Ever since the rise of social media and content marketing, email marketing has taken a back seat in terms of attention. But is that rightfully so? It may interest you that with all the talk about producing video content, storytelling content, 6-second ads and such; email marketing still plays a prominent role when it comes to marketing effectively.
In Europe, North America, and APAC, email marketing is the most-used form of marketing, sitting at 77.6% usage (compared to 62% produced by content management and 61% shown by social media). And 47% of marketers rate email marketing as the most effective marketing channel.
If anything, it looks like email marketing is the parent that willingly loses in a race so that its child — social media marketing and the like — has a chance to shine. But email marketing is still powerful at the end of the day.
So if social media and content marketing is all the rage, how can we focus on both that and the breadwinner, email marketing? By outsourcing.
Outsourcing can be the key to improving your business. Here’s how, and how to do it.
Outsourcing is an investment
Outsourcing is a good way to free up your own time. Need an email written? Hire a professional writer. You can rest easy while your email copy is in good hands.
It can take serious amounts of time to write good email copy, especially if you’re not a professional writer. Email copy is one of those things where it doesn’t take much time to read at all, yet hours of analyzing and shaping can be put into writing copy that speaks to the readers. Not anyone can just blab and have it sell.
So while a writer is working on your email copy, you can focus on higher-level stuff. Like managing the email campaign as a whole, strategizing for higher performance, or working on other parts of your business.
Professional consistency
Hiring professional writers and designers can make your email marketing campaign look (and read) as good as Headspace’s — number 6 on the list.
With project deadlines and teams dedicated to making your email campaign work, and meet deadlines, you won’t have to worry about consistency. Consistent, professional output. What’s not to like?
If you’re not convinced that outsourcing is a good idea yet, just consider this: it’s an investment with ROIs in multiple ways.
You could see a big increase in your email marketing efficiency. You could see an ROI in the way you spend your extra time building your business. And it’s a way to stick a strong foot in the door of email marketing — a major player in marketing channels.
How to outsource your email marketing
Firstly, it’s important to understand your email marketing campaign really well, and just exactly what you’d like to outsource.
Auto-responding emails, drip campaigns versus nurture campaigns, emailing frequency, making an email list, segmenting the list — what’s going to be your job, and what’s going to be the freelancers’?
Sorting out who’s doing what is going to save you from a lot of confusion, settle the project scope, and allow the email campaign to accurately set deadlines and meet goals. It’s still going to take some work, but after the initial efforts, it’s generally going to be hands-free.
Pick a good partner
The next step is to choose who your outsourcing team is going to be.
You can pick a dedicated service like SmartMail or InboxArmy, or tackle freelancing sites like Upwork and Fiverr.
Whichever partner you pick, you’re going to want to have a specific idea of what you want from them. How long have they been email marketing? What programs are they familiar with? What are some campaigns they’ve made and who have they worked with?
And an important question that is sometimes overlooked: do they work in a timezone that works for you? It can be a real drag working with a 12-hour time difference, making outsourcing not worth the trouble. Unless you have the time for it.
Even if you’re hiring this team temporarily, it’s important to think of them as professionals who are fit for your project. Stating the obvious here, but it’d be good to outsource only to those who are capable.
Communicate
Now it comes down to your preference. How hands-off would you like to be? Are you confident the outsourced team can run with the campaign and give it wings to fly? Then you can stretch and watch the show.
Or would you like to keep overwatch and see the steps along the way? Would you like to see the stats and metrics, and which values would you like to see? Does the team need your approval for designs and copy?
Basically, it’s important to set clear and specific expectations, such as clarifying how many revisions are allowed before the project is published. Miscommunication can be unproductive, and sometimes downright destructive.
Opt for excellence instead, and communicate!
Final thoughts
Email marketing is still thriving, and it’s good to take it seriously. It only takes a little dip in quality before your email campaign is filtered into the spam folder.
Unfortunately, not everybody has the time to make email marketing their top priority. You know how it goes — life gets in the way.
That’s what makes outsourcing your email marketing such a beautiful thing. It’s an ROI, it’s more resources for you and your business, and it’s a way to generate leads and turn shoppers into customers.
It takes a bit of effort to get it going, but once it’s going, you’ll be glad you did it. We hope this post has helped you think about your email marketing, and we wish you the greatest success!