The art of the email
People email each other all the time. There are personal emails, business emails, mass emails, bulk emails, spam emails, and more. The key here is how to make emails effective.
I get emails all the time from India introducing their company to me. Most do not even mention my name in the email which makes it IMPERSONAL. This is bad and should be avoided.
I get emails from clueless individuals stating that they are ready for “the” job. There is no job. I never advertised a job. It is better to ask where I think they might be able to find “a” job. Don’t go looking for work where it doesn’t exist.
I get emails from companies who want me to give them outsourcing work. But, they never seem to ask what type of work I am interested in having done.
Making it personal
The key here is to successfully introduce yourself, and your company, and to create a dialogue with the other party. Most emails get discarded without a second thought. So, the art you need to master is getting favorable attention and creating dialogue. Step one is to know the name of who you are emailing and something about their company and their needs. If you send generic emails to many companies, you will get ignored by all. However, if you make a special effort to get to know an INDIVIDUAL and make it personal, you might get some attention, especially if you are providing exactly what that person needs.
Mass emailing
Emailing for business is highly effective, and almost all companies use this tool. However, there are correct and incorrect ways to use this tool. If you email people materials they don’t want, or didn’t ask for, you are going to get marked as a spammer. However, if you develop rapport with the people you are sending emails to, THEN you can send mass emails, providing that the particular materials you are sending are of interest to ALL members of the group you are mass emailing. Mass emails can create a magical momentum for blog marketing, or just keeping in touch with your clients. I use mass emailing DAILY, and I do it correctly, and get 20% response rates from blog promotion emails, simply because I know all of the 7000 individuals I am mailing, and know what they like to read about.
Segmenting
Read any MBA book and they will talk about segmenting. If you are emailing an individual, you customize the content of the email to please the individual who is reading the email. Answer some of their SPECIFIC questions and you win the game. If you fail to answer their question, but give them a link to some generic page which touches on similar issues, but doesn’t really answer their question, then you alienate the customer by making them feel pushed to the side. But, if you are emailing a GROUP, how do you customize your email to please the group? You segment. If you have 10,000 clients, you figure out how to divide them into groups according to their interests or needs. My blog promotion emails are sent to people who are active in a particular directory, and I study their click behavior. I keep track of what types of posts or articles they like to click on, and then I write more articles that are similar in nature, although each article is unique!
Conclusion
Step one is to find a way to get to know your contact person. Answer their particular questions, and find ways to meet their individual needs. Once you know a person or a group on an individual level, you can email them regularly with materials which they find interesting. The minute you send them materials that they don’t like, or fail to answer their questions, then you lose the game and alienate your contact!
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