How to Avoid the #1 Email Marketing Mistake Most Companies Make

By: Dr. Larina Kase

Email marketing can be one of the least expensive and most effective tools to build your business. Unfortunately most small business owners and even large companies do not do it well.

As someone who is the recipient of email marketing, one of the most irritating things is when my email fills up with messages that I have to sort through. I do a lot of my shopping online and many of my favorite stores often send me messages. I consider emailing more than once a week “often.”

I am amazed that even large companies who have huge budgets for marketing consistently make the same mistake. (And when you send out more than one message per week, this mistake is very costly because you aren’t just not making sales but you are losing customers.)

What do they do wrong?

They use emails for advertisements rather than for providing value. This seems so obvious but I am amazed to see this mistake over and over again.

The worst, of course, are the emails that deliver a pure advertisement every time. They let you know what they have just gotten in. They let you know about some item they feel like featuring. Customers must waste their time to open the email and find out that is it simply an advertisement.

Does this mean that you can never advertise or market in your emails? Of course not.

So, how much can you market?

My rule of thumb is 1:4, which means one piece of marketing for every 4 pieces of valuable content. Pay attention to the emails you receive and you’ll see that most companies are nowhere near this ratio.

Ways to provide value

Value is determined in the eyes of your list members, so think carefully about what they need. Here are some ways that you can deliver your helpful information to them:

• An ebook
• An audio recording of you speaking
• An interview
• A top-10 list
• A helpful article targeted to their needs
• A list of useful resources

If you’re not sure what content your list needs, ask them. Or do keyword research to find out what people are searching for. Open up communication with your list members because you may think you’re providing value, but it may not be what they need or want.

Interestingly, you’ll start to find that as you advertise less, you’ll sell more. In fact, the content you provide will be marketing and it’s your most powerful type of marketing because it’s educational. It serves to educate your audience on how they can help themselves and it educates them on how you can help them since it shows the value of your knowledge and expertise.

BIO

Larina Kase, PsyD, MBA helps business owners use their personality and talents to create powerful marketing strategies that they will actually implement. Get her popular monthly publication Stand Out! Marketing That Grabs Attention and Gets Results at http://www.pascoaching.com/standout/

KEYWORDS

Larina Kase, email marketing, email marketing mistakes

Return to the Directory of Small Business Marketing Articles