3 Email Questions We Get Asked All The Time
Last month, we kicked off a mini-series on Optimizing Owned Channel Marketing (you can check out the previous issue, What is an owned channel? here if you missed it!).
In the next installments of this mini-series, we're digging into our favorite owned channels, starting with email marketing—where are the best ways to save money, how to figure out what to send, and ways to improve email performance.
These are three questions we get all the time as an email-focused marketing agency:
1. How do I know what to send?
2. Is it worth it to pay for a unique design for every email?
3. What is an email audit & does our brand need one?
Today, we'll be digging into #1 - how to create email content that matters to your subscribers, how often to send it, and how to prevent falling behind schedule.
HOW DO I KNOW WHAT TO SEND?
I always start with the advice, "send only when you have something important to say." And there's a caveat to that—what you have to say needs to be important to your subscribers, not just your brand. Of course, you always think your brand’s news matters 😉 but consider whether your customer would care about this, and why—what is the benefit of the email, to them?
I did a quick breakdown post on this with some emails from David's, a toothpaste brand that I think really nails their email marketing. Check it out if you're interested!
Now, the trick is to balance "only send the stuff that matters," with the fact that you need to stay consistent with your email marketing to ensure you keep your deliverability healthy. Sending weekly for months, then taking 4 months off, then sending every-other month for 3 months, then daily for a week...is a recipe to tank your email engagement. I've seen it happen time and again.
Prioritize delivering consistent value to your email subscribers on a predictable schedule.
BUT...HOW, EXACTLY?
Create an email content outline and stick with it.
A spreadsheet or Google sheet is great for this. I recommend the following columns to get started:
- Date the email will be sent
- Topic of the email (the "important thing" in this email)
- Why it matters (really think through your subscriber's perspective here - how does the email benefit them?)
- Goal of the email (click a link, buy a product, etc. - pick 1 primary goal for each email!)
- Recipients of the email (decide who this matters to - send to specific segments whenever possible!)
- Suppression of the email (who should not receive it - ie, don't send a sale email to those who purchased in the past week)
If you have trouble getting that outline built, it's usually 1 of 2 reasons:
- You don't have time to actually plan ahead because you're running so many things in your business that email falls to the end of the to-do list again and again. We can help you get ahead of your outline - book a free 30 min chat to learn more »
- You're struggling to answer the "why does this matter to our subscribers" part of it. Your news doesn't have to be earth-shattering to be important! It just takes some practice shifting perspectives to think through it from their point of view. Your brand's headline might be "we launched a new product, check it out and buy it!" but what you need to succeed is more along the lines of "hey relevant segment, because you expressed interest in (this related item), you might be excited to learn about (this new, similar thing) we're rolling out for pre-order today!" List all the reasons this news would matter to your audience and practice positioning it the way you might if you're recommending something you recently tried to a close friend, rather than a hard sell to a stranger.
HOW OFTEN SHOULD I SEND?
People tend not to like the "real" answer to this question, because it's slow and difficult:
Evaluate your past sends to see how the engagement is compared to industry benchmarks, and whether your audience has responded better when you send more or less often.
If you don't have that data, start A/B testing to get answers.
I understand that not everyone has the bandwidth or budget to take that on, so here is my very general advice for how often to send:
Send 1x Monthly, for smaller brands. Pick the top 3-5 most important things you want to talk about, and include them all. If the email is getting too long, link out to blogs or social posts to convey more info and keep length manageable.
Send 1x Weekly, for mid-size brands with a lot going on and the ability to segment the audience into multiple groups. Everyone on your entire email list probably doesn't need receive every email, so again, think through the columns of your email outline (Date, Topic, Why, Goal, Who) when you build segments.
Send Daily, Segmented Emails for mid-to-large brands with advanced audience segmentation and robust automations that can trigger behavior-based emails (like an Abandoned Browse email with Similar Products to What You Were Looking At).
I know there are SO many big, big brands who still blast their full list daily or multiple times a day. This doesn't mean it's working for them. Brands who stand out in the inbox are those whose emails are more than just white noise, not those who flood inboxes 3x daily 
EXPLORE THE FULL MINI-SERIES:
1. What is an owned channel?
Learn the definition, examples, plus the 3 other channel types (paid, earned, converged).
📍 YOU ARE HERE: 
2. How do I know what emails to send?
How to create email content that matters to your subscribers, how often to send it, and how to stay on schedule.
3. Is it worth it to pay for a unique design for every email?
You might be surprised to hear that our answer is "Not always," even as people who get paid to design emails! Find out why.
4. What is an email audit & does our brand need one?
Not every brand needs an email audit, but it's a critical tool for those who want to identify growth opportunities.
5. Is Marketing SMS right for my brand?
The SMS channel is less saturated, but requires a bit more effort to set up and grow your list.
Never miss out on new posts to help you improve your email and SMS marketing 
[…] We dove into #1 – how to create email content that matters to your subscribers, how often to send it, and how to preve…. […]
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