A Cowboy’s Guide to Email Marketing

Just like a seasoned email marketing pro, a successful cowboy (or cowgirl!) always learns from his experiences and acknowledges his own limits.

He is self-reliant, innovative and constantly looking for new ways to succeed out on the frontier. And he always outsmarts his opponents using wit, knowledge and skill.

Saddle up your horse and read on to find out how your email campaign can benefit from the legendary ways of the Wild West.

Round Up New Subscribers

Cowboys are well-known for their dexterity. Cool, calm and collected, they are confident in their herding skills and never return to the ranch empty-handed.

Round up your interested subscribers with ease and seek out individuals who want to learn everything they can about your product or service.

Always remember to mention your newsletter to people you speak with offline. It’s a great conversation starter, and also leads interested people to your website to sign up.

Send a lot of personal emails? Add a hosted web form to your email signature so that prospects can sign up to receive your emails on the spot.

Be a Pioneer

While it’s great to work toward total uniqueness in business, the truth is that there are not many enterprises out there that are 100% unique.

There are other vendors that your subscribers can do business with, who sell the same things you do, and there are other companies sending email newsletters about products similar to yours.

The difference is all in the way you portray your product and your service. You need to carve a specific niche for yourself using your email campaign.

Highlight what makes your business stand out from others in your niche.

For Instance

If your town has a commercial barbecue restaurant, but you’re just venturing into email marketing as the one-store BBQ underdog, focus on the things that you do especially well that those other establishments don’t.

Trade Roles with the Barkeep

In Westerns, the barkeep is the main source of news for patrons and town-dwellers. He is well-connected, well-liked and well-respected; he really knows his stuff.

Make your brand the “go-to” source for your industry. Consumers are sponges for information, but don’t always like to find it on their own.

You must build trust and credibility in your brand, so that subscribers are ready and willing to read your emails when they appear in their inboxes.

Package all of the information you possibly can into easily digestible emails. When it’s time for your subscribers to make a purchase, they can revisit your emails and make an educated choice, from a brand that has informed them well.

Help Subscribers Pan for Gold

Mining for gold is a strenuous, backbreaking task. In the same way, it can be hard work for subscribers to dissect your emails and get to the meat of your messages.

Write emails that subscribers can quickly sift through to find the “nuggets” of highest value. Use headlines, bulleted lists, bold font and succinct, short paragraphs to grab their attention and keep them engaged.

By making your text scannable, readers will remain attentive and not lose interest in your messages.

Keep it Simple

Cowboys are not known for being flamboyant or over the top. They naturally understand the importance of simplicity in their day-to-day lives, and they embody it in the way that they dress and carry themselves.

If you struggle to put together your email campaign, let us help you. We have hundreds of professionally designed templates that are easy to customize.

Not sure if you want to commit to one specific look for your emails? Stick with plain text for now. Readers will appreciate the straightforward approach, and it can even seem more personal and sincere.

Any Email Marketing Cowboys Out There?

We’d love to hear how you use email to benefit your business and grow your prospect-base.

Leave your comments below!

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By: Rebecca Swayze

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20 Comments

  1. john shanks

    Am I about to see a Stetson in ‘A saville Row suit?
    Full english business breakfast!

    7/6/2010 10:39 am
  2. Jack Liang

    Keeping It Simple is the way to go. Often, people over crowd their email marketing messages with clutter and irrelevant images. A clean html single column template or plain text formats works best for me. Great Post!

    7/6/2010 10:42 am
  3. Bob Johnson

    Received an interesting email today from political party which stated simply "email is not effective". In context the statement was how one had to also talk live to enlist help and that email could not do that.

    Interesting to me is what should have been said was "email is not effective if you send emails only when you want something". Email is very effective if you periodically are sending beneficial information that helps the recipient and actually increases the open rate when they are interested in getting an email from you.

    Autoresponders are a great tool for not only being helpful to your recipient but also if done properly then people are more likely to respond to them if they have been receiving benefit.

    For me it’s amazing how folks can stereotype a form of communication without thinking through it’s nothing but an additional form of communication and generally highly effective in the right context.

    7/6/2010 10:44 am
  4. Ian Pollard

    Unfortunately, "cowboy" is a strong pejorative here in the UK for person who takes shortcuts in doing a job and generally delivers poor results. :P

    7/6/2010 10:49 am
  5. Mark Mason

    Very nice article (and very appropriate for those of us in Texas).

    Focus on differentiation is one thing that a lot of people miss. Many on the internet are either engaged in a “me too” effort to “have a presence” online.

    This is a critical mistake — especially since the broad expanse of the internet is the one place where you can actually FIND the people that care about your specialty.

    Way to “ride herd” on email marketing, Aweber.

    Happy trails

    7/6/2010 10:51 am
  6. Maria Annell

    Nice shot, man! You can count me in your herd anytime! :)

    7/6/2010 11:19 am
  7. Frank DiMeo

    Thanks for the great insights!

    7/6/2010 11:46 am
  8. Stan Young

    Thanks for a great article its a subject that I dont know much about.
    You have shared some useful information that Iwill put to good use.
    I like the way you have summarised the process under distinct headings and kept the message simple.
    I look forward to further updates

    7/6/2010 7:40 pm
  9. Aden Buft0n

    Congrats, the cowboy simile really hit the target first shot with the baddie bits being eliminated leaving the goodie bits clear to your readers.

    7/7/2010 1:59 am
  10. george mihos

    Nothing like slowing your game down and sharpening your axe; thanks.

    7/7/2010 2:13 am
  11. Rebecca Swayze

    Great feedback, everyone!

    Bob, I completely agree. It is amazing that so many people can discount email when there are clear benefits for using it along with other marketing tools.

    Ian, thanks for pointing out our oversight. Of course, we only advocate shortcuts that yield excellent results. Perhaps "email marketing cowboy" is different than just "cowboy" in this instance!

    7/7/2010 10:16 am
  12. George Campbell

    thanks for the insite with the cowboy approcch to email marketing
    i am new to all of this good stuff you are talking about its little over a month now since i started to send out email.

    I just have 14 sign up for my monthly newsletter i dont know if i am structureing things the right way what i do know if i could get some one on one help to rev up things i would be very happy.

    I am struggling for a long time now to reach this far but not far enough! so what ever you can do to help me grow my email campaign please let me know

    7/7/2010 11:22 am
  13. Latrice Folkes

    Thank you great article, I am in the process of simplifying because I am a little over the top, lol!

    7/7/2010 9:20 pm
  14. Kelly Bichard

    What a clever theme you have with the cowboy. I enjoyed reading this post the references to cowboys was good. I appreciate the information too. Good article.

    7/8/2010 8:03 am
  15. Oliver

    I am a rooting tooting cowboy email marketer now. Thanks.

    7/9/2010 11:12 am
  16. Tristan Richards

    Great article and valuable info.. thanks

    7/11/2010 9:44 pm
  17. Danielle Ingram

    Be a Pioneer!

    I think that this is a really important point. It is vital with email marketing that businesses ensure that they promote their unique features.

    This can be focused upon in the subject line, as a real selling point can increase the chances that a recipient will open an e-mail in the first instance.

    Great advice!

    7/12/2010 3:01 am
  18. MonicAltamirano

    Hola amigo Cowboy!! Excelente aporte, muchas gracias

    7/23/2010 10:54 pm
  19. Karen Goddard

    Like it ..fun and relevant

    7/25/2010 8:19 am

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