It’s happened to many of us. We started our business serving one type of ideal client, only to experience a major change months or years later. (And it may happen again months or years from now, so listen up). Heaven knows I’ve experienced this several times!

How Do You Pivot Your Email Marketing Message to Your Current Audience?

The answer may vary based on how different your new service/audience is, and whether you’ve decided to still accept or close off your previous client segment.

Start by deciding if you will also honor requests from past clients and prospects from your old target market. For example, you’re an image consultant who started out working with corporate women and found a high demand for clients who are entrepreneurial men. Do you continue to say yes to projects for past clients or great prospects who are corporate women? It’s up to you!

What To Do When You Will Also Honor Requests from Your Original Audience.

Let’s say that you decided to continue to serve a select few from your previous audience. But you want to make it clear that your new focus is quite different. Looking at your email marketing list, it’s naturally plentiful with contacts who are corporate women.

  • Take a hard look at those contacts and weed out those prospects who never really landed. They didn’t open, didn’t click, didn’t reply. They were likely deleting your emails right from the inbox. Do them a favor and remove them.
  • Keep the best of your clients and super prospects on your list and plan on emailing to them quarterly. No one likes to be forgotten, and you don’t want to dry up your funnel. Specializing is great, but don’t completely shut off a possible stream of solid revenue.
  • Make a concerted effort to add more contacts from your new target market.

Email marketing is great because you can keep folks in separate lists and then decide which message each list gets and how often.

What To Do When You Will No Longer Serve Your Original Audience.

The best course of action is to send a message ONLY to that audience, thank them for their readership, and explain your business has now changed in focus. Ask them to keep you in mind if they know of someone in your new target audience. Always come from a place of clear communication AND gratitude.

What you don’t want to do is simply remove everyone from your old lists and not communicate your change to them. It’s like shutting the door in the faces of people who were interested in what you originally were sharing.

How To Communicate Your New Focus

Email marketing works because it lands where people check every single day – their inbox. And a change in business focus is a perfect excuse for an email campaign. Don’t just suddenly start talking about your new service or audience – that causes confusion which breeds mistrust.

Instead, create a campaign that’s an announcement of your decision. Make it positive and fun. Explain why you’ve made the change, in the most upbeat and meaningful way that will help you connect with your audience (both old and new).

Example:

We’re proud to announce that ABC Image Consultants is now specializing in helping men develop their new style as confident entrepreneurs. Whether they’re addressing their small team or speaking at a large conference, we’re helping men level up their business wardrobes. Men’s fashion choices in business have come a long way and we’re excited to show the guys how to extend their personal and professional brand into their clothing choices.

Communicate Clearly and Often

Not everyone will read you announcement campaign, so it’s wise to continue to publish that explanatory paragraph at the top of every campaign for the next quarter. And you’ll want to use your subject line to start that change in focus!

Example:

Guys – you have a presentation to give – what are you going to wear?

Need Answers?

If you have questions on email marketing tactics, I’ve been specializing in this marketing platform for more than a decade. Reach out and let me know how I can help.