Relentless Email Marketing

This week’s episode was an interview with Tyler Cook, an email marketing specialist and founder of Hyper Media Marketing. I was surprised to learn that Tyler’s door-to-door experience happened in the early to mid 2010s as the only solicitors who I’ve ever had knock on my door have either had petitions which they wanted me to sign or a desire for me to convert to their religion. While I guess those are sorts of morality pitches, I don’t think I’ve ever had a buying interaction at my door, even with Girl Scouts, that wasn’t previously set-up or noted. It’s like the worst version of cold calls in my book. 

The transition to email marketing makes sense as there’s some alignment. Door-to-door salesmen, cold-call telemarketing, and non-viral spam all fall within a similar slightly invasive and not entirely organic marketing vein in my mind. Tyler appeared to be focused on email marketing that either stemmed off previous sales or in which the customers signed up themselves for the sequences, which seemed a better process, and it’s one I’m familiar with through publishing / writer groups and blogs where subscribers provide their emails out of a desire to know more. 

With the majority of purchases happening in the first 48-hours, the funnel of a business’s email welcome sequence is vital. To help increase the odds of a sale, Tyler doesn’t do a 2-step opt-in process, which goes counter to others who say you should use an opt-in form with double confirmation. Instead, Tyler shared a seven-step email welcome sequence. If someone doesn’t engage, Tyler will then remove them from the stream. The person either needs to click on something, open three emails, or reply to one of the emails sent. An email is sent daily for the first week.

1. Email from executive assistant with subject line “[subscriber’s name] Thank You”
2. Email sent from CEO / C-Suite level (expectation setting email) which is out at the end of day with a very personable “just sending as heading out of office” which sets the expectation of daily emails to anchor the subscriber despite planning to send weekly / biweekly emails
3. Email encourages subscribers to go to alternative channel (i.e. social media platform)
   1. Allows marketing to increase audience on other platforms, increasing SEO, and ensuring multiple throughways to reach this customer
   2. One clear call to action, generally have it seem more personal: Twitter (X), Instagram, or LinkedIn
4. Email from CEO to executive assistant, instructing them to connect on platform with a blurb from the executive assistant looping in the customer
5. Emailed survey with 5-8 questions focused on content interests / preferences, advertising efficiency (how did the customer find business), and buying stage
6. Email requesting help to shift the content to “Choose-Your-Own-Adventure”
7. Email addressing frequently asked questions

Tyler said he’s getting about an 80% completion rate. While there’s a desire to do positive calls to actions, Tyler suggests negative ones empower the customer and can energize them. 

Tyler’s work is generally more useful for business-to-business marketing. For self-publishers, this relentlessness may prove counterproductive in our newsletters, and you’ll see numerous articles arguing for the opt-in secondary emails rather than auto-confirmations. I have a few landing pages I’m testing with both, and I have a plan to launch a sale on each to see how the results differ in a month and going forward. I’ll update you all as I go.