One thing I’ve noticed about emails is that they tend to fall into two categories; they’re either advertisements and promotions, or valuable content that is informative, beneficial, and even providing enormous benefits to the reader.
But there’s a few things that I see missing 99 times out of 100 in email marketing, and in marketing in general which, when leveraged correctly, create a stream of loyal followers who not only find your information and content useful, but also become loyal to your business, loyal to your brand, and want to actively promote you to others.
Here are the biggest lessons I’ve learned from studying other people’s marketing, as well as trying to improve my own skills.
1. Start By Building Trust
If there’s one thing that’s overlooked in email marketing, it’s building a personal relationship with people, and most marketing material I read overlooks this critical component; it’s all about techniques and tactics.
As humans we’re constantly looking to connect with other humans; we thrive on relationships and connections, and we want to know the person we’re dealing with, and build and feel a relationship with them just as much as we’re looking for advice, and to improve our own lives.
In fact, the reason most people are skeptical and unsure about buying products from marketers is because marketers state what they’re doing, but not why they’re doing it, and we can only assume they’re trying to promote a product to us because they want to make money, and we give little attention to building a human, emotional relationship with our readers and customers; it’s all about content, marketing, and information; all the LOGICAL stuff.
But the FIRST thing you should be doing when you start building a relationship with your customers, namely through your email campaign, is start by sharing why you’re doing what you’re doing, and your passion, so your readers have a sense of purpose to connect with your products and services, so they know you’re not just in it for the money.
2. Give Your Marketing A Sense of Purpose
Whether it’s Martin Luther King, the protests in Egypt, Luke Skywalker, or Rocky Balboa; people emotionally connect with a sense of purpose, the story of watching someone overcome the odds, and all the emotional connections we make to stories, beliefs, and ideas.
One example is a story I heard about a song.
On the outset, it’s just a song, but I later found out the man wrote it about his wife while she was dying of cancer as a tribute, which really adds an emotional layer that touches the human part of us, makes the song more meaningful in our minds, and connects us with the music on a gut emotional level.
As humans, we love the ideas of progress and achievement; something we can root for and put our energy behind to feel like we’re accomplishing something meaningful, and giving back to the world.
For example, in 1984, while designing the first Macintosh computer, Steve Jobs didn’t inspire his team with promises of financial bonuses, incentives, or threats of termination if they didn’t do what he wanted.
Yet they willingly worked endless hours, likely would have turned down more pay, and worked under the very demanding hand of Steve Jobs.
But why?
What was their motivation that was driving them?
The answer:
A sense of PURPOSE, and the IDEA that they were using and contributing their time and energy to do something meaningful that would make a difference in the world, that they would single-handedly change the way millions of people live their lives, and that they had a rare chance to change the world… they saw a MISSION, PURPOSE, and they had PASSION.
When you give people a sense of purpose, they feel connected to you and your mission, will be much more likely to want and buy your products, and to feel like you genuinely care about and want the best for them; plus you can feel and connect with their sense of passion and purpose in what they do, which gives you an emotional bond and connection with what they’re doing.
3. Tell A Story With Visuals
For thousands of years, whether it’s through songs, television, or good old fashion books, nothing gets our imaginations going like a good story, and when connected with a sense of trust, and a sense of purpose, you’ve got an unbeatable formula that 99% of marketers or businesses will never have in their hands.
Give people a story that they can relate to, such as sharing an underdog story about how you overcame and beat the odds, and were able to achieve your dreams; give them something that inspires them.
Inspiration can often go a lot further in the success of your business than your content alone.
It’s like traveling somewhere far outside your country; you meet people from your own town every single day, but if you’re traveling across the world, and you meet someone who’s from your own country, the mutual connection you have of being from the same country creates an instant bonding and connection, which goes much deeper than what you talk about, or how informative you are.
Also, our brains think in pictures, so make sure you tell your story visually to make it emotionally, physically, and personally engaging to your readers.
For example, If I say “food” you’ll notice your brain doesn’t really do anything.
But if I say, “dripping, soft, warm chocolate melting in your mouth.”
I’ve described REAL objects and situations you have emotions connected to in your brain, and I draw your attention (imagination) to focus on whatever I’m talking about, and suck you in to what I’m writing by connecting you directly to it.
If you use vague words, a person’s imagination (the thoughts and pictures going through their head) will drift elsewhere, and they won’t be paying attention to what YOU want them to focus on, so make sure you engage their brain in the content you’re writing by using visuals and emotional descriptions to build a picture and a movie they can connect with in their mind to keep them focused on what you’re talking about.
If you apply these simple techniques to anything you write about, you’ll be amazed at the transformation in your business, and your life.
Remember, you’re dealing with humans, and as much as it’s about content, it has a lot to do with emotions, relationships, and connections, so remember to sprinkle all these tips over your marketing.
Image © Sarunyu_foto – Fotolia.com
Rajkumar Jonnala February 23, 2013 at 11:11 am
i think making your viewer to trust you and quality of content is the most needed requirement for the marketing…….
Rashmi Sinha February 21, 2013 at 1:19 pm
I echo with your statement that rather than treating a customer as a commodity, if the email marketing campaign start focusing on building a bond of trust with them and interact with them in apt way then there will be no two way about the success of email marketing strategy.
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Catherine February 20, 2013 at 1:07 pm
“dripping, soft, warm chocolate melting in your mouth.” Well, I’m sold
I really believe that the quality of the writing can lure readers – I always think of myself as a writer first, and that the rest just follows. Being good with words is so important for marketing.
Paula February 17, 2013 at 6:10 pm
I think your third point is your best one. Visuals are almost important because they take less time to process than words and I feel that people can make an opinion on an email in fractions of a second.
Sarah Park February 17, 2013 at 2:49 am
Thanks a lot for all these tips. I’ve just started email marketing so I am not so familiar with it yet.
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Beth Hewitt February 16, 2013 at 6:20 pm
Hi Chris,
I agree with you, email marketing is all about building trust with your readers. I tend to use a lot of colours and my newsletters and emails are branded to me, so that I have consistency. I find giving value regularly and then being promotional when it is of genuine value to your subscribers is the way to go.
Thanks for sharing,
Beth
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Servando Silva February 16, 2013 at 1:58 pm
Trust is super important for Email Marketing. I found that I usually trust a series of auto responders that give you 100% content instead of sales pitches. You can include your sales on the content, but I like doing it passively (nor aggressively).
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Chris Nosal February 16, 2013 at 2:39 pm
Like you said, it’s not like sales and trust are diametrically opposed; you can tell people about a new product, and show them all the features (like Steve Jobs used to) without throwing a sales pitch in a person’s face; all that matters is that it adds value to their lives in some way, and trying to make money should NEVER get in the way of the user experience in anything we do.
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akhilendra February 16, 2013 at 11:18 am
Great post Chris, trust is must for successful email marketing campaign, we should also ensure a optimum email frequency. Facebook fan pages are also good to collect email subscribers. Thanks for sharing this great post.
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Chris Nosal February 16, 2013 at 11:23 am
You’re welcome. The problem with most email marketers is they only see trust as a “little side thing” to establish that is overshadowed by the content itself; but if you look at television, music, and everything that’s the most popular in the world, it’s all based on RELATIONSHIPS and EMOTIONS… and, not that you should EVER forsake quality or passion in your work, but that people will be MUCH more inclined to read your emails if they see that you’re like a personal friend who is working SPECIFICALLY FOR THEM.
James Dreesen February 16, 2013 at 5:10 am
“1. Start By Building Trust” – I like your ideas on this very much. It’s very hard to sell something if you could not connect with your customer. Some people, in nature, are suspicious on what you can offer them. This is why I hated bad salesman who takes advantage of people, they are making it hard for good salesman to sell good products that the customer actually needs. Nice article, all the best to you!
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Chris Nosal February 16, 2013 at 2:55 pm
People base how much they trust someone on how well they understand the person, their intentions, their motives, and their stories and personality; we want to relate to another person… bad salesmen are NOT making it hard for good salesmen to sell products; if you love your customers, focus on them, and do what’s right for them FIRST first they have NO REASON not to trust you–it’s the person who tries to build trust as a “marketing technique” then tries to convince customers to buy a gimmiky product they show NO PASSION for… if you’re not authentic there’s too many things to face… it’s like trying to deceive someone with your voice tone, body language, words, story, and make it all consistent while really hiding ulterior manipulative motives.
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Leon February 16, 2013 at 2:09 am
I always thought E-Mail marketing would be a lot tougher to do in this day and age with spam, but this article raised my hope in it.
Chris Nosal February 16, 2013 at 11:24 am
As Apple proved, innovation wins out no matter how much competition there is. If you focus on doing things in a better way than everyone else, and standing out, you can ALWAYS succeed. The problem is most people start with the sales sheet and work backward to the customer experience; it needs to be the OTHER WAY AROUND. You need to start with doing what’s best for PEOPLE, and they’ll naturally want your products/services because you’re treating them the way you’d want to be treated.
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Belinda Summers April 26, 2013 at 2:40 am
Agree Chris! You need to start with doing what’s best for PEOPLE. Our marketing tactics should be mainly depend on our customers. We should understand their needs and eventually give it to them.
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abhishek shukla February 16, 2013 at 12:30 am
Thanks for these tips. Building trust is the most crucial part for successful email marketing campaign, If the readers dont have trust , you cant be successful
Chris Nosal February 16, 2013 at 11:25 am
Readers are used to feeling like they’re just being advertised to, and that even if the person is talking to them, it’s only because the person wants you to buy their product; email especially is about RELATIONSHIPS, and if you don’t start with that, you’re not going to get very far.
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Sam February 15, 2013 at 5:39 pm
Excellent article Chris! Each of your points has made me think about previous email marketing campaigns I have created and question whether I implemented them to the best of my ability.
Chris Nosal February 16, 2013 at 11:27 am
If you start with passion, and genuinely see your work as a work of art, and want it to be absolutely perfect, and are relentless about that, because you love WHAT you’re doing more than anything, then you’ll naturally implement to the best of your ability, and when you’re not sure how, you’ll find ways to figure out how to take things to the next level to make your work even more amazing and beautiful… the post I attached illustrates my use of this point very well.
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