Own the Channel: Email is Direct Communications with your ICP
Email is underutilized as a marketing channel.
Usually, because of fear. As the company grows and ownership, regulations, and the email list all grows together.
But, that’s essential to keep being top-of-mind for your audience.
Why Tech and B2B Fail in Email
Over the past year, I have worked with multiple companies underutilizing email marketing.
Sitting on lists from 1k to 100k emails without any communications.
Tech
Especially tech founders, see email as a transactional feature to add to their database.
They don’t see themselves as “writers” or great communicators. And, may even block marketing from communicating because they might “not understand” their audience.
This creates communication silence.
From the fear of not saying something wrong you end up not saying anything.
B2B / Enterprise
Looking at companies selling to other companies, especially bigger, complex organizations, there are other issues:
Ownership complexity (who owns the list/user)
Complex lists (micro-segmentations)
Messy CRMs
Not-a-priority for mass-communications
Business email owners leave the company
Here, it’s a freeze on action due to indecisions of corporate structures.
At a minimum, a monthly newsletter with simple updates of the company can do wonders.
Case #1: New Features = Demos
One case, the company were collecting newsletter registrations, lead magnet downloads, and demo requests to a small 4-figure email list.
It doesn’t sound like a big list to make an impact.
But, questioning the founders, they released dozen of features and went from near-stealth mode to public since then.
Not once communicating with that list.
First email in a year, and 24 hours later 10 excited responses around the features.
6 were direct requests for features.
4 were general questions around the product.
Case #2: Fragmented Comms to a Newsletter
Another case, the company had a large email list they never “cleaned”.
The sales team complained on deliverability.
And, the marketing team was only emailing arbitrary segmented lists.
We prepared a process:
Email newsletter cadence
Email template / categories
List clean-up after every newsletter (bounced, inactive, auto-replies)
Nurturing emails set
Direct ROI
In this case, there is no direct ROI.
No new demos are attached to email.
Indirect ROI
After every email blast, demo requests spiked.
Direct, organic (branded) channels mostly.
Other results
The months after starting a newsletter deliverability slowly improved by removing bad emails.
Email is Direct Communication
There are only 3 direct communication options to your Ideal Customer Personas (ICP):
Face to Face
Phone (calls, messages)
Email
All are important to create familiarity and trust.
Why is it important?
Email is the main communication channel you own:
Not impacted by social algorithms
Direct to the inbox (and phone notifications) of your prospects
Grows in value over time
Of course, it requires maintenance.
The downsides
A bad email list can affect your whole company’s communications and hurt the brand.
But, product updates, sharing valuable resources, and announcing upcoming events you participate never harmed any company.
Remind your ICP that you exist by using email communications.
It’s the one channel you will always own a direct line of communication to your audience.