The Power of Email Marketing: Build Connections

I attend a lot of networking events and meet a lot of people. Fascinating, whip smart people. We have a great chat, I walk away with a stack of business cards. I follow up with an email, saying how lovely it was to meet them. And I promptly forget about them.

Rinse. Repeat.

In any business, if you are out making sales and expanding your contacts, you are meeting dozens of people every week. No one can remember who all of them are, and one chat over coffee in a crowded room is certainly not enough to form a deep enough relationship for them to buy your service or product.

Enter the monthly newsletter.

One reason I believe in newsletters so strongly is that we don't know who will need our services, or when. Or who has funds to invest in our non-profit, and is looking for a values aligned organization.

Reappearing in someone's inbox, every few weeks, gives you a chance to build on your original meeting. Let them get to know you better. Tell them a story of how you helped someone, or how your product or service benefitted another organization.

Don't make them have to remember who you are, and what you do, based on one coffee chat and an exchange of business cards.

Be the one who keeps the connection warm. Who builds on the meeting and keeps reaching out, with more tips and useful knowledge, with celebrations to make them smile or a goofy picture of you with your dog to offer a more human connection.

Sales are built on connections.

Be sure to keep building yours.