Dusting off your email marketing the right way

Yesterday I received an email newsletter from a Shopify app I signed up for years ago.

It was a newspaper-like email with half a dozen half-articles.

Not bad but they've never emailed me before so it was a bit confusing.

What probably happened was they added me to their mailing list but let it sit until today. If I didn't recognize their name, it would have gone into my black hole folder (think spam but blocked even better).

I get it, they probably wanted to start back up their email marketing because it's such an effective channel. But there was no preamble or list defrosting done, just an info-dump to a cold list.

I hear from a lot of Shopify stores who want to start using email marketing but they're afraid of emailing their past customers.

Here's a (not so secret) "secret"...

Make your first email a simple one that introduces what you care about and explain what you'll be emailing about.

And if you haven't emailed in a long time (few months) or ever, feel free to say exactly that and explain how you're going to start again.

Honesty and approachability are big right now.

You'll get some unsubscribes, especially if it's been a while since emailing. But that's okay, those are people just saying they aren't interested. You're giving them the option of saying no instead of confusing them and pissing them off later.

Once you send it, start working on the next one. It's easier to write if you have a few emails "in the bank".

And if you start now, your list will be fully defrosted for the holiday season.

Eric Davis