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Jun 11, 2020

EP 51 -  PULLING IT ALL TOGETHER

If this is your first joining us, welcome. If you are interested in marketing and specifically email marketing, I encourage you to check out episodes 45-now where we’ve talked about creating a marketing foundation, segmenting your list, metrics creating content and today we are going to talk about email campaigns.  

I’ve used the term email campaigns in several episodes and said I'd would explain it…..so here’s the explanation.

Each time you create an email to send to your list, think of it as a campaign. I’m not talking about an individual email you would send, but one that you are sending to your entire list. One that you are creating for marketing purposes. 

Think of it in terms of “what do you want to get from the email campaign”. What kind of action do you want people to take?  What is the result you want to see?

An email campaign is pushing content to someone to pull a response from them. 

One of the concepts mentioned in this series is that content is king. John Jantsch of Duct Tape Marketing actually says content is AIR. Your company can’t breathe today if it isn’t creating content. Whether it be articles, ads, video, audio, graphics...it’s all about content. 

So when it comes to email marketing, you are pushing that content to your list, to your audience and to new prospects.  You want them to take action on the content that you are creating. 

In addition, and this is more of a website tip than an email tip, but you want to drive people to your website as much as possible. There’s so many reasons for this but in a nutshell, the more people you can get to your website, the more likely you are to get new business. 

So when we think of content for your email campaigns, also think about creating the content on your website and pushing it out by linking it in your email campaign. Use your email campaign to drive traffic to your website!

Let me go back to the hot chocolate example I gave in episode 50 for creating content. What if you wrote an article about the best recipes of hot chocolate. In your email campaign, you talk about one of the recipes then link to the article that is published on your website for the rest.

Are you thinking “but that’s not insurance related, why would I put that on my website?”

That’s ok…...you are human, most of us drink hot chocolate or make it for our kids, so why not drive traffic to your website with hot chocolate information and maybe they’ll stick around and get a quote while they are there!

Your email campaign is pushing content - hot chocolate recipes and your response is getting them to click the link on the email campaign so they go to your website and get additional recipes. While they are on your website, they learn more about you and you have more opportunities to connect with them on other digital platforms. (this is tied to retargeting, FB pixels, google analytics and a few other areas which again, is not the subject of this podcast episode series.)

This isn’t an episode about websites, but creating content for your email campaign. I just think it’s important for you to understand that creating content for your website is huge.

Driving traffic to your website and having a website that you own is essential, I have not done that at this time for the business of insurance. I don’t want to come across as a hypocrite, telling you to do one thing and doing something different myself, but my decision is intentional. If you go back to the original intent of this podcast, it’s to talk about why working in the insurance industry is such a great career path. I’m not selling anything so I’m not worried about how many people visit my website. I’m not sending out any email campaigns so it’s not essential to me ….at least for right now.  Things could always change

I’m saying this because if you look at the website for the business of insurance podcast, it’s very basic, very simple. It’s actually created by my podcast host, Libsyn.  However, I do script out each episode and have some links in each episode for SEO purposes. These are all things you want to be doing on your website and with each piece of content that you create as well.

If I wanted to send out an email campaign and drive traffic to my website, I could easily do that because each episode has it’s own url and it is easily sharable. If I want to take an episode url and share it in an email campaign, it’s easy to do.

That’s important for the content that you create for your email campaigns.

So an email campaign is a little more than sending an email newsletter. It’s a marketing tool that has a goal and a system for measuring your results with a lot of moving parts in the middle. 

Hopefully you find that explanation helpful.

Other ideas for creating your email campaign. 

  • Create a card or announcement
    • Promote a celebration or a milestone
    • Automated birthday emails - I’ll talk more about this in episode 52 but this is a great use of automation and emails
  • Press release
  • Invitation to an event or webinar
  • Special offers and deals
  • Surveys and polls
  • Business letter
  • Newsletter just information - so long as it is valuable
  • Drive traffic to your website
  • Share on social media

What should your email look like

  • Most importantly, it needs to follow your brand - same colors, fonts (if possible) and graphics that reflect your brand. 
  • Less is more - 
    • Don’t put everything into one email campaign. You’ll lose people from overwhelm. Remember the KISS principle. It works well for email campaigns also
    • This is where you have to be a creative writer - or hire someone who is. Use phrases to get people’s attention so they will read what you are sending but you don’t want to be spammy or salesy. 
    • Mobile Friendly
    • Keep your call to action above the scroll line
  • Graphics are good but they need to be relevant
    • They need to be the right size
    • You want to make sure you own the pictures and avoid copyright issues
    • They should be in line with your brand. 
    • You can use Canva to make your own graphics, you can purchase them from Canva and other online sites - I’ll link to the website so you know you are going to the right website. 
      • Watch for app sumo for deals for buying lifetime subscriptions photo companies
    • Make your graphics clickable
      • Link to website
      • Social media
      • Something that allows you measure
    • Make sure you use text labels in case images aren't displayed by the recipients email program.
    • Be sure to test images on different devices (phones, laptops, tablets)
  • Recognized sender - Who will be in the ‘from’ line
    • Producers
    • Owner
    • Marketing
    • Sales
    • Just the agency
  • Compelling subject line
    • Create your subject line after your email campaign is complete. As I mentioned earlier, a good writer will know how to do this. 
    • Take advantage of the pre-header text - it’s another opportunity to capture attention
    • 2 seconds using 2 works to get people to take action today
  • When to send
    • Track in your metrics - 
    • Use common sense. 
      • As your list grows you might need to do this again to see if anything changes

Those are the major points you want to think about once your campaign is created. 

In this series, The Power of the Inbox, we’ve covered a lot. We’ll be publishing 2 more episodes in this series, one about growing your list and the other about automation. Both topics are a little more advanced. 

Up to this point, you’ve been given a lot of information to get your emails created.

Have you started? 

Share what you are creating. Join the Business of Insurance FB group and lets’ talk. 

If you like what we are creating in this episode and other episodes, please go to apple podcasts and leave a review. 

Until next time, keep creating opportunities.


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ABOUT THE HOST

This episode of the Business of Insurance podcast is produced and hosted by Debbie DeChambeau, CIC, AAI, CPIA - an entrepreneurer, business advisor, insurance professional  and content creator. Her goal is to inspire you to think differently and explore ideas that disrupt the status quo. 

Debbie has an extensive business and marketing background with a focus of helping insurance professionals be more successful. 

She is the co-author of Renewable Referrals and produces three other podcasts, Business In Real Life and Divorce Exposed and Seniors We Love. 

 Connect with Debbie on LinkedIn, Twitter or Instagram.