contact lists, C-level contact listsProblem-solving is a key part of the lives of your executive contacts. Every day, they face numerous issues that need solutions. Think about how you can assist them in specific areas with email content focused on solutions. If you can provide practical and effective solutions to the challenges your executive contacts encounter, you will definitely gain their trust and, in the end, their business.

Focusing on solutions-based emails in your campaign can affect your marketing results both now and in the future. In the short term, you’re likely to see better performance metrics, such as increased open and click-through rates, along with lower unsubscribe and bounce rates if you use a solutions-focused email strategy. In the long term, your efforts to solve problems will help build your reputation and foster trust and loyalty.

With a bit of craftiness and some motivation to really help your target audience with some of their pain points, you’ll be able to take your email campaign to higher levels. Here are some basic steps to follow for developing solutions-based email content.

1. Uncover key pain points. Before you can formulate some solutions, you need to identify which of the problems that your C-level contacts currently face you intend to address. There are two ways you can do this. One method is to conduct surveys targeted at specific segments in your executive contacts list while the other approach is to do your research elsewhere (online and offline).

2. Look for internal sources. Now that you’ve determined which problems you’ll be focusing on, it’s time to look for potential solutions. The first place to try is within your company. After all, that’s the reason why you’re doing business in the first place – to provide solutions. Consider inputs from various employees from various departments.

3. Outsource some ideas. When internal sources of potential solutions aren’t enough to solve a particular problem confronting recipients in your executive contact list, it’s time to reach out for some outside help. There are countless sources of insights both in the real world and cyberspace. It’s part of your job to extract the right ideas from these intellectual repositories.

4. Offer actionable advice. Once you have enough information to build workable solutions with, you then need to structure your pieces of advice in such a way that they’re easily actionable and not just some vague concepts. A good example for this is a well-developed “how-to” guide or “tips & tricks” outlines.

5. Segment contact list by pain points. After you’ve created your solutions-based email content, it’s good practice to segment your contacts list according to the problem your recipients face. Step 1 should help you identify these criteria points and make it possible for you to map specific content to particular categories of executive contacts, i.e., matching problems with solutions.

6. Practice consistency. As with any other aspect of email marketing, consistency should be maintained throughout the campaign. Make sure to adopt a regular schedule and frequency for sending as well as follow a coherent content development strategy.

The main takeaway here is for your emails to become one of the things that make the lives of the recipients in your C-level contact list better. Keep in mind that your target prospects are considering doing business with you because of the problems that your company helps solve for them. That’s why offering little bits of advice to address everyday problems that matter to them can be the best way for you to build relationships.