🧡 Selim Maalouf

- Implement SPF, DKIM, and DMARC authentication on your domain to validate you as a legitimate sender. This prevents spoofing. - Grow your mailing lists organically using confirmed opt-in. Avoid buying or renting lists of unknown quality. - Keep your lists clean by consistently removing inactive subscribers, spam complaints, and hard bounces. - Monitor feedback loops from major ISPs and inbox providers. Remove problem email addresses. - Check your email content, links, and subject lines using spam testing tools before deploying. Avoid spam trigger words. - Include an unsubscribe link and address in all campaigns. Make it easy for people to opt-out. - Send from an IP address and domain with a good reputation. Monitor blacklist listings.

Having a master list of contacts that you email every campaign to will result in the erosion of trust and lots of unsubscribes. Segmentation is highly dependent on your type of business: - Do you sell both products and services? - Do you sell both physical goods and virtual goods (Software)? - Do you sell multiple product lines? - Do you sell to multiple markets? - Do you have subscriptions? - Does your product serve a specific demographic? - Do you have upsell opportunities with your current customer base? Ideally, this kind of segmentation should happen automatically using active lists in your marketing automation software that is connected to your CRM. And please make sure you keep your lists clean.

Not all marketing emails are created equal. Subject lines for cold emails differ from emails your recipients are expecting. If they are receiving a follow-up after they visited a tradeshow booth, lead with that. If they subscribed to your newsletter, lead with that. If they subscribed to a product notification, lead with that. If they attended a virtual event and are waiting for a recording, lead with that. For cold emails, fight the urge to trick your recipients into opening the email as it will erode their trust. Have your the subject describe the outcome of the email in a clear and concise way. Include a hint about your segmentation and why this specific recipient is getting the email: "24/7 Maintenance Service for Industrial Plants"

This is when the sales pitch can start ramping up. They understand the problem and they know what solutions exist (including your competition). Do not shy away from acknowledging the alternatives. Presenting a scenario where no other solution but yours exists will set off some alarm bells in your prospect's mind and prompt them to look elsewhere. Instead, be proactive in highlighting where your solution excels and where it doesn't. Instead of fighting on features and benefits, take this opportunity to frame the situation where your solution shines. "If you are Y then our solution is the one for you, otherwise solution X might a better option"

After they become "Problem Aware", consideration stage content should focus on making prospects "Solution Aware". They learned of the problem, they learned how to diagnose the problem and they understand that they are suffering from this problem. Now they need actionable advice. Simply presenting your product or service as the solution will not be effective. Instead, focus on offering as much free actionable advice that your prospects can apply. This advice usually has some obvious drawback: time consuming, resource intensive, or skill dependent. These drawbacks should be alleviated by using your product or service. This enables your content both to build trust in your expertise and prime prospects for a sales pitch in the next stage.

The goal of awareness content is to make your prospects "Problem-Aware". 95% of the market is not looking to buy right now. They are looking to learn more about their industry and how better to achieve their daily work goals. Adopting an educational approach that seeks to highlight problems that others in the industry face day after day, how it might be affecting their results, and how they can diagnose if they indeed suffer from this problem. It might be very tempting to push towards presenting a solution immediately. But unless you give some time for the topic to simmer and the truth to sink in, telling them that this problem has a solution before they understand that they suffer from this problem themselves will result in indifference.