Stay Focused

A lot of you out there send emails whenever you want, about whatever you want. You probably have a newsletter that goes out monthly (except when it doesn’t), you pubish your course calendar as soon as it’s “final,” and you send two or three announcements for each program you run. And if you happen to be teaching on two consecutive weekends in different places and on different topics, you send your whole list announcements for both (or better yet, combine them into one email featuring both courses).

Because you’ve been doing it this way for a long time, or because you’re afraid to be seen as “pushy” by your audience (which is a legitimate fear), you would hesitate to send 12 emails in a row to your list on the same topic, with no interruptions for other emails. And if you’re really attached to the way you’ve been doing things, you will probably disagree with what I suggest below.

But hear me out! And understand that a focused email strategy is the best fit for a certain context in which you want to sell something and may not apply to your situation at all, or at least not all the time.

The Trouble with Shoot-From-the-Hip Email

At some point, maybe I’ll write another article about email list segmentation, hotlisting, and send-stacking for deliverability. But there’s a bigger issue I see with haphazard email sends: Your audience can’t figure out what to pay attention to, or what you’re asking them to do. And the confused mind says “No” so they won’t sign up for your courses unless they are already so convinced that they need what you’re selling that they are willing to do some of the work themselves to get it.

A focused email strategy on the other hand allows you to meet your customers where they are at, bring them on a journey with you, and keep their attention where you want it to be.

What a Focused Email Strategy Is

What I mean by this term is simply that you send emails about a single topic at a time. You focus your audience’s attention on that one thing and you don’t distract them with anything else. Part of the reason for this is logistical: if you have a focused email campaign going, taking up the ’empty’ days with other email blasts risks saturating your list and burning them out. But the primary purpose of implementing a focused email strategy is to sell one thing, and sell it well.

An Ideal Arc

The ideal length of an email campaign, both in terms of the number of emails and how far in advance the first is sent from the last, depends on what you are selling. As a general rule, in-person events that require trave, online courses lasting more than 8 weeks, and high-ticket (4-figure+) offers all benefit from a longer campaign.

The sequence of emails you use can vary widely, but should typically at least contain emails with each of the following themes:

• An announcement of something new
• An emotionally compelling reason to get it
• Some kind of risk-reversal, whether it’s an elaborate free-content video series designed to warm up your customer so they know who they’re dealing with an what they’re getting into, or simply a money-back guarantee
• Timely warning that the opportunity is ending

Frequency

Now, opinions vary among marketers (and I anticipate ferocious disagreement here), but in the personal and professional self-development market, we’ve seen that sending more than one email per day, at least in the beginning of a series to an audience who has not demonstrated interest, is too much. Sending an email every day is pushing it, and should only be done for a couple of days in a row.

Our typical launch email sequence for a course with 5 weeks of live sessions has between 10 and 13 emails and lasts a minimum of 2 weeks, usually not longer than 20 days.

(However, not every email goes to every contact.)

You might be thinking, “10 emails for a single course?! Won’t my hard-earned email list all unsubscribe?” And if you sent the same email with the same information each time, many of them probably would (though fewer than you think). But that’s why it’s important to have a variety of things to write about in your email sequence.

Expanding on the four essential themes above, you could easily come up with two emails for each theme that are at least a little bit different. That gets you to 8 emails. And then we usually like to give a couple of emotionally compelling reasons, so 9. Then we very often recommend a free live webinar as a launch strategy, and that gets you 3 more emails right there. They add up quickly!

Conclusion

Bringing our exploration of the focused email strategy to a close, it’s clear that the strategy is a far cry from the slapdash emailing practices we so often fall into. It requires deliberate planning, clear messaging, and an unswerving commitment to a singular focus. While the sound of firing off up to 13 emails for a single course might have initially set off alarm bells, variety and valuable content can keep your audience engaged without prompting a mass exodus.

Just as you wouldn’t try to teach a course on a dozen different topics at once, don’t flood your audience with multiple topics in your emails. Stick to a single subject, guide your audience on a journey, and you’ll find them far more receptive to what you’re selling.

Remember, the goal is not to bombard your audience but to provide them with a coherent, compelling narrative that highlights the value of what you’re offering. In the end, isn’t that why you’re in the business of education? Ditch the ‘shoot-from-the-hip’ email practice and embrace a strategy that respects your audience’s attention and meets them where they are.