You set up your email lists, and your mail delivery system. Kudos.
Now you want to make sure your messages and emails are targeting who you are after. To make that happen you’ll want to look at your mailing lists (those you intend to receive your communications), and see who they actually are.
And if you don’t have sophisticated software, you’re wondering, I bet, how am I supposed to do that?
Well let’s break it down.
Emails aren’t that hard to decipher when you have .edu, .com, .net, .gov, and the many others. You also probably have a list of your customers or partners….. what now?
STEP 1. CREATE A SPREADSHEET. And start categorizing your people, assuming you haven’t collected any meta data yet.
- Are your customers…..interested in product?
- Is your audience….. looking for information or a resource from your project or program?
- Is there a specific stakeholder you are after…. political or business leader representing a specific sector?
STEP 2. ACTIVELY MANAGE YOUR SIGN-UPS. Don’t let this manual labor happen ever again. Instead, set up your mailing subscription lists in ways that are designed to advance your business goals.
- Have a specific product line or program you want to provide updates on and drive action towards – perhaps you set up a specific list for those updates.
- Looking to engage particular groups of people, then make sure you get the information from those people that will allow you to do that.
- Targeting CEOs or energy managers? Ask for job titles. Looking to tackle a city or state? Collect information on location or geography.
STEP 3. ANALYZE YOUR SUBSCRIBERS. Be sure to understand who cares about your communications the most. Be aware of stakeholder types or companies, that actively share or disseminate your information. Also notice if certain groups are not engaging, there could be a lesson to learn to better captivate their interests.
- Not having luck with a particular customer set? Spin them out of your current messaging strategy and try something new. Test out a new message and try to entice them to act.
- Is a particular customer sharing your news and how? Are they linking articles in their social media or pressing “forward”? Don’t be shy to reach out and thank them or ask that particular subscriber what more you can do for them.