5 Tips for Profitable, Heart-Centered Email Marketing

Things I am not a fan of:

• Emails that make me feel like a Nigerian prince is trying to steal my information.

• Emails that require me to work really hard to read them.

• Emails without scannable information.

• Emails that come from out of nowhere and have me asking “when did I sign up for this list?”

• Emails that come every damn day (I’m sorry, but in what world am I buying a prom dress every day?)

• And going with the above, emails that are impossible to unsubscribe from! (I’ve been out of high school for 12 years and have actively tried to stop receiving emails that remind me of this time period).

Emails get a bad rap because a lot of us are receiving mediocre content, which we don’t need more of in our lives. Chances are, we are already on consumption overload.

And the people who have 23,478 emails sitting in their inbox (which is most people) don’t want *just another* marketing email.  

But here is the flip side.

You know those few brands who send you an email on a regular basis, but you’re not totally sure when they are coming? You open your inbox, see their email and are pleasantly surprised. Those emails you feel like you instantly must open. Emails that feel like they were written directly to you, not a 5k person list.

Those are the emails I want to discuss. The love letters.

What makes a great email? Lots of things. Emails have been on my heart lately because I am seeing so much success with them for clients. After considering why these are profitable pieces of content that people seem to love, these are a few tips that I find success with:

1) Pretend that you are dating.

Listen, studies have shown that over 80% of buying decisions across industries are made by women. Imagine how women want to be treated in a dating or romantic relationship. Let me help paint the picture.

Women want to know that you care, that you are a real person, that you have emotional depth beyond a robot-generated response.

Women want to know that you are thinking about them, but they never want to be forced, coerced, pressured or bribed to act in a certain way (did I just give my future husband all the advice or what?!) .

Think about it this way:

We want Will Smith’s Hitch: Reliable, smart, trustworthy, interdependent, loving, generous, appealing.

We don’t want Malcolm from She’s The Man: Needy, creepy, overbearing, desperate.

Your emails should be a healthy relationship between you and the women who buy your product or service.

2) Every email should have a “sale,” but not always in the way that you think.

We need to redefine “sale.” Some emails will ask people to give your business a review, some will ask them to read a blog, some will ask the list to follow you on social media.

These are all sales. Anytime you ask someone to do something and they do it, you make a sale. Let’s stop defining the success of a campaign solely by revenue and remember that in every relationship there is give and take. Sometimes you give more and sometimes you receive more.

Trust that it is all adding up.

3) Make it easy.

Your email should be a pleasure to read. We all have way too much coming into our inbox, so let’s make it easy for our readers to engage with our content. How do we do this?

For starters, I believe that it should be visually appealing. You can type it in text format (super easy) without using an email building platform AND still insert a fun meme or GIF.

If your brand is more aesthetically-centered, then creating something beautiful is important. Don’t overcomplicate or overthink it. Sometimes you just need a fun header that you can make for free on Canva. Start simple and remember that you can always grow.

Words should also be easy to read. NO LONG PARAGRAPHS. I believe 2 sentences max in one block of text. Make it scannable and use bullet points or numbered lists as you can without being over-the-top.

Finally, if someone desires to unsubscribe, MAKE IT EASY for them to do so. It does not mean that they are no longer a customer – maybe they follow you on social, maybe they’re on your website every week. It just means that their nervous system cannot tolerate one more email. Stop making it about you and let them go.

4) Be consistent but not overbearing.

There’s a lot of nuance to email frequency and without knowing your specific business and clients, it is difficult to give sound advice.

So I’ll leave it at this: Regular, consistent emails that remind people you are in business are important. But you do not necessarily need a rigid schedule. There is an element of surprise that can do your business really well when people do not know exactly when to expect you in their inbox. On the other hand, some businesses find that a super consistent schedule works better (for example, sending emails every Tuesday at 8 am CST).

Play with your list and find out. If you are sending emails three times a week and start to see large unsubscribe numbers, then back off and rethink your strategy. Maybe you need to segment the list differently, maybe your content is just not good/reading-worthy, or maybe you are sending too many emails.  

As with any marketing you will need to experiment. But for me personally, I engage with the emails I receive from brands that are regular, but that I do not see coming. There is an element of surprise that I like and sometimes a little distance truly does make the heart grow fonder.

5) Remember that your email is not just a “touchpoint,” but rather, a way to touch someone’s life.

Every piece of content you put out into the world has an energetic vibration. What was your frame of mind when you created it? Were you feeling inspired or in the vibe of “I just need to get this done”? Were you feeling burned out, stressed or overwhelmed? Or were you feeling creative, motivated and in joy?

Before you push send on the email, make sure that it was created from a place of “How could I touch my customers’ lives right now?”

Sometimes I find it helpful to handwrite emails first!  

When you listen to what your heart says and write your email from that vibration, I promise people will feel it.

What else would you add? Drop me a line and let’s chat more!

Always sending you big love.

Xoxo,

Em