I'm such a profound believer that timing is everything; I would tattoo that on my arm.

In partnership with

Email marketers overcomplicate email marketing.

Should an email have images or not?

How long should the email be?

Should you test different subject lines?

All of these questions are valid and a worthwhile discussion to have.

But they are details with respect to what makes email marketing effective.

The truth is that email marketing shines when the it’s the right message, for the right person, at the right time.

If the message hits the relevant person at the relevant time, then images, length, and rearranging words in the subject line don’t matter so much.

I was reminded of this simple message this week by an email I saw from REI, the outdoor retailer.

This email is sent after someone purchases a kids bike from REI.

I’m going to show you that email below soon.

First, I want to rewind a bit to discuss the strategy of this email because I know a lot of folks receiving this email are new to email marketing.

How does email marketing work?

Email works for you when you open up your Gmail or Yahoo and open up emails in your inbox. But for a business, how does it work? Why do you have all these deals sitting in your inbox?

This post by AWeber does a good job of outlining email marketing from a business perspective.

This one sentence sums it up, and is a good working definition of email marketing -

Now, how a business implements email marketing is just a function of how they believe they can best achieve these goals of building relationships, trust, and guiding people towards an action.

The simple basics are always the same -

• Get people on your list (with permission to keep it legal)

• Sort people based on data or actions - also called segmentation

• Make emails, send them, and see how they did in order to improve in the future

Nurture relationships

In business, there are only two types of people who buy.

1. New customers

2. Old customers

Getting old customers to buy again is also referred to as Lifecycle Marketing. The reason this is so valuable is because old customers already know about the business, which makes it much easier to get them to buy again versus a brand new customer who’s never heard of the business before.

How do you do Lifestyle Marketing? By nurturing relationships, building trust, and guiding people towards a specific action.

In other words, you do this via email marketing.

Back to timing

From the Lifecycle Marketing article linked above, I pulled out this line -

And this is what makes email marketing so effective. Timing truly can be everything. With email marketing, you are able to leverage timing at scale.

Great email from REI

Now that we understand a bit more about the deeper reasons behind email marketing, I’m going to show you this incredible email from REI.

It’s sent within the week after someone purchases a kids bike.

Now, keep in mind, that when a parent purchases a kids bike, it can be very exciting and very nerve-racking.

Parents want their kids to grow and mature, become independent, and develop life skills like riding a bike. Parents also want to experience the joy of riding a bike with their children.

However, no parent wants their child to get injured, especially on their watch after they purchased the injury-causing item themselves.

So getting into the head of a parent in this situation you find both apprehension and excitement.

What do parents need in this moment?

Encouragement and help!

And that’s what REI does in this email.

REI provides encouragement and links for things you need to ride with your kid, and a link teaching you how to teach your kid to ride.

It’s a very personal email from a very impersonal huge business.

The timing and message is perfect.

After a parents sees this email, how do you think they feel?

My first thought was, relief!

A parent might be thinking, “thank you REI for sending me a resource to show me how to teach my kids to ride a bike.”

This email builds the relationship, builds trust, and certainly guides the reader towards a specific action.

It’s a home run of an email.

Quick email definition

I like to include a quick email marketing definition in these emails.

Email terms are confusing, so let’s demystify them one-by-one.

This week is IMAP

What is IMAP?

Internet Message Access Protocol.

This allows you to read the same emails on your phone, tablet, computer, and anywhere else you can access your email.

Your emails are stored on a server (big computer) somewhere in a remote location. IMAP lets you read your emails that are stored on that server.

Read more about IMAP here

That’s all I got for you today (and week) in terms of my thoughts on email marketing.

Hope you have a great weekend and make the best use of your time!

This is a different format of other emails I’ve sent in the past, so let me know if you like this by voting in the poll below.

Talk soon,

Bryan and The Email Update Team