This essay is part of the series, Fix Your Flow: Get the Right Emails to the Right People. Want to listen to the entire series in your favorite podcast player? Sign up for the private podcast feed here. Looking for the transcript? Access it here.
Fun fact about me: I used to be really shy.
In the summer of ‘98, at the end of a 6-week summer trip to Israel for high schoolers, I won the “Doesn’t Talk” award. 🏆
Not my proudest achievement, but I at least found the humor in it.
However, it was not so funny when four weeks into that trip, this kid in my group looked at me one day with a look of confusion on his face and asked me, “Who are you?”
Um, I’ve been on multiple hours-long bus rides, visited the Holocaust museum, and hiked goat poop-covered mountains with you, dude. 😠
Annoyed as I was, I couldn’t really blame him. If someone you don’t really know and maybe met is passing didn’t say a word to you for weeks, would you remember them?
It turns out, not speaking much to others can make you easily forgettable.
In the world of email marketing, we want to avoid being forgettable. (Or, worse, annoying our subscribers by bombarding them with emails.)
This is where Automating with Heart comes into play, ensuring that your automated email marketing builds connections from the moment someone joins your list.
The Opt-In Pillar: Crafting the First Impression
In the previous essay, we explored the first of the five Email Automations Pillars, Organize. Now, we move on to the second Email Automation Pillar, Opt-In. This is where the automated customer journey begins – the moment someone sings up for your email list or lead magnet.
Imagine someone signing up for your newsletter or grabbing a freebie from your website.
What happens next? Are they redirected to a thank-you page? Do they receive the promised freebie promptly? These initial interactions set the tone for your relationship with your subscribers.
Avoiding the Overwhelm
One challenge in email marketing is managing multiple lead magnets or freebies. What if a subscriber signs up for multiple offers simultaneously? We must prevent them from being bombarded with too many emails at once. Striking this balance is crucial in the opt-in phase.
While there’s a lot more I look for when I do an Email Automation Audit, in essence the Opt-in pillar revolves around two key objectives:
- Delivering What’s Promised: Ensure your subscribers receive the content or freebies they signed up for promptly. This not only fulfills your commitment but also builds trust.
- Managing Email Frequency: Find the right balance between staying memorable and not overwhelming your subscribers with a flood of emails. It’s about Automating with Heart” while ensuring you’re remembered.
(And by the way, if you’re wondering just what exactly is the ideal frequency, as I share on the Driven Woman Entrepreneur Podcast, it depends.)
In our next essay, we’ll dive into the third pillar, Offer. This is where we explore how to share your offers in an automated way based on what you know about your subscribers.
Read the next post in the Fix Your Flow series, Selling with Soul: A Human-Centric Way to Sell with Automated Emails