This week, my inspiration comes from Dave Delaney’s “New Business Networking Radio” podcast: Episode 43; guest, Jason Keath. There is a ton of goodness packed into Dave’s interview with Jason, CEO of SocialFresh, but the moment that stuck out for me the most occurs around 15 minutes in. And it’s a goodie.

What’s Your Purpose?

In answering Dave’s on-point question about networking tips for attending conferences, Jason replies, “Have one Purpose.”

On one hand, what a great angle for approaching networking events. Instead of rambling around the room…rambling, or standing against the back wall pretending to be busy on your phone (yes, that’s me), Jason reminds us of the importance of arriving with a singular purpose. Decide on that purpose before getting dressed, keep that purpose in mind as you grab your nametag, and be monomaniacal about that purpose with every hand that you shake. I totally dig that, and I am going to steal it.

On the other hand, the inspiration here is not to only steal it for networking; it’s to steal it for life. We should take the time to focus on that.

I am going to take a wild guess that you are busy; some might call your days super-busy. So busy, in fact, that it’s 100% blowing my mind that you are taking the time to finish reading this post (thank you for that). I am busy, too. And I admit that the distraction of being busy oftentimes leads directly to my adopting numerous, scattered purposes. It might not seem like such a bad thing on the surface, having many purposes, but when you lose sight of the one, the capital-P Purpose, that’s an issue. Here at SME Digital, we call that capital-P Purpose your “zone of genius”. If that inspires you, steal it.

Your zone of genius is that part of your day that is effortless. It’s that thing you do that provides you energy, instead of taking energy away. It’s that space where, if you can stay there, you do the good work that you’re meant to do, that you enjoy doing, and that fulfills your Purpose. We should focus more on that Purpose and run everything else that we do against it.

My Turn

So here is my Purpose, thanks for asking (and I want yours in return).

My life Purpose: To enable my wife and kids to do the good work that they are meant to do. I’m a caretaker, and my purpose is to do everything that I can to care for them.

My work Purpose: Creating simplicity and beauty out of the complicated. (A little spoiler there from our coming-soon SME Digital website.)

But even beyond those, what is the reason, the Purpose, that I work here at SME Digital? Putting aside humility here for a moment, we are excellent at a lot of things: Conversation Reports, Digital Strategy, Marketing Automation, Social Outreach, etc. But where we really shine…our zone of genius…our Purpose… is Measurement. We’re phenomenal at measurement, and everything that we do, every other purpose that we take on, serves that larger Purpose.

Helping marketers become business Rock Stars by proving marketing’s effectiveness.

Apologies for the commercial there, but that exercise is important for a specific reason. When I attend networking events or participate in 1:1 outreach, I now know my Purpose. Yes, I am a caretaker by nature, and yes, I am a creative director by trade, but the one thing that I am going to talk to you about when we share a table: Measurement. Are you doing it? Are you actually being effective? Are you satisfied with your measurement? If so, awesome; tell me more about it. If not, I have a Purpose. And having a Purpose feels good and is empowering. It might even get me to put down my phone and leave the sweet comfort of that back wall.

Your Turn

Now, it’s your turn. What is your Purpose? Consider this blog a networking event, or at least a networking opportunity, step up to the plate, and commit to your Purpose. And if you’re not comfortable having that conversation yet, then making that decision, putting your stake in the ground, and committing to be monomaniacal about your zone of genius, well that’s your new Purpose.

Many thanks to Jason Keath and Dave Delaney for the reminder of how important and how valuable having a singular Purpose is. Own yours, and let us know what it is. There’s a comments section (and a Twitter account and a Facebook Page, etc.) for that. *Shanti*

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My foray into blogging has been a long one. 14 years now, best I can count. Unfortunately, it took me too many of those years to start understanding the importance of email to any publisher and business. To start to “build a list” as they say.

I have worked with social media as my primary career for going on five years now. And still to this day, when I talk to someone that needs marketing advice, I am more likely to talk to them about email strategy than Twitter strategy.

Email is far from dead. It is still the most reliable way to get a message to your customers and fans. A lot of businesses understand this today and are getting better at email.

The first piece of the puzzle, list building, is a pretty scientific endeavor these days. There are tested methods to get the emails of your customers and fans into a list, from simply asking at the register to clean opt-in forms on your website.

Where I see a lot businesses struggle more often is what to do with the list once they have it. I wanted to walk through 8 different methods of email strategies and the pros of cons of each. No company needs to lock themselves in to just one type, but they should think through the all to find the ones right for them and more importantly right for their audience.

So let’s jump in.

1. Bad Relative Strategy

This one falls squarely in the avoid category and yet is pretty common. You ask your fans for their trusted email address. They give it to you, hoping for something awesome. And you never call. You never write. But 7 months later when Christmas comes around, you get on it and email out to your list. Or a new sale is coming up, you remember those emails you have been collecting, and you shoot your list a rare and abrupt note.

Just like the bad relative that you see at holidays and when they need money, your customers will ignore you or unsubscribe from you in droves if they only hear from you several months apart. This is not a strategy, this is an afterthought. Be sure to have a plan.

2. Newsletter

The email newsletter is the catchall of email marketing. It usually includes multiple types of content that we are going to touch on, for better or worse.

Pros: Newsletter can be great for maintaining a relationship existing customers and your biggest fans. If done well (see Chris Penn or DJ Waldow) fans will get value from them, get updated on your business, and look forward to the next installment. These work really well when your company culture is clear and oozes throughout the email.

Cons: The risk of a newsletter is boring your fans to death. If you just throw in your latest announcements, new hires, latest clients hired, and you leave out personality, culture, and useful content, boredom and disinterest ensue. Your newsletter becomes a quilt of grey and is ignored. Newsletters are difficult usually because of too much content. The more items you add in the less focus for the reader. Usually I would advise fewer options and making them count.

3. Blog Post Feed

This method requires you have a blog. So get a blog if you don’t have one.

When someone asks me what RSS is, I tell them it is a way for geeks to read a lot of blogs and content more easily. RSS subscribers historically are a small club, the adoption rates are very low amongst internet users. What works better is taking your blog content (through RSS) and having people to subscribe to it through email. Feedburner, a Google product, even makes this quite easy to do if your email service provider (ESP) does not offer this feature.

Pros: The big benefit here, if your blog content is interesting, is it’s a high value way to connect with your audience. Providing useful and hopefully interesting blog posts to your fans and customers on a regular basis, straight to their email inbox, can build a great fan loop of stakeholders for you, waiting to support your next product, event, etc.

This technique is also really helpful because you are reusing or distributing existing content, so there is little added work. Social Fresh focuses on this strategy because we are a publisher. Many blogs do. Copyblogger is another good example here.

Cons: As I said this email campaign requires that you have a blog. It also, this is where it gets tricky, requires that you have a good and readily updated blog. If you do, this method is gold. Unfortunately blogging is really hard to get right and most businesses do not blog or do not blog well. So this strategy can easily become the Bad Relative kind of email campaign.

4. Special, Products, Coupons

If you are a retail operation a lot of your fans are probably expecting this email strategy from you. They probably want to know when your latest and greatest new widget is coming out. They likely would really love to know before the rest of the world. And they of course would also like a 100% coupon so they can pick it up for free.

Pros: Consumer love coupons and sales. And these are proven marketing engines. These types of emails get major traction for retailers. I have worked on a few retailer email strategies and the product is what subscribers react to.

Your biggest fans want to know the second new products are out. They want to see previews. And they want discounts for being loyal. Most retailers will tell you, as well, that email traffic from this type of campaign over performs almost all other traffic when it comes to converting to actual sales.

And this does not need to be a physical product. HubSpot is a great example of product emails. They consistently ping their list about ebooks and webinars that are free and keep their fans coming back.

Cons: Unfortunately you are programming your customers to only pay attention to specials and coupons and new products. This can work for some business models, but if you have more to say, anything without a 20% off code might be ignored even more than usual.

5. Partner Promotion Emails

Getting someone else with a good email list to email their subscribers on your behalf is an amazing way to get access to a new audience. Many businesses may have toyed with this a little but very few commit to this strategy as a long term, repeatable effort because it is difficult. Traditional internet marketers that move information products like self help seminars and blogging workshops are really good at this. They team up with other like minded marketers to email their list on their behalf.

Pros: You get access to a brand new audience to promote your product or cause to. You can target your partners based on their audiences and who would likely be best aligned with your goals. And typically organizations that can help in this capacity have an audience that is use to getting emails and can be more responsive than a cold list.

Cons: For one this is hard to do. Finding partners with email lists is easier in some industries, say marketing or event planning, than others, like pool cleaning. Yes, random, but you get my point. With effort there are usually partners to be had though.

Once you do find potential partners to send email on your behalf you then have to offer them something in return, which can be tricky. Sometimes people will help you out because you are offering a benefit that their audience wants, but not always. And sometimes what you would need to give up in order to make the partnership happen, might not be worth it.

This is a tricky but rewarding strategy when you put the work in.

6. Curated Content

Scouring the web for interesting and useful content from your website and others can be a very useful service to your audience. This is one of the oldest types of email newsletters and continues to pay dividends for many. SmartBrief has several curated email channels by industry. Others like CityBizList provide lists based on geography. We have seen great response at Social Fresh to our weekly 7 links. Industry goers love the service.

Pros: You are providing a very high value content offering to people. Curating content on a very specific topic that they care about saves them a lot of time and shows them your expertise at the same time.

Cons: It can take a lot of time if you are curating well. And you are going to be promoting a lot of links and websites that does little for your bottom line.

7. Personal Letter

The personal letter approach is very personal and best for a high profile employee (CEO, VP, etc) or for startups and sole proprietors. In effect you are sending personal notes through email. Evoking personality. Building a report with the audience. Derek Halpern does this well at Social Triggers. As does Peter Shankman as part of his HARO emails.

Pros: You build a strong relationship with readers this way. Derek promotes a piece of content weekly with his emails, usually something he has written or an outside project he has been involved with. But instead of the RSS strategy above where things are automated, Derek crafts a personal note and points to only his best content. Peter simply adds life to what is otherwise a very utilitarian service. Without his personal notes, his readers might get a little bored and would not identify him as much with his brand.

Cons: Writing a personal letter can be good in some scenarios and fall flat in others. In retail for instance, a personal letter is not what most subscribers are looking for primarily. This requires consistency, good writing, and the ability to be consistently interesting. Most humans fail on one of these points. As with a lot of these, the work has to be put in.

8. Exclusive Content

Email courses, drip content, many types of traditional email efforts fall into this category. Think of the exclusive content category as writing a blog through email. A great example of this drip content can be found at Copyblogger and their “Internet Marketing For Smart People” course.

Pros: This content is something that is often set and forget. You can create a 20 email content piece that includes calls to action to your products at the end and sprinkled throughout carefully and let your audience find it and consume it as they see fit. Some of these courses can be going for years with little work needed. You can even take existing content from your blog or other content channels and package it together in a unique way to produce this package.

Cons: The negative here is the lack of fresh content. You are not keep your fans up to date, sending them to the latest products or offerings, giving them a current sense of your business.

As an add-on, this type of campaign can be great for a product that will not go through a lot of change. Writing out 10 or 20 emails ahead of time is also a time commitment. Good drip email needs to be very helpful to succeed.

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As you review your email marketing results for 2011 or start them from scratch in 2012, think carefully about what kind of emails you are going to send. Pick and choose from this list, as long as you avoid #1, and put together a cohesive strategy for the new year.

Jason Keath is CEO of Social Fresh, a social media education company. Their next social media conference is Social Fresh EAST on February 6-7 in Tampa, FL featuring speakers from RadioShack, Pepsi, Nordstrom, and Scott Monty of Ford.

Have You Registered For Explore Dallas-Fort Worth?

Don’t miss a day of intensive learning with some of the leading thinkers and practitioners in the digital marketing and social media marketing space. Copyblogger’s Brian Clark, Edison Research’s Tom Webster, Edelman Digital’s Zena Weist and more headline one of the leading digital and social media marketing events of 2012, February 17 in Dallas, Texas! DON’T WAIT TO REGISTER! The first 100 to do so get an incredible discount! Reserve your seat today!

The post 8 Email Strategies for Your Business appeared first on Social Media Explorer.

Altimeter Group’s Jeremiah Owyang will present original research at the event, which will also feature Todd Defren, Laura Fitton, Tim Hayden, Ann Handley, C.C. Chapman, DJ Waldow, Mike Schneider, Mike Lewis and myself. Plus, we’ve got a brand case studies panel that will be certain to give attendees awesome ideas as takeaways.

But wait, there’s more!

I’m tickled to announce that Jason Keath of Social Fresh has been added to the speaker lineup, too! Jason will take us through ideas on how to turn your blog and your blog posts into business-driving machines by putting them through landing page optimization techniques. That’s a nice add-on to a day that includes topics such as integrating social with traditional marketing, preparing for the mobile revolution, location-based marketing, building email marketing that is social and more.

I’m convinced you won’t find a lineup like this at a single-day event for such a ridiculously low price. For the $250 registration fee you get breakfast, lunch and a free month trial of ExploringSocialMedia.com. You get to hear some of the top thinkers in the digital marketing business and network with them and other attendees as well. For $250! SRSLY?!

Get your spot now! The price goes up as of 11:55 p.m. EST Saturday night. Don’t wait. You’ll kick yourself if  you do.

Register here:

And we’ll see you in Boston!

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