Email marketing is still one of the most effective tools of digital marketing, if you do it right. It has some of the highest levels of engagement of any channel and people are literally giving you permission to their inbox and their attention- the latter being one of the most valuable resources any of us has right now.
If you’re relying on social media as your primary outbound channel, then you’re renting the land instead of owning it. We often forget how important it is to use Email Marketing every single day. With social media, algorithms are in control of who sees your messaging and you’ll be lucky if 5-10% of the people who follow you see anything you post. Social is a ‘pay-to-play’ space. When it comes to email, it’s not uncommon to reach nearly everyone you send to with 30-45% engaging in some way.
Today we are sharing an interview with Amy Mangueira of Email Growth Society where she tells how she got started, how other women can grow their business within the email marketing space and the other things Amy is doing to help small businesses grow during the pandemic.
How did you become passionate about email marketing? What made you choose this profession?
I started email by accident. Back in 2003 I was a teacher needing to subsidize my income. So I worked at the front desk of a Fitness facility. I was challenged with new ways to both bring in new leads but also bring back those that popped in for free classes. I got really into email as a channel. I taught myself Mailchimp, starting to leverage it, and saw it actu ally work. From there I started to learn a ton of different systems like Hubspot, Pardot, and Salesforce. I left teaching in 2015 and took a Marketing Operations role that quickly turned into a Director of Marketing role, where once again I leaned heavily on email marketing to drive success. In 2017 I started consulting and founded Email Growth Society, a company focused on helping both B2B and B2C start-ups grow their company through a perfectly architecture email channel.
What are the best tools and tactics to use to measure results from email marketing?
I am a big fan of understand the FULL picture and being realistic on what I can and cannot control. Firstly, it is important to measure email programs by their core audience. Lead emails and customer emails should never be compared, Customers have more loyalty and so when looking at the metrics they are always going to be higher. Next, it is really impor tant to understand you benchmarks and baselines. That will give you the foundation to begin a formal testing and optimization plan. Lastly, email marketers need to know their lane. Once a lead offers up their email address, an email marketers job begins. But that same job ends at the end of the email click. Email marketers need to understand the me trics and micro conversions so they can continue to optimize – deliverability, opens, and clicks. Once a user hits the landing page, the email marketers job ends. I think it is impor tant for the email and eComm/Web team to be really aligned so that they can ensure a seamless user experience.
As an email marketing expert, what are some of the challenges for you when it comes to lead generation?
Well an email program is only as good as the quality of leads coming into the database. And while we always want MORE LEADS, quality trumps all of it. It is so important that personas are created and clear perimeters are set so that the lead generation efforts are bringing in the right people. The email programs are the assist to help covert and then de light these users. Trying to balance the need for MORE leads and GOOD leads is a really big challenge.
What are some of the biggest mistakes you see email marketers making?
The biggest mistake I see is they are simply sending email to send it! They are pressured to get email out the door that it becomes like an assembly line. This creates an environ ment where to simply send out an email is the goal. When I work with clients we shift this perspective to putting the customer at the center of the experience. First, we need to un derstand what email is necessary for the customer journey This may be confirmation emails or anything that can keep a user moving to the conversion goal. Next, we look for all detours and add a program there. A great example is when an user abandons their cart. We need to get them back on track. The first two are trigger, event-based email and are very effective. Only once the two above are created do we look for value-add, stay top-of mind content that is extra to either encourage conversion or delight our customers. This can take shape in a newsletter or a tips & tricks piece. And with this type of email, it is al ways helpful to field a survey that gives your users the opportunity to tell you what kind of content then want and how often.
Please give us one thing anyone can do today to improve their email marketing perfor mance.
They can segment their database, at bare minimum separating leads and customers. This is a HUGE, quick win. Leads and customers are not the same to a business and should not be treated as such. I always like to explain it like this – when we are crafting an email strategy for leads, it is similar to dating. You need to take several opportunities to let these folks get to know you and you need to get to know them. It takes time, and they are not going to be interested in everything, but they will likely come around when they are ready and be ready to marry you. Now customers, they already have brand loyalty and relations hip – you’ve tied the knot. You want to communicate to them differently, offering them special perks and showing appreciation. This one change is usually a life changer for any email program.
What opportunities has the pandemic’s confinement created?
Out of nowhere I was inundated with companies needing to pivot to email after having o close their brick-and-mortar store. This past year has made our mission at Email Growth Society more than just email – it is about saving companies! We were challenged to part ner closely with other channel leaders and created seamless integrated experiences where the email channel was in a position to assist sales. It has been rewarding, that’s for sure!
Tell us more about your business, what are the services provided?
We are email only – period! We give 100% of our attention to email programs which is out superpower. We specialize in B2B and B2C Start-ups, specifically those companies that are growing. We offer end-to-end email services for companies that may not have email in place at all to those that need to jumpstart the channel. The perk: getting things started
can take a really long time, but we can get any company up and running in 7 days or less! We pride ourselves on being educators first. We put out a lot of content that is created to help businesses make small gains with their email programs. We also appreciate our part nerships. We are proud partners with Klaviyo as well as Shopify For Start-ups.
What should every aspiring entrepreneur know about founding a business? What do you wish you had known earlier in your career?
Be the Go-Giver! I think the reason anyone starts a business is to make money and be able to follow a dream. I sort of moved into being an entrepreneur organically and is large ly came from being an educator first. I am the first to share and offer insights to help others. That naturally lead to working more closely with companies and before I knew it, I had created a network. I think that anyone that wants to go into business should read the book “The Go-Giver” by Bob Burg and John David Mann. It really puts a different spin on what success looks like.
Tell me about what you’re working on now.
We are working to launch a podcast for small business and start-ups that will offer weekly tips for their email channels. On the show we will have a variety of guests that will offer different perspectives and offer actionable takeaways for the listeners. We are hoping to launch this show “Conversations with an Email Guru” by later April so stay tuned.
Share two advice for female entrepreneurs.
Never forget to ask for help! This has been something I have had to work really hard on. By learning to ask for help, female entrepreneurs can reveal their strengths, not their weaknesses. By not asking for help, especially in business, we are utilizing time and efforts that could have bee focused on a better effort.
Keep showing up! Women, especially, often don’t become entrepreneurs because they fear failure. Fear is natural, but overcoming fear is powerful. Don’t be afraid to fail. Learn from it. And keep showing up.
Join the discussion!