What’s the difference between customer relationship marketing (CRM) and email marketing? The short answer is that email marketing is how you turn your site visitors into your customers and CRM is how you grow your existing customers into great customers. But let’s get into exactly what that means and how it’s done.

Customer relationship management (CRM) is where you can pull up the customer record for Joe Smith (for example) and you can see what he has bought, when he bought that product, which free reports he downloaded, any customer service questions he asked and when they were answered, etc. So that when you are emailing or talking to Joe Smith, you can say, “Oh by the way, I notice you haven’t ordered a replacement filter for your showerhead and it’s been 7 months now – did you want to add one to this order?” Or you can say, “I see that your last order got delayed over the weekend, so we sent you a free widget, did you receive it?”

Joe Smith now feels really chuffed that you know all this stuff about him and he is not just a faceless number in your shopping cart – you see, you are using CRM technology to manage and build your relationship with Joe Smith.

A CRM system also makes it easy for companies that have more than one customer service person to keep track of what’s happening when different operators talk to or help the same customer, at different times. Whatever happens with Joe Smith is logged into his customer record, so the next person can just pull up his customer record when talking to Joe and be instantly up to date.

Email marketing is where you use email as the means of communicating with people who are visitors to your site and have opted in to your free offer, or signed up for your newsletter, or subscribed to your blog, or have purchased something from you.

After someone has purchased something from you, you can use automated emails to get their feedback on your product, or give them something else for free, or offer them your next product or service, and so on.

Mouse Traps Anyone?

Let’s say I’m selling a book on mouse traps and I want to find out if the trap is working well for people. I can have an autoresponder email set up in my email marketing platform to be automatically sent out 20 days after the book purchase, which asks the customer for feedback.

A time-scheduled email that is sent out automatically is called an autoresponder.

I can then have another email (autoresponder) queued to go out in 45 days time (from the date of book purchase) which asks all mouse trap book purchasers if they’re having problems with ants, termites or bed bugs and would they like my free report on that?

Ten days later I can email (autoresponder) all the people who downloaded that report with the first of 3 emails telling them why my eBook on Pest Control is just what they need and how it contains all this detailed how-to information that was referred to in the report. Maybe I want to offer a discount on the eBook (since they’ve already bought the mouse trap book), or a free gift with purchase, or a bonus if they purchase in the next 48 hours.

So your autoresponder (automated emails) sequence for your Mouse Trap book looks like this:

Day 1 – book purchase

Day 20 – Feedback request

Day 45 – Offer for Ants, Termites, Bed Bugs free report

If someone signs up for your free Ants, Termites and Bed Bugs report, then that action (signing up) puts them into another autoresponder sequence that looks like this:

Day 1 – opt-in to free Ants, Termites and Bed Bugs report

Day 10 – Best cleaning products to use (products are affiliate linked to Amazon) for preventing pests and a Discount offer for your full-length book on Pest Control

Day 30 – Link to video on how to Pest-Proof your bedroom

Day 45 – Home remedies for insect bites (affiliate linked to products on Amazon) and time-sensitive discount offer for your book on Pest Control (eg. Offer expires in 24 hours)

Do you see how exciting an email marketing platform can be? And what’s REALLY exciting is you only have to do the work ONCE, in the set up. After that, all these sequences run automatically – while you’re asleep, or skiing, or lying on the beach.

You can also email your opt-ins or blog/newsletter subscribers when you have a special promotion or discount on offer. Or you can send coupons for discounts or free gifts. You can also let your list know when you’ve got a really exciting teleseminar coming up, or when you’ve just put up a really helpful video.

We can get into email marketing (relationship building) more in-depth when you’re ready, and I’ll also show you how to avoid emailing your list too much! All I’m doing here is giving you a basic overview and understanding of email marketing, so you understand WHY you need to have an email marketing program and how exciting that can be for your business.

Free vs Paid?

Many people get confused between what to give away for free and what to charge for. Especially when you’re supposed to be giving your best stuff away for free! So let me give you a few examples to stimulate some ideas for your own content.

Example #1 Professonal Stunt Longboarder

You have an eBook on how to be a pro longboarder. This eBook is a combination of text and demonstration videos.

→ You charge for the eBook (which could also be positioned as a Course, by the way) and you give away your best demo video for free. Which of your videos will produce the most elation (I did it!!) in your viewer? That’s the one you give for free.

OR

→ You charge for the eBook and you take your best video demo and you chunk it down into Parts 1, 2, 3. This then becomes 3 separate emails, each with a message from you, some tips, perhaps a link to a blog post, or an affiliate link to an awesome set of wheels (best for doing the stunt you’re going to teach them) and then Part 1 of the demo video, and so on, for a 3-email series.

Example #2 How To Refinish An Antique Armoire

You have an online DVD course that shows people how to purchase an antique armoire from a flea market and refinish it to showpiece quality.

→ You charge for the DVD course and you select just ONE topic from the course and send an email with some intro text and a video that shows just that one piece of how-to. Maybe you select the topic of how to spot a good buy from a garbage piece at the flea market – that’s hugely valuable, shows your expertise and if someone uses that info to buy an armoire, now they’re going to want your course to figure out how to refinish it!

OR

→ You charge for the DVD course, and you offer a mini-course for free. This mini-course tells them the major (overview) steps involved in purchasing and refinishing an armoire. But it doesn’t give the details; it doesn’t tell them which varnish to purchase, which grade of sandpaper – it talks about why it’s important to choose the correct products, but it doesn’t give out the products or specifications. It also doesn’t contain the videos. It only contains excerpts of 1 to 3 videos (so they can see how good your production, lighting, sound etc. is).

But they have a lot more knowledge than when they started. Probably, if someone wanted to, they could attempt the process themselves – maybe they’re an advanced woodworker and can figure out the details themselves. No worries, maybe that person will then become an affiliate of yours! Or he will refer people to your course.

Example #3 Hypnosis Audios

You have a series of audio-based healing sessions using hypnosis for different conditions: Stop smoking, lose weight, bedwetting, anxiety, insomnia, etc.

→ You charge for your individual audios or sessions and you give away your most WOW audio session for free. What is the audio that is likely to be an issue most of your site visitor’s have? Anxiety, stress, insomnia or weight loss? If you know who your customer is, you should already know the answer to this question. That is the audio you give away for free. Because once someone has a fantastic result, they will tell everyone and they will also come back for help with their other problems.

OR

→ You charge for your audio sessions, but you come up with a free email Mini-Course that will help people with a common problem – Are You Stuck In a Rut? So the first email is a quiz that helps them identify where and why they are stuck, along with a short video from you with some understanding and inspiration in the form of a story. The next email contains a link to an interview or teleseminar you gave on a related topic. The third email contains a download link for a mini-hypnosis session designed to help them feel more positive about their journey or challenges.

Let’s put together YOUR own opt-in that will encourage your ideal customers and site visitors to give you their name and email address!

Jot down quickly any and all ideas of what you can offer your site visitors for your opt-in, or sign-up offer, on your site. What do you have, or what can you create that will let people start building a relationship with you and give them as much value as they would receive from something they purchased from you. What is the most valuable thing you could give them? What would YOU be happy to receive?:

Now that you’ve got some ideas for WHAT to offer people, how do you want to package, or deliver that content/information? To help you brainstorm, which of these appeal to you and would be a good delivery method for your content or message?:

Teleseminar
Audio recording
Video
eBook
Game
Quiz with analysis
List or resource
Recipe
Formula
Picture tutorial
Mini-course
Consult
Mini session
Software app
Review or critique
Template form (legal, business, political)

If you’re stuck, go back to the examples I gave you above and adapt one of them to your content or topic.

Next, make a quick sketch here of your sign-up offer; Your headline, very short description, Name and email:

Remember, it doesn’t have to be complicated or even meaty; it just has to be something you yourself would sign up for. You may also have other ideas pop in your head as you read through this module – just go back to your notes and jot them down.

Now let’s continue on with setting up your site infrastructure so that you can receive those sign-ups, then give them their freebie, and then receive their credit card when they come back to buy from you!

Choosing Your Email Marketing Platform

Your back-end email marketing system can be amazingly complex, depending on how big your business is and how many ways you want to be able to interact with your people. Or, it can be fairly simple and basic and you can build it slowly as you go. I’ll give you a few different solutions later from the most basic, up to Rolls Royce and you can choose what fits you best at this time.

However, much as I’d like to keep things simple for you, we cannot really talk about email marketing platforms without talking about how you’re going to sell things from your site. This is because you need to have your shopping cart (or purchase method) interface or integrate with your email marketing platform – so that you can have a centralized database of all the people who are interested in your stuff.

So although I’d prefer you to focus on just your opt-in offer right now, because I don’t want you to waste your money or time (by purchasing only a short-term solution), I’m going to have to get into your shopping cart options and affiliate programs at the same time.

And unfortunately, this is where things get sticky, because we have to balance “perfect world” scenarios with real-life time and money constraints.

Some systems are fabulous and can do everything you’d ever need or want them to do, but they also take a lot of time to learn and implement. So if you’re a mom with two young children, or maxed-out, full-time with your current biz, you’re going to give up in frustration, since you don’t have enough hours in the day to make use of such a system.

This business program is written for people who might not have 12 hours a day to devote to internet marketing – it will still work brilliantly (and much faster!) for those people, but it is designed for people who only have a few hours a day (and sometimes only a few hours a week) to get a viable business up and running, or, to upgrade their current business to a new and improved, heart-driven, more-hands-off, truly fulfilling and successful model. Sound good?

But I Hate Sales and Marketing!

One last thing: don’t let the words ‘marketing’ or ‘sales’ put you off. All both terms really mean is: Communicating and building relationship.

If you have an aversion to these terms it’s because people have used them poorly in the past – pushy, slimy, grabby, or manipulative are words that come to mind. Make sure your sales and marketing activities are never like that! Those methods may work for one-off, or short-term sales, but they are the kiss of death for building a long-term relationship with your site visitors and customers.

Make sure that every time you communicate with your customers (aka marketing and sales), you are sending an email, or shooting a video, or writing a free eBook that YOU would like to receive. It’s really that simple. If you would not be happy, or entertained, or intrigued to see that piece of communication in your Inbox or mailbox, then don’t send it.

Because good marketing results in a real relationship (two-way, not one-way) it totally turns the typical concept of ‘selling’ on its ear.

Ask And Ye Shall Receive

Let me explain: Since my first book was published, my readers (customers) and site visitors have been emailing and phoning me to tell me what they want next. How cool is that? Forget market research, focus groups, testing the market etc. If your people are in relationship with you, they will tell you what they want!

And then when you produce that for them, there is no ‘selling’ involved – because they asked for it and they’ve been waiting for you to do it and get it to them. So when you make it available, they say “Oh thank you! I’ve been waiting for this – just what I need, thank you SO much!” Well where’s the “sell” in that?

Another way your customers will automatically tell you what they want is by the questions they ask. Let’s say you’ve written a book about energetically dialoguing with your body and your book is very detailed, you’ve laid out the process step by step, but yet you keep getting feedback from people saying they love the book but they just can’t connect.

They just can’t hear clearly what their body is saying. So they’re asking you questions like, “How do I know it’s my body speaking and not my mind?” or “Every time I relax, I just fall asleep, so I never make it to the connecting part, what can I do?”

As you ponder their questions and feedback, you realize that what you really need to give them is an audio (mp3 file) to go along with the book. Now you’re getting excited!

You realize that you need to record a guided meditation that takes them into their body wisdom, so they can relax and just follow your instructions. So you get that out to the people who have already bought your book and you add it to your book listing, so new purchasers automatically receive it.

Now you’re getting completely different feedback from your customers – they love it! They’re having great success with it, they tell you about the ailments they’ve cured. Which leads you to another idea…

You notice from the feedback emails you’re getting that people seem to have a number of the same health issues. Don’t forget, you are receiving this feedback regularly because you set up your email marketing platform to automatically send a request for feedback (autoresponder email) 30 days from the purchase date.

So you notice that there are five ailments that people mention over and over again. So you think, hmmm…. what if I were to create guided healing meditations (or eBooks) for these specific conditions. Not only might my existing customers buy these specific meditations, but I could open up a whole new market here. Because many people don’t want to read a book, they just want a solution to insomnia (for example).

And if I don’t call them ‘meditations’ I may also open myself up to the Bible belt market and other markets who don’t like the word ‘meditation’. You see how this process goes?

Does this process sound like your previous concept of ‘sales and marketing’? Probably not. So take this opportunity now to throw out your old conditioned ‘euwww!’ response to these words and embrace what they really mean.

Exchanging Gifts

Selling used to mean ‘convincing people to buy’. But what if it could mean giving people what they’re asking for – for which they say thank-you by giving you money. You give them a gift (product or service) and they give you a gift (money) in exchange.

Selling is simply an exchange of energy and intentions symbolized by the stuff you exchange (gift each other).

Bernadette Jiwa sums this process up perfectly:

sales

noun

1. The exchange of a commodity for money; the action of selling something.
2. A quantity or amount sold.

Actually, sales is understanding how your customer wants to feel, not what she wants to buy and doing everything you can to get her there.

There is no convincing, manipulating or pressuring involved when ‘selling’ means meeting someone’s need, solving their problem, easing their pain, bringing them laughter, increasing their joy. Are you with me?

Take a moment now to close your eyes and let this really sink in. Because switching your old, negative programming to this new paradigm of helping, facilitating joy, alleviating suffering, and helping people by exchanging gifts, will completely change your experience of business. And your sales figures will reflect that.

Concurrently, holding this paradigm of sales and marketing will also keep you rooted in integrity. All your actions, ideas, manufacturing, harvesting, etc. will come from this place of wholeness and integrity. If everyone held this paradigm, there would be no destruction of the environment, or torturing of animals just to provide humans with what they want.

So there you go, let’s be the change we want to see in this world. It all starts with each tiny, little business we start and expands from there. When I threw my first (and I thought only) book out into the Universe, I had no idea that the exact process I outlined above would result in that one book expanding to 16 books, 10 CDs and DVDs, 19 teleseminars, 45 videos and 350 health products – selling to over 60 countries worldwide.

Remember, it’s about communication, not marketing. It’s about doing all you can to give people what they actually want and need, not forcing them to buy something they don’t. And all this automation simply allows for consistent quality and timeliness in your communication and relationships; which allows you to reach, help, and inspire more people, with no drain on your energy or time.

Can you feel the tingle of possibility? Or are you still struggling to envision or trust the process? Either way, keep on reading – there’s no one right way to go at this. Whether you take it all in and implement everything at once, or slow it down and add to your site bit by bit as each piece begins to make sense, doesn’t matter. What does matter is that you learn these processes and find ways to understand them that feel good to you.