Transferable skills are hardly a new phenomenon but because email marketing is digitally based, with lots of new words for new devices, there is this assumption that your CV needs to be written in C++ if you want a job serving coffee.
There are many non technical disciplines that have a lot to teach us. Take teaching.
A good teacher, as opposed to lecturer, will give the impression of conversing with each individual student. It is quite an impressive trick to pull off but there is a method to it. Teachers divide the class into groups in their minds and then ensure that the lesson content and the phraseology is changed to suit each group.
If describing the latent energy in a spring, the words compression and tension might suit one group whilst pushing and pulling would be needed as an add-on for others. The group membership will, of course, change depending on the particular lesson.
It should sound familiar as this is what we do. We segment our email marketing lists into groups which have something in common and then sell to that demographic. These groupings will change depending on the product.
One method that many teachers use is to invent a conglomerate, an imaginary person whose needs, desires and concerns are those of the group as a whole. The teacher then works out what that person needs by way information and support, and then invents another imaginary friend for another group.
We can use this pastiche of a typical subscriber to our email marketing lists to identify what keeps your customers awake at night. You will then be able to work out what subject lines to try, what terminology will suit, their technical knowledge and the areas in which they need
We will cover various methods of describing a typical subscriber to a typical segmented list, although you already have the basis for in in the returns from email marketing campaigns, web visits, etc. You can get a general view of what a typical customer needs, wants and would prefer but there are other, more precise sources of information that you can use in addition.
