Email marketing for people who have chosen to hear from you

Email is one of the few channels where you are writing to people who have already asked to hear from you. That is a real advantage, and an easy one to waste. An email with no clear reason to exist gets deleted, or ignored until the reader unsubscribes. I help small and growing businesses plan and write emails that earn their place in an inbox.

Email marketing means building a list of people who have agreed to receive your messages and sending to them through an email platform. Some emails are one-off sends, some go out on a schedule, and some are triggered by something the reader does, such as signing up. Each is judged by what happens next: whether people open it, click, reply or get in touch.

I focus on three kinds of email, each with a different job.

Campaign emails

Campaign emails are built around a single purpose, such as a launch, an event or a seasonal offer. I decide the one action you want the reader to take and write everything around it.

Newsletters

Newsletters keep your business familiar between purchases. I help you decide what belongs in them, how often to send and how to keep them useful rather than a stream of promotions.

Automated sequences

Automated sequences are short series of emails that send themselves, for example a welcome series that introduces your business and answers the questions new subscribers usually have. This is where lead nurturing happens: giving someone the right information at the moment they are ready for it.

Email suits businesses with repeat customers, services people think about before buying, or audiences who need time to decide. A café with a loyalty offer, a coaching practice, an online shop and a training provider could all use it, each in a different way. It is less useful if you have no way of collecting addresses yet, and I would tell you that at the start instead of selling you a sequence you cannot use.

I begin with the reader. I ask why someone would sign up and what would make them stay, because that shapes subject lines, tone and timing more than any template does. My background in psychology means I pay close attention to how people decide whether to open, ignore or act on a message, but I keep the plan practical. A newsletter that goes out reliably is worth more than an ambitious one that stops after two issues. After each send we look at the results together and adjust.