Your email marketing campaign is a critical part of your relationship with your customers. It's how you connect with them, offer new information to your subscribers, and provide discounts and other benefits that keep bringing your customers back to your business no matter what else they have going on. Without the right content, however, your customers will stop even opening your emails, much less responding to them the way you want. By crafting high-quality email content, you'll find that customers are more likely to respond to your marketing efforts. These tips can help your emails stand out from the pack.
Tip #1: Be Personal in Your Efforts
Personalization goes two ways. You already know that personalization is incredibly important to your audience. They don't just want to know that you know their names. They want to know that you understand the products and services that are genuinely important and useful to them. You've taken the time to segment your email lists and create content that is specifically geared toward each persona in your contact list. When you personalize your content, however, you also need to put your personal stamp on it. Instead of writing third-person emails filled with "one" and "the company," admit that it comes from you! Try signing your emails with your name and your position in the company--or perhaps using the name of someone higher up the ladder than you are. You'll quickly discover that customers have a greater trust in people than they do in generic emails.
Tip #2: Research the Field
What types of emails are your competitors sending out? What are your customers looking for in your emails? Can your business offer something that your competitors aren't? Take the time to research the field and discover the answers to these key questions. You may find that crafting the emails that will appeal to your specific buyers means something different than you thought, and that means you'll be able to make better progress toward your marketing goals in the future.
Tip #3: Keep It Simple
When your customers check their email, they aren't looking for an in-depth analysis of your latest product, nor are they looking for an image-packed email that takes forever to come through on their devices. They want content that is easy to scan, with important details designed to pop out. Most importantly, they want to be able to quickly find the information that was enticing enough to make them open the email in the first place. When you make simplicity your key guideline in crafting emails, you'll discover that it's easier to let go of elements the email doesn't really need in favor of those that will help drive sales.
Tip #4: Focus on Your Customers
What is it that customers really want from your company? Your emails can accomplish two things: they can either offer benefit to your customers, or they can be an advertisement that provides them with little more than the same type of content they'd find in the sidebar of their favorite webpage. By choosing to focus on your customers and offer them benefit, whether that comes in the form of humorous emails that entertain and delight or informative emails that provide them with links to highly useful content that deals with their questions and issues, you'll find that you improve your relationship with existing customers. Content is key to improving trust and making customers take notice of what your company has to offer.
Tip #5: Make Your Emails Valuable
It's easy enough to send out an email every few days, once a week, or at any other interval that appeals to you. Harder, however, is making sure that those emails offer actual value to your customers. As a rule of thumb, you should only send out emails when you have something important to say: announcing a sale, sharing a new product, or some other piece of information that is genuinely beneficial to your customers. If you don't have something useful to say, evaluate whether or not it's worth sending the email. Yes, frequency is important, and your customers need to know when to expect your emails, but they need more to know that when you send an email, it's to their benefit to open it.
Tip #6: Encourage Readers to Action
What are you hoping to accomplish when you send out your email? Chances are, you're trying to encourage customers to make a purchase--often a very specific type of purchase. By using action words in your subject line and call to action, you can increase the odds that your customers will complete the action you most want of them. Phrases like, "Don't miss out!" and "Come check out X" will go a long way toward spicing up your emails and giving customers a better idea of what you want from them.
Tip #7: Toss Out Your Formula
Has every email you've sent in the past month resembled the same tired script? If so, it's time to toss it out! Get rid of that formula and write emails that are new, fresh, and exciting for your readers. Formulas will quickly leave them bored. Think about it: you don't want to read the same thing every time you open your inbox, do you? Give your readers that same benefit.
Tip #8: Use Numbers
Numbers catch the attention and add authenticity to your content. Whether it's the "8 Things You Didn't Know About X" or the "7 Best Ways to X," you'll be sure to increase the number of readers interested in reading your email. Even more importantly, incorporate numbers and statistics when you can to let readers know that you really do know what you're talking about.
Tip #9: Write Naturally
As you develop your voice, you may struggle with how to phrase things. Try this: write as though you're sitting across from your customers at a coffee shop, sharing your favorite drinks and a couple of pastries. While you'd still treat them with respect, you would also speak naturally, without worrying about whether or not you were using the right "marketing language." When you write like you would speak, you'll increase your connection with your customers in a way that resonates.
Tip #10: Grammar Matters
Yes, you want to write naturally. You also want to be sure that you don't fill your emails with errors in spelling and grammar. Many savvy modern readers have been taught that multiple errors are a red flag to spam--and you don't want that type of association! Clear, correct grammar and spelling also retain the professional air you want from your content.
Tip #11: Take One Goal at a Time
It's easy to get bogged down and forget what you're writing about. You have so many things that you'd like to tell your customers that information just comes flowing out when you sit down to type! Ideally, however, you should take one goal at a time, providing your customers with a single key piece of information per email. This will allow them to focus on responding to one offer rather than putting it off because there are too many choices.
Crafting great content for your emails is the ticket to success in all of your email marketing efforts. By following these strategies, you can create clearer content that is genuinely beneficial to your customers, increasing the odds that they'll open your emails, click through to your website, and ultimately make another purchase.
