Consistency

by | Jan 28, 2021

Doing something consistently is one of the most important factors of success in business.

But did you know that it’s also vital when it comes to getting more of your emails in front of more of your audience? Scroll down if you want to jump straight to the part about email.

Consistency in Business

Scott Oldford, one of my business mentors, has long since stressed the importance of consistency over innovation. Which is a slight challenge for me, as I’m much better at innovation!

I was reminded of this earlier this week when I investigated the Clubhouse app for the first time. I joined a room run by my friend Suzanne Dibble, who runs the Small Business Legal Academy, and the focus of her session was all about consistency in business.

As I listened to Suzanne and other speakers talk about how they’ve not always been consistent, I realised I’d been very similar. I’d been doing various different things in my business, until almost two years ago when I finally “woke up” and realised I needed to focus consistently on just one thing: email deliverability.

Going beyond that, though, I know I still have a long way to go to become more consistent within my business.

I’m a very intuitive person. I’m guided massively by my instinct and gut feel. That means I can be very spontaneous and unpredictable, which doesn’t really lead to consistency in my business!

I’m slowly but surely (guided by my gut feel!) working on consistent processes and consistent systems in my business and using technology to keep things consistent.

I am still “winging it” in many ways, but have embraced the concept of consistency while still being guided by my intuition.

Luckily, I have great people working in my business, as well as a great support network, who are helping me remain focused on consistency. 

So, while I do my best to make everything in my business more consistent, let’s look at why it’s so important that you’re consistent with your email practices.

Consistency With Your Email

The most important thing to remember here is that the world of email is dominated by the Big Three email giants: Google, Microsoft and Yahoo.

They’ve invested huge amounts of time and money in artificial intelligence systems that decide whether or not every email they receive will be delivered to the inbox, the promotions tab or the spam folder.

And here’s the most important thing I’ve learned: They Reward Consistency.

What do I mean by that?

In a nutshell, they’re looking for changes in behaviour. And when something changes, they treat that change with suspicion. If you start sending emails from a different platform, that will wave a little red flag. If you suddenly start sending much higher email volumes, that will trigger an alert.

The best thing you can do to help your email reputation stay strong is to be as consistent as you can with your sending.

The worst thing you can do is to be erratic with your email sends. 

For example, you might send monthly emails to your audience and then suddenly go into “full-on launch mode” where you send an email every day for a while. That change in behaviour won’t go unnoticed. It’s much more likely that your emails will end up in the promotions tab, or even the spam folder.

My recommendation is to establish a rhythm, a routine for sending your emails, and stick to it as closely as you can.

And, the more frequently you can email the engaged portion of your list, with helpful and valuable content, the better. 

I know that I’m still not consistent enough with my emailing habits. I had an intention of stepping up and mailing more frequently, ideally two to three times a week. 

I managed this for about a week, then a few things happened on the personal front and it all stopped and I’m back to mailing weekly. 

Once again, going back to the “consistency in business” theme, it’s because I still don’t have those effective processes and systems in place to ensure that I’m sending emails more frequently. 

I’m not (yet) in a good habit.

So… I’m going to do my very best to get back to that good place again.

How frequently and how consistently do you engage with your audience right now? 

Would it serve you to step up and send emails to your audience more frequently? 

I’d love to hear your thoughts.