Kriti Vichare
Kriti is a marketer, entrepreneur and cartoonist. She is the illustrator and co-founder of EntrepreneurFail, a comic about the ironies of starting a company. She is also the founder of IdeaKube, a company that facilitates brainstorming and networking through ‘ideation parties.’ Kriti was a former marketer at PepsiCo and Kraft Foods, holds an MBA from NYU Stern, and a BS and MS from Carnegie Mellon University.
As alluring as social media is, it is fleeting and many people never see the posts more than once if at all.
Email provides one of the highest conversions in online marketing because everyone checks their emails – even if only looking at the subject line, and it is always in their inbox until deletion. Catching folks on social media is hit-or- miss.
Unfortunately, the state of email marketing generally consists of the following:
- Too much email
- Not enough email
- Unclear calls to action
- Irrelevant information
- Too selly sell
The way to combat the “Wham bam, fear of SPAM” blues, here are some tips and tricks to nurture your email subscribers, and not be an #entrepreneurfail:
- Remember, the ideal balance is 80% content and 20% sales-y emails
- Offer them discounts that you don’t put on social media (and tell them that it’s exclusive for them)
- Encourage engagement by running a contest, asking for votes or design ideas, and reward the winning entries – and give them a little fame
- You don’t have to only share your own content – curate other articles/posts/content out there and share with your subscribers
- Aim to reach out to your email list at a minimum 1-2 times a week (I’m guilty of failing at this one, as my subscribers may forget about me between contacts)
- It’s ok if people unsubscribe since you want only your true future potential customers.
- The rest will remember your site and come to it as necessary
- Always have a call-to-action in the email
- Include all your social media links at the bottom of the email and include links to your site on the email
- Include a button that says forward to a friend on the email
- In the future consider setting up an autoresponder (all the mail clients have it MailChimp, Constant Contact, AWeber, etc etc) which will automatically send pre-planned emails to your new subscribers
The subject line is the most important – make it irresistible and compelling so they have to open the email:
- You’ll Never Believe…
- You won’t want to miss this…
- Jaw-dropping _____ for the new year
- Yes, You could be <enter someone famous>
Do you use email to reach out to your potential customers? Tell us more in the comments below.
This comic was created by Kriti Vichare for #entrepreneurfail: Startup Success.
