Book a strategy call
The Blog
Discover how a relationship-focused email strategy can help you draw in new customers and retain old ones.
What you'll find here
Explore the key topics in email marketing to help grow your business:
Why do I need an email marketing strategy?
Can Chat GPT be used to create your email marketing?
Does sending email marketing feel 'icky'?
Why building an email list will help grow your business
How often should I email my audience?
What is email segmentation?
What is email automation?
Email content ideas for service-based businesses
Email content ideas for product-based businesses
Why your marketing emails aren't converting
What's your Value Proposition and why do you need one?
How well do you know your customers?
Why do I need an email marketing strategy?
Do you sometimes feel you might be winging it? Perhaps you are working all hours to get your newsletters out the door but you are frustrated because so far, you've seen little-zero sales.
Without a strategy, you are hoping for sales based on a wing and a prayer.
"A goal is a broad primary outcome. A strategy is the approach you take to achieve a goal. An objective is a measurable step you take to achieve a strategy. A tactic is a tool you use in pursuing an objective associated with a strategy"
Email marketing as a story-telling tool helps build trust
Use email as stepping stones from sign-up to action
A strategy helps showcase how you solve problems without being salesy
Email marketing has evolved beyond "spray and pray"
Without a clear strategy, sustainable growth is difficult
By implementing a clearly considered email marketing strategy, your customers will be more responsive and engaged, campaign performance will improve, and your business will continue to grow while saving time and money.
Does sending email marketing feel 'icky'?
If you send the right mix of content and find the right tone of voice, it's one of the most effective ways to keep in touch with your audience.
Though often overlooked, email marketing is one of the most effective channels for reaching users who are either just beginning to consider purchasing your product or service, or who may be interested in it.

A subscriber is someone who has chosen to opt into your email marketing by providing their email address. They have given you permission to contact them.
Rather than feeling icky or salesy, see email marketing as an opportunity to serve your audience and help them solve a problem they have.
Why the ick happens: One of the reasons you may feel the ick is that you are sending too many salesy type emails. Slow right down! Mix it up with:
  • Content about your mission
  • A day in the life of your business
  • Useful tips
Remember: Each customer is in a different stage of the buying journey. The content you share is building brand awareness, which will ultimately lead to sales.
Key takeaways:
People have chosen to subscribe - they want to hear from you
Balance promotional emails with other types of content
How often should I email my audience?
Are you wondering how frequently to email your audience?
Email marketing is a powerful tool to help you grow your business. However, there's a lot of debate about how often you should be sending emails to your email list. Should you send daily? Weekly? Monthly? Never?! This blog will clear up any confusion.
1
Too little
You risk your audience becoming disengaged with your business.
2
Too much
You risk increased unsubscribes.
So what is the right frequency?
Frequency guidelines by list size:
1
Small list
(less than 10,000 subscribers): once per week or every fortnight
2
Mid-sized list
(around 50,000 subscribers): twice per week
3
New business starting out
1 or 2 times a month and monitor your results
Important factors:
  • The type of content you send also plays a part in deciding frequency
  • The number of emails depends on your specific audience needs and interests
  • You need data about whether people engage with your emails (purchases, registrations)
Content considerations:
If your content is engaging, relevant and timely, AND your audience is engaging with it, you could increase frequency to 3 times per week. This is based on what your data insights are telling you.
Conclusion: The answer depends on your audience, the type of business you have and how engaged your audience is. Start with low frequency (1 or 2 times per month) and monitor your customer insights.
What is email automation?
It's simply an email campaign or sequence of campaigns that send pre-defined content to your email subscribers in an automated manner.
By automating your Email Marketing activity you can scale and have a much broader reach, giving you opportunities to increase your sales.
Did you know that 63% of companies using marketing automation outperformed competitors?
Benefits of email automation:
1. Time-saving
Once you define what goal you want a campaign to achieve you can set and forget. Your email marketing can work hard for you while you sleep. Automation saves you having to be tied to a schedule and having to write content for your regular newsletter.
2. Generate revenue while you sleep
By getting automation set up for your business you can generate revenue while you sleep. Reaching customers anytime, anywhere. Think of automations as the store assistant to your website, who happens to work 24/7.
3. Lead generation
By having automations set up on your website, you can collect data on prospective clients/customers who may be perusing and want to find out more but not yet ready to book a call with you.
4. Personalised content at scale
One of the big misconceptions about automations is that they aren't able to personalise content - this is completely untrue. Automation enables you to personalise content based on a customer's interaction with you, therefore offering truly personalised customer experiences that does not compromise on quality as you grow.
5. Customer retention and loyalty
Even if your audience aren't in the market right now, automations are a great way to keep them engaged and front of mind so that when they are ready to buy, they'll know to come back to you.
Book a call and I will provide you with 1-2 top tips to share some ways you can generate more revenue from your email marketing without the effort.
Email content ideas for product-based businesses
Here are some ideas to keep your content fresh and inspiring
Are you a product-based business and looking for some content inspiration? Email marketing is a powerful and effective way to drive traffic to your website.
1. Behind the scenes
What goes on behind the scenes in your business? Your customers are engaging with your brand and by sharing a 'day in the life' you are taking them on a journey with you. You could include the making of your product, your creative process or designs of new product ideas. Customers love seeing what goes on behind the scenes and this helps build an authentic way to connect with them and builds trust.
2. New product launches
Providing exclusive early-bird access to a new product launch via email is a great way to build loyalty with your customers. The launch raises awareness of your new product, creates hype and generates sales through pre-orders. Your customer base will feel rewarded and are more likely to repeat purchase in the future.
3. Top 3-5 Best-sellers
Sharing recent best-sellers to your customer base will help inspire them with their next purchase. My top tip for taking this one step further is to personalise based on what they last purchased to make the email content even more relevant.
4. Customer reviews
We tend to seek reassurance before we purchase a product or service. Customer reviews help us alleviate risk and provide reassurance. A round up of customer reviews via email can help show how you have helped others with your products and the benefit and impact your products have had. It's very powerful in attracting new customers.
5. Share why you started your business
What inspired you to start your business? By sharing your story you can help build awareness and drive engagement to your brand. What is your vision for your business? We all have a story to tell, what's yours?
Conclusion: Try any of these content ideas for your product-based business and see what resonates!
What's your Value Proposition and why do you need one?
Your value proposition summarises why a customer would choose your product or service.
Definition
This is a simple statement that summarises what you offer that is different and better than your competitors. It should be clear and concise and easy to understand.
Why is it important to have a value proposition?
Your value proposition is important as it informs the customer of what your product or service is and why it is better than your competitors.
Here are some considerations to make in creating your value proposition:
What are your customer pain points?
Think about what need or problem you are solving for your customers and how your product or services helps solve their problem. Get really clear on what your customers wants, needs and fears are. Are your customers clear on your offering and are you clearly communicating the benefits of your product or service? When thinking about the benefits of your offering, think about how it will specifically solve your customers' pain points, how does it make your customer's life better? Be descriptive here, you want to make this as clear as possible.
What makes you different vs your competitors?
Define your Unique Selling Point (USP) - what sets you apart from your competitors and gives you that edge? Perhaps you are in a highly competitive market, in what ways can you stand out? e.g. your brand is all about sustainability and this is demonstrated through the type of products you sell? It's worth taking a look at your competitors and observing what sets them apart.
Is your proposition credible?
How can you communicate your proposition in a credible way? This could be achieved by demonstrating why you are the expert in your area or sharing your experiences. Perhaps you experienced the same challenges as your customer so you have walked in their shoes.
Validate your proposition
Ask your customers about your proposition, are they clear on what you offer and how it can solve your pain points? Could it be clearer? Customer feedback is useful insight and can be gained through surveys, focus groups and via your website.
How well do you know your customers?
We often start out with an idea of who we think our customers are however often we can be surprised about who our customers really are.
Why is it important to know who my customers are?
Getting to know who our customers are is beneficial for your business and your customers. By better understanding your customers wants and needs, we can best serve them with the right products and/or services, this is likely to lead to increased customer satisfaction and a better likelihood of them returning to repeat purchase.
When we start a business, we have some of our own preconceptions of who our customers are however it's important to validate these assumptions. This can be done in a number of ways.
Here are some top tips:
1. What do you know so far?
The reality is we may know very little beyond a list of email addresses. There are lots of ways to collect customer data for example what do your customer reviews say? What sort of feedback are you receiving about your products and services?
Start to build up a picture of who your best customer is e.g. She's between 25-35, lives in a city, has a family and shops frequently on Etsy. Don't worry if you don't have much to go on, the gaps can be filled in as you get to know your customer base.
2. What analytics platforms do you have currently set up?
Your email platform is a good starting point to see who is interacting with your email content. What data insights can you obtain from your social media platforms? This type of data can help you understand demographics, how they are interacting with your content e.g. mobile vs desktop and what content they are engaging with.
By having this information, we can see what is working and what isn't working. You might find that 70% of your paid marketing is consumed on mobile so try adapting more of your content to suit mobile.
3. Create a persona of your best customer
Creating a persona of your best customer helps you stop guessing and start speaking directly to the people who matter most. By defining who they are, what they care about, and what problems they’re trying to solve, you can craft messaging, products, and experiences that truly resonate. A strong customer persona turns insights into clarity and clarity into growth.
4. Run a focus group
Running a small focus group, either virtually or in real life, is a great way to get to know your customers. It doesn't have to be expensive, you can use a product or service giveaway or a discount to incentivise your audience for a 1-2 hour session with you. Use that time to validate your assumptions.
5. Listen to customer feedback
Implement simple customer feedback mechanics across social media and your website. This is a great way to get to know your customers.
Why your marketing emails aren't converting
Do you spend a lot of time on your email marketing but with little or no return?
Have you a decent sized email-marketing list but it's generating minimal sales for your business?
Are you getting little or no engagement from your email marketing?
The days of 'spray and pray' mass email sends are over. Sending content that is of no interest to your base will result in disengagement and even worse, an increase in unsubscribes.
Here are some reasons why your marketing emails are not converting:
1
1. You're not segmenting your lists
Segmenting your lists are crucial to help serve your customers with the most relevant, useful content for their needs.
2
2. Your content mix isn't right
If you are sending only sales-type emails then think about how you can introduce engaging content that adds value into your send plan without the hard-sell. If you are sending lots of engagement emails then think about how you can introduce your services/products that can help solve your customer's pain points. The key is getting the balance right.
3
3. Your copy is dull
Perhaps your content isn't engaging and you are failing to deliver something of value that sparks interest and curiosity with your customer base. On average we receive 120 emails per day so your email needs to have some stand out. If you find it hard to craft the words, hire someone who can help you write killer copy that converts!
4
4. Poor calls to action (CTAs)
Calls to action (CTAs) are key to any marketing campaign. What action do you want your customer to take? Make sure your CTAs are prominent, clear and simple so that the customer understands how to buy from you.
5
5. You aren't looking at your insights
The great thing about digital marketing is that everything we do has a footprint and can be tracked. Insights about your email marketing performance can tell you a lot about where you are going wrong. For example, if you are failing to get people to open your emails try testing different types of copy, be brave and try something different and take a look at what is working and what isn't. Continue to test, test, test.
Email content ideas for service-based businesses
Here are some ideas to keep your content fresh and inspiring
Are you a service-based business and looking for some content inspiration? Email marketing is a powerful and effective way to drive traffic to your website.
1
Welcome email sequences
By creating a welcome sequence you can introduce your services over a series of emails, making it easier to digest. The welcome sequence is an important first impression and helps set the scene for what someone can expect by working with you. What's your story? Why did you set up your business, who are you serving?
2
Video content
Video content is a fantastic way to showcase your service. Use short videos to educate your audience on what it is you offer and how others have benefitted from working with you. Create a short series of emails that you can send via your weekly or fortnightly newsletter.
3
Social proof
We love social proof by hearing about other people's experiences before we buy. By sharing positive testimonials, you are building credibility around your brand. Email marketing is about building long lasting relationships and so by sharing testimonials you spark interest and curiosity for new prospective clients/customers to want to find out more!
4
Limited-time offers
As a service-based business time-limited offers are a great way to boost sales, particularly as they drive action through urgency. Time-limited offers could be for selected customer segments, making them feel special as they are exclusive in nature.
5
Create value through a blog
Particularly if you are a new service-based business a blog is a useful way to share your knowledge, experience and expertise. Remember that people need to know, like and trust you before they want to work with you. Think of 3-5 questions that you regularly get asked and create blog posts on these topics, then share via email marketing.
Try any of these content ideas for your service-based business and see what resonates! The great thing about email marketing is you get to see results!
Why building an email list will help grow your business
No matter what your business is, you can't build an audience without first building an email list.
Email marketing is an essential part of any online business. The key to email marketing success is growing your email list so that you can reach more potential customers and help them take the next step in their journey towards making a purchase.
Key benefits:
1
Gaining trust
Once someone subscribes, they'll be more likely to buy from you because they know they're getting information directly from you.
2
Getting people to take action
If someone is on your email list it means you've captured their attention and given them value, so you have a better chance at selling to them.
Power of email lists:
An email list is a powerful tool for any business. It has the power to turn strangers into fans, turn fans into customers and turn customers into ambassadors.
Strangers into fans
Fans into customers
Customers into ambassadors
65%
Sales from repeat customers
Did you know that up to 65% of sales can come from repeat customers that are on your email list?
Your email list is a powerful tool for building an audience, gaining trust, and making sales.
Can Chat GPT be used to create your email marketing?
Well firstly what is Chat GPT?
Chat GPT is a new type of AI that can be used to create personalised content for email marketing. It's like a digital assistant that takes things further by creating campaigns on your behalf.
How would you feel about creating your email marketing campaigns with Chat GPT?
Save time and money
No need to hire a writer or designer
Create better campaigns
With a team approach
Create more personalised campaigns
Tailored to each person
Create more targeted campaigns
Based on user behaviour
Can be trained to write emails, curate newsletter content, and create segments
Has access to all prior campaigns, past customer data and insights
Recommends the best segments and content
Gets better with each iteration
Chat GPT is a great new tool that can help you create better emails, faster. This could result in big savings for your business in time and money. AI technology is rapidly expanding and the possibilities for business growth are far-reaching and exciting!