Email is Dead. Long Live Email.

Email is Dead. Long Live Email.

by | May 18, 2020 | Leadership, Marketing

“Email is dead”.  That’s what I hear from the plethora of marketing/seo companies who show up in email accounts that I seldom use.  Instead of attempting to build a relationship with me, they’re looking for a marketing spend “booty call”.

I have passed on the booty calls, but I was buying the message that email is dead.  My email marketing had been, in a word, irrelevant. Impersonal, infrequent communication about topics that weren’t interesting.

Until…a few days ago when my view on email started to shift in a more positive direction.  Why?  I attended a course on effective email marketing and communication – LeeAnn Webster’s Lead Machine Weekend.

What I began to see was that email isn’t dead at all.  It’s actually a timeless skill that has been relegated to the back row of communication methods, pushed out by emojis and omnipresent social media.  As a result, our ability to write an email with heart and clarity has declined, especially over the last ten years.  That’s sad.

So now when it comes to email, I more closely resemble a Mark Twain quote: “The report of my death was an exaggeration.”

I’ve begun to revamp my email marketing communication using the following best practices.  According to LeeAnn at Lead Machine, an effective marketing email has five components:

  1. Engaging content – interesting, relevant to the reader and likely to elicit a response
  2. Authentic voice – is written like the business or author would talk
  3. Regularity – delivered on a routine basis – not too frequently or infrequently
  4. Delivered with seamless technology – like a good friend, just shows up without any hassle
  5. Contains valuable information (lead magnet) – this is free information that supports the reader.

Let’s compare these five best practices to a recent email that landed in my personal inbox on March 14, 2020. 

It was a “Dear Family” email from a restaurant 200 miles from my home where I had cancelled a dinner reservation sometime in 2017.  Since I apparently was “family”, they went on to tell me about their approach to cleaning their restaurant and that they were “closely monitoring the situation.”

  1. Engaging content – “we’re cleaning our restaurant”
  2. Authentic voice – if this is how they talk to their family, I imagine there are some strained relationships
  3. Regularity – once since 2017
  4. Delivered with seamless technology – like a narcissist friend showing up
  5. Contains valuable information – none

The “Dear Family” email is a total miss on all five points.   My response to this less than heartfelt communication was “unsubscribe”.

Since learning these best practices, I’ve been critiquing marketing emails – including ones that I have generated in the past.   This disappointing result is not unusual.  Most are a total miss.

Ok, now for the timeless part of email.  Writing a great email precisely tracks the creation process of something that is quite uncommon these days – the letter.  Illustrating this point, let’s review a typical letter that I received from my Grandparents, Honey and Poppa, circa 1982.

  1. Engaging content – gave me a glimpse into their life in that moment and that they wish I were there too
  2. Authentic voice – 100% authenticity, 100% of the time, they didn’t know anything different.  Being a social influencer meant doing the right thing in the neighborhood
  3. Regularity – every holiday, birthday and once a month in between
  4. Delivered with seamless technology – just put a stamp on it, drop it in the mailbox, and it would arrive like clockwork two days later
  5. Contains valuable information – telling me about their plans for our next celebration, which were always great

Kudos to LeeAnn Webster for using timeless concepts to bring email into a modern, relevant discussion.

How does your email marketing stack up against these best practices?  Do you have heartfelt and relevant emails to share?  Have you written a letter recently?  

Please comment below and let me know!

Best,

Jeff@COOForYou.com
888-588-0357