This week, those of us in the US are likely to experience overfull bellies from a ridiculous amount of food, but we all will likely experience overfull email inboxes.
If you usually delete all the promotional emails from various brands, I'm going to urge you to go hang out in your trash folder for a little while.
“What? Why?” (this is your brain right now - probably)
Well, you are your own marketing department, right? And as such, you probably will spend more time marketing your products/services than you will actually creating them.
Because you are your own marketing department, you are responsible for knowing what other brands and companies are doing to try to draw customers in.
Notice I didn't say what other brands and companies in your industry are doing? I do think that it's important to see what the trends in our industry are, but we can learn so much from other industries as well, especially because most other industries have a much larger share of the market overall (and bring in more income) than ours.
Here are the steps you can follow to start to improve your own email marketing strategy:
Go through all the promotional emails you will receive starting yesterday through next Wednesday, November 29th.
Flag all the emails that you either opened or that you think have intriguing/funny/compelling subject lines.
Open up a Word Doc/Google Doc and do some copy & pasting of the subject lines and write out why you like them or why they piqued your interest.
Go through the emails that you flagged and assess the content/copy inside. What language inside is helpful or compelling? What is the length of the email? Are there any images inside? If so, what kinds of images are being used?
Use your document to reflect on your findings. What types of language, images, buttons, etc can you start to implement in your own emails? What would work during a launch period? What would work during a nurturing (non-launch) period?
BONUS: If you actually make any purchases during this time frame, note who you bought from and why you bought from them. Was it something that made a task easier/more convenient? Was it something that would affect the way others perceive you? Was it something that triggered a specific emotion? Did it have a particular aesthetic appeal? Really take some time to think about it.
The thing is - it takes being super attentive to other types of campaigns and marketing strategies to find the ones that will ultimately work for ourselves and our businesses. And you can do this with so many other things:
If you drive a lot or commute, start looking at billboards/ads on the subway or buses. Which ones are catching your eye? Are any making you want to learn more? Are any leaving you scratching your head going “huh"?
If you watch TV, pay attention to commercials that you are sucked into. Are they emotive? Do they use music? Beautiful imagery? Humor?
If you're scrolling around on social media, take a look at the targeted ads! Do you click on any of them? Do you read the comments on the posts - how are others reacting? Do you actually buy from any of them? (If you do, you're in good company - I do… all the time!)
If you're on Instagram, notice which feeds you keep coming back to. What is drawing you in? What kinds of images are they using? Do you see any patterns emerging?
For me, marketing is my job, so it's imperative for me to be paying attention to what's working, what isn't, and what billionaire is ruining which social media platform at any time.
But, for any business owner, it's a crucial part of being aware of consumer trends and learning how to implement those in your own strategies, like we do in the Fiber Business Collective. And pro tip: If you want to start subscribing to more emails to do some studying, create a completely separate email address for those so they don't clog your personal or business email inbox. I have one and I feel like I spend more time in there than anywhere else (even social media!)