our newsletters and it just took them a long time to get in the position to be able to say, “GO!”

Traditional Email Marketing May be Outdated, But Email Marketing 2.0 is Here and It’s Kicking Serious Butt

So, to the guy who commented this morning about email marketing being outdated (FYI), I say that your notion of what email marketing really is and how it is used is outdated. I know an unbelievable number of entrepreneurs and business owners currently using email marketing in their business and achieving great success as a direct result of their efforts.

If you need some help, you can always hire us… and if your email marketing provider stinks, you can always move over to Infusionsoft. After all, as I mentioned before, I’m Infusionsoft’s biggest fan.