Email Campaigns Aren’t All About You, so Knock It Off!

By: Jacob Hanson

Dear marketer in the education space—yes, you! Your email campaigns ARE NOT ALL ABOUT YOU. Emails and any other prospecting outreach are really about the people on your list, the recipients you are trying to reach. Let me ask a simple question: Do you like receiving unsolicited, generic emails? NOPE, and neither do they.

Today’s buyers, especially those in the education market, can find information about your company and your offerings with a few clicks of the mouse or a quick “OK, Google….” So why do some marketers have the tendency—or maybe even the impulse—to tell strangers all about your shiny new features or astonishing deals when the person on the other end more than likely has no clue who you are?

Launching an email campaign is simple; running a successful one isn’t as easy. Before you start drafting an email, create your list, take a step back, and put yourself in your potential buyer’s shoes. Start by asking yourself these questions:

• What are their challenges?
• What stage in their journey to purchase are they?
• How can we help? (That’s the ticket: how can we help?)

When drafting your email, you should consider what information these recipients need to move from “Do I even have a problem?” to “Yes, I do. Where can I get answers?” to “I found some answers, now what?”

Creating content that to answer these questions will show recipients that you are thinking of them, not asking them to get onboard with where you want them to be. Reaching out to a cold list, or prospecting, should be about moving each person to the next stage in their buyer’s journey. Below are a few practical steps to do just that.

1. Every email should have a clear call to action (CTA). This seems like a no-brainer, but you would be surprised! What are you asking this person to do? What are you offering them? Make sure that CTA connects with the body of the email AND the subject line, so you aren’t losing your audience.
2. That CTA should take them to a landing page on YOUR website. This may seem like a serious no-brainer, but you want to make certain that your content offer and landing page language are in line with your email. Don’t be “that company” that pulls the bait-and-switch.
3. Align your forms with the perceived value of your offer. The form fields should align with your best guess as to what a visitor is willing to give in exchange for your content. Your views-to-conversion ratios is a solid indicator of how well you estimated the perceived value,
4. Don’t forget a “thank you” page (and yes, another CTA). You don’t have to wait until that next round of emails to move prospects down the funnel by offering up relevant blogs, other gated content, a trial, or a demo, depending on where they are in their journey.

Before you hit that send button, ask yourself how you would react if you were receiving this email? Would you ignore it because it’s generic or not at all something you needed right now? In short, would you delete it because you knew the sender wasn’t thinking of you? By placing yourself in the shoes of your prospects, you can identify key areas that might catch the eye of potential customers, leading them that much closer to becoming future clients.

Finally, if your email doesn’t perform to your expectations, remember that strikeouts can be just as valuable as home runs—they tell you what not to do next time! By analyzing clicks, opens, bounces and more, you can determine just how valuable your list considers your content to be, and how you can adjust it to better help them.

Thanks for sharing!