Ken Mahar, Founder and CEO of Email Broadcast, was interviewed on the Mission Matters Business Podcast.
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Ken Mahar supports business owners with a powerful tool: email marketing. He’s helping them reach and serve their customers more effectively through his full-service email marketing agency, Email Broadcast.
Watch Full Interview:
How did Email Broadcast get its start?
Mahar started using email marketing personally as a sales tool helping him rise to the top of a high-tech firm’s sales team. After seeing the power of email marketing first hand, he pitched some previous employers on letting him handle their email marketing for them. This was met with huge success, eventually forcing him to make a choice between his side gig and his sales position—and he’s never looked back.
“Learning the craft of sales helped me understand the value of consistent contact with prospects and previous customers and led me to found Email Broadcast,” Mahar says. “Understanding the steps of the sale, relating product details in a meaningful way, handling objections, strategizing, dealing with competition, and practicing it all consistently is the key to achieve tenfold excellence in marketing.” Mahar now applies those sales skills for the benefit of his clients’ email campaigns.
How has email marketing evolved in the last few years?
“It’s funny how in the last 20 years of my exposure to the email marketing industry, I’ve seen huge changes, but also realize that many of the same challenges still exist. You’re still fighting for attention,” Mahar notes. “People thought email marketing would die in the wake of new platforms. Turns out, a major percentage of business communications still happen via email. The big dirty secret is that companies are still underinvesting in their email marketing.”
The biggest change Ken sees is how tech innovations and advancements like professional ESPs (email service providers) have made email marketing much easier than it used to be to get started… but more difficult to master because the platforms are so deep and constantly changing.
Common mistakes businesses make in email marketing
Mahar says people tend to underestimate the amount of effort it takes to conceive and execute an effective email marketing plan with perfection. What’s more, they often dive into email marketing without aligning their strategy with their business goals.
Another mistake people make, Ken says, is thinking of email marketing only as a sales channel.
“First, you need to deliver value to your audience in order to build trust and high engagement,” he says. “Only then will people respond to a sales message. Businesses often exploit their privilege of having email subscribers by overdoing the promotions, to their long-term detriment.”
Another giant mistake, according to Mahar, is not leveraging sophisticated tools like automation and segmentation. He stresses that “maybe 70% of the value of an effective email campaign comes from using automation with advanced segmentation—sending the right message to the right people at the right time.”
What does Email Broadcast do?
“At Email Broadcast, I have curated a team of experts in every area of email marketing—from overall strategy to copywriting, design, technical integration, template coding, and project management. We execute every detail of the campaign precisely and remain accountable to our clients for the success of an email campaign,” Mahar says. “Essentially, you can hire our entire Fortune 500-quality email marketing department as your own, for less than the cost of a single employee.”
Who can benefit from the email marketing services of Email Broadcast?
“If you’re running a business or non-profit, and you don’t leverage professional email marketing, you’re losing money,” Mahar advises. “Almost every company has an opportunity to grow their revenue or influence by stepping up their email marketing game by replacing their ‘one guy’ with an expert team.”
Specifically, if your business has any of the following, you’re a good candidate:
- Complicated products/services that need buyer education
- A long sales cycle where nurturing is needed
- What you sell is a relatively high-dollar purchase
- B2B sales, or employ an inside or outside sales team
- You give bids regularly or have fierce competition
- An ecommerce website or a high volume of internet traffic
- Over $5 million in revenue, or lots of customers to “onboard”
What’s next for the company?
When asked what’s ahead for Email Broadcast, Mahar says, “Email marketing is a marketing medium that still delivers—now more than ever. We’ve focused on it for the last two decades because we are thoroughly aware of the challenges of the medium. Since it’s our specialization, we wish to keep perfecting our craft for the decades to come and be recognized as the greatest full-service email marketing agency in the country.”
To learn more about Email Broadcast, visit emailbroadcast.com to book a free 20-minute consultation call with Ken—or sign up for the agency’s Top 5 Classic Email Marketing Mistakes That Almost All Businesses Make. You can also contact Ken directly at [email protected] or call 805-316-3201 x 101.
