There are just 5 types of email that you will ever send in a marketing campaign:

• Awareness
• Consideration
• Conversion
• Product Usage
• Loyalty

You choose which type of email to send once you have decided why you are sending a customer/prospect an email.

Awareness – this is mostly about creating brand awareness – where either you, your company name or a product/service is the brand in question. You simply want the market to know you exist. Do not expect to close a sale from this kind of email – the intent will be to have the reader engage further with you, your company or the target product/service – for example requesting further information. You may want to consider 3-7 emails at this level to make sure enough awareness has built.

Consideration – this kind of email contains some element of education that moves the reader to taking action to try or buy what you are offering. You’ll be laying some groundwork here, for example, reminding the reader about some particular problem or dream they’re grappling at the moment, and having the reader associate this with you, your company and/or your target product/service. You’ll begin the process of building your credibility in the mind of the reader.

Conversion – the most common form of marketing email a person receives – these are your standard ‘buy it now’ and ‘sign up today’ emails we’re all familiar with. These work well when you send them at the right time – when the reader is in the right mood to buy or sign up. Send them at any other time and they are worse than useless – they tarnish your image… Sound familiar…? Send them when you effectively get a ‘buy’ signal from the reader. Buy signals will vary hugely from situation to situation, and this is where some kind of autoresponder can help, enabling the reader to ‘pull’ the next piece of the sequence in…

Product Usage – After the sale has been made many marketers get lazy, stop working or pass the responsibility on elsewhere – avoid this trap! A great example is with amazon – you buy a book for example (I buy lots of books – you can never spend enough on your education…) – immediately you get a confirmation email that also suggests other similar titles that people like you have bought in the past (students of the influence guru Robert Cialdini will recognise this – if you’re not a student of Cialdini, drop me a line and I’ll send you an overview) About a week later/after the delivery you get a follow up, asking you to rate the experience, and more titles are suggested… The point is, after they buy, they will use, and they will talk about it, whether you like it or not. They’ll likely do this on-line. You don’t have control over this conversation, but you can influence it… that’s the essence of social media marketing right there (and more on that in another article…)

Loyalty – simply put, these emails encourage the customer to use what they’ve just bought from you and to share their feedback of it with others, and to maintain and build the relationship you have with them through to their next purchase or for the life of the relationships – keep them saying nice things about you, your company and/or the product/service they just bought.

Here’s the original content bit…

When I first came across this it was a revelation – simple yet powerful. Even before I learnt more about the specific techniques to use for each of the 5 different types, just knowing there were 5 different types and what they were was enough for me to change my approach, and so begin to experience some real success. I know this can be the same for you too!

It strikes me that this simple framework can and should help you be more focused with article marketing, marketing by way of how you engage with people on forums for example, and on blogs. The sky is the limit!

In light of what you’ve just read, think about your own marketing campaign, be it by autoresponder, direct & mass emailings and even ezine issues. Which of the 5 types of email message could you do better with? Which of the 5 are you not doing, but should be?

As you reflect on your answers to these questions, begin to sketch out your email marketing campaign, let the ideas flow out on to paper.

My call to action is simple: create your new email marketing campaign action plan, and implement it. Now!

Let me know how you get on!

Cheers

Martin

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