8 Considerations for a Thoughtful Email Marketing Strategy
Would you prefer to listen to this post Instead?
Listen below!
In business as well as in life, I think it’s a solid practice to look at a wide array of options available to us. When we are overly reliant on one strategy, platform, or client, it can render us rather inflexible—making any disruption quite bumpy. And in today’s world, it seems that many business owners continue to equate marketing with social media.
However, I’m still of the mind that email marketing is one of the most powerful and effective marketing tools available to us. There is a lot to be gained as the business owner when someone gives you their email address. Unlike with social media where there is a third-party intermediary between you and your audience, email gives you direct access to someone’s inbox.
And personally, I love the intimacy of an email over a post on my feed.
Our inboxes have gotten almost as noisy as our social feeds lately though, but I still firmly believe that the principles of Mindful Marketing stand here. When done thoughtfully, email can be beneficial for you, your business, and your audience. It can be a more gentle way to share the information that you want to without the all-powerful, forever-mysterious algorithm standing in the way.
Without further ado, here are some of the email practices and elements I’ve adopted and loved (and that I also appreciate as a consumer!).
1) What’s in it for your audience to be on your newsletter list?
To me, being granted access to someone’s inbox feels sacred. After all, this is a place where many of us spend many of our working hours. I see it as an immense privilege and deep responsibility to be especially thoughtful in how I am showing up.
Never forget that this direct connection with our audience is a gift! It allows us to share our voice and our work. And, as is the goal of Mindful Marketing to find the reciprocity in all interactions, how can we acknowledge the gift we receive as business owners for having folx on our list, and offer them something really beautiful in return?
What is it that your newsletter subscribers get that nobody else does? Make sure that you’re providing value equal to or greater than what you’re receiving, and be as clear as possible about what they’re getting. This generosity is something to consider not only for the initial email exchange but also for your ongoing email marketing strategy.
In general, it’s more effective to have a specific ask rather than simply saying, “Sign up for my newsletter.” It’s kind to be clear, and it’s helpful for your audience to know what they are getting themselves into should they sign up for your list.
I try to be as generous as possible to the folx on my mailing list, so new subscribers to my list automatically gain access to a whole library of free Mindful Marketing resources, an archive of my past newsletters since early 2020, plus additional monthly tips and access to new resources as I create them. This feels like reciprocity to me, and the best way for me to convey my gratitude to those who sign up for my list is to offer a complete repository for all of the free content I create.
Want to take a peek at what’s inside?
2) Make a specific offering to build your list.
If after thinking through the questions in #1 you’ve decided that your newsletter will include exclusive content not shared anywhere else, then maybe that’s all you need to share!
However, it can be helpful to consider a specific something that you will offer in exchange for an email address. This is most commonly known as a lead magnet. It can take various shapes! It could be an email series, or a workbook, or a video recording, or a free event. Whatever it is, it’s helpful to think of:
What do I want to be known for?
What content do I feel OK with sharing for free that will help to establish me as an expert?
Honor your strengths here! If the idea of designing a workbook makes you freeze, consider writing an email series instead. If the idea of writing results in you staring at a blank screen and a blinking cursor for hours on end, consider recording an audio or video. If the idea of being on camera gives you sweaty palms, consider creating a fun quiz.
Here’s one of my favorite examples of this, from my dear friend Amelia Hruby of Softer Sounds.
3) Help your folx feel at home with a welcome series.
A welcome series is exactly what it sounds like: a series of 2-6 (usually automated) emails that introduce your new subscriber to your work, provide a lot of value, and show them how they can further engage with your content if they choose.
This guides your subscriber along the path to working with you so they can make informed decisions about how your work can help them. This can also build trust and answer a lot of questions about who you are and what you do!
Some things to include in your welcome series:
A free gift (or a few!)
More about who you are, what you do, and WHY you do it
Inspiration, stories, resources, helpful tools—anything that feels so beautifully like you and also focuses on being of service to your reader
And finally… how they can access your other offerings if they so choose
4) Commit to regular missives.
A piece of marketing advice we hear frequently is to be consistent. (And while I mostly agree with this, we are human and sometimes flexibility is necessary.)
When you begin your email marketing journey, it’s helpful to think about how often you plan to send an email and how you want to structure them.
Pick a schedule you can (mostly) stick with, and consider creating a template to make email creation simple and to ensure you won’t forget any important elements.
I always look forward to Lindsay Mack’s monthly emails that include a channelled download + Tarot spread for the upcoming astrological season. She sends it on the cusp of when the Sun moves into a new astrological sign. I find it to be such a beautiful example of consistency and value.
Want to see what I mean?
5) Use segmenting to better curate the experience for each person.
Eventually, as your email marketing strategy expands, it can be helpful to think through specific messages to different groups within your larger audience. Many email marketing systems allow for tagging or segmenting, which allows you to easily interact with different parts of your audience in different ways.
For example, you might want to segment a portion of your audience who has already purchased one of your paid offerings because your messaging to them might be different than with those who are brand new to your work.
This is useful for you and your audience because your customers are getting content that is more relevant to them, and you are able to design an experience that is more fitting for your audience based on how they have previously interacted with you. As a consumer, it makes me feel really seen and cared for when I receive messages that are more tailored to my unique experience.
You can really go wild with all the possibilities here, so I find that it’s helpful to start small.
If segmenting is sparking ideas for you and you’d like to talk about how this might look for you, you’re welcome to chat with me during my Virtual Office Hours!
6) Allow for opt-outs.
When we are in the middle of a launch, it is typical to reach out to your list more frequently than normal. However, it’s helpful to remember that if we initially said we’d be emailing monthly, and then all of a sudden folx are receiving emails from us every few days, that can be off-putting. With that change in frequency, it can also negatively impact your list with people unsubscribing because they feel like they are getting something different than what they initially signed up for.
So what can you do instead? I find it so refreshing for those folx who give the option to opt-out of the launch emails but still remain on the overall list.
If we take it back to point #5 above, we have to consider that it might just not be the right time for some folx to participate in a launch, and providing an easy opt-out allows them to maintain a relationship with you that feels more appropriate for where they are in their journey.
For example, one of my superlative clients Mara Glatzel is always so considerate of how she engages with her email list. During a recent launch for one of her courses, she added a P.S. to every launch email that clearly encouraged folx to unsubscribe from her launch emails. With this consent-based strategy, it allows her audience to have more autonomy over their experience, and that is something I can emphatically stand behind!
Want to see an example of this in action for her next launch? (You can also peek another great example of a lead magnet with her Needy quiz!)
7) Regularly clean your list.
Yes, list size is important, but how healthy is your list?
It can vary by industry, and the smaller your list, typically a higher open rate you have, but a general rule of thumb to use as a guidepost is that a 30% open rate is considered solid.
So a little bit of homework for you! Take a look at your open rates. If those have been steadily falling, it might be time to “clean” your list. This can also be something that you do regularly, like an email list spring cleaning! (Personally, I like to make it a part of my quarterly tasks.)
This can also save you money because many email marketing platforms charge you by the number of subscribers, so it may be a good idea to archive those folx who have not been engaging with your content in a while.
I love the way Being Boss does this. I have received a few of these emails from them over the years. It happens when I haven’t engaged with their content in a while. I don’t know the exact parameters, but I would imagine it’s that I haven’t opened an email from them in a few months.
Here’s a screenshot of the email I received from them recently to give you an idea of how to communicate this to your list.
8) Explore other ways to build your list with other things you’re doing.
Again, social media is often considered the only way to market these days, but it’s just not true. While social media can be a part of your Mindful Marketing plan, consider other options for reaching your audience and building your list that might be more in line with your values, such as SEO (organic traffic, woot!), guest posting, podcast guesting, etc.
You can also add additional components to blog posts like free workbooks or worksheets that allow readers to take that work further (and build your list at the same time). This is something I’ve implemented for myself, and I steadily see my own newsletter list growing and the majority of it comes from these blog posts that have additional resources that expand on the blog topic.
At the end of the day, email marketing is still my favorite way to talk to my audience and is one of the most practical, reliable ways to reach people who want to engage with your work. It also fits nicely with Mindful Marketing and sustainable business because it doesn’t have to be all about thrice daily emails and clickbait subject lines to be successful. There are really thoughtful ways to do email marketing that are also supportive of all nervous systems involved.
Want to explore how to put this in practice for your business?
Want to infuse your business with Mindful Marketing resources?
Explore these other blogs — each with its own complementary workbook to support your growth.
Photo credit: Creating Light Studio