Email Marketing – A Better Way

Love it or hate it – and most people do both – email is here to stay.

As much as it stresses people out, they still continue to check their inbox multiple times a day – as often as every six minutes for some.

It’s a fear of missing out …

But, most of the emails that land in your inbox aren’t worthy of your attention …

You’re not missing anything …

So if you use email to market to your list – you do have a list, right? – and you should be …

The last thing you want to do is contribute to the growing pile of crap that accumulates in people’s inboxes.

Make Your Emails Recognisable

People have signed up to your list, meaning they want to receive emails from your company.

So make your emails instantly recognisable with your brand name – not just the name of someone in your marketing department. It’s fine to add that human touch with someone’s name but be sure your recipients know who that someone is and where the email has come from, at a glance.

If I see an email from an unknown name in my inbox there’s a good chance I’ll delete it as spam.

In the quest to achieve Inbox Zero – an urban myth? – people don’t have time to check every email …

If it’s not instantly recognisable, it’s out.

Self-Contained Emails

Many emails now have everything contained in them, so you don’t have to click through to find out more.

Meaning click-through rates will no longer be a measure of a successful email campaign.

It also means your email needs to do double duty to persuade people to heed your CTA, since they’ll no longer need to click through to your website or landing page.

Interactive Emails

Again, a type of self-contained email where the reader can take an action – fill in a survey, take a poll – right there within the email, instead of clicking through to another site.

Get creative and delight your email recipients with discount coupons you have to ‘scratch’ to reveal, or live shopping carts within the email …

Even live scheduling on a calendar if you’re promoting an event …

 Embedded Video

Video marketing is huge, for good reason.

A video, embedded in your email, captures attention and makes your content more likely to be consumed and forwarded.

Even including the word, video, in your email subject line can increase open rates.

But consider carefully whether you want your video to autoplay – people prefer to have control over when they’ll press play …

As well as being really annoying, it can cause problems for those checking email on their phone in meetings and public places.

Embedded video can also solve the problem of people putting off clicking through to watch.

It’s already in front of them, and since it’s a short, engaging video – take note of that – they might as well watch it straight away.

The Element of Surprise

Once your customers start to realise that your emails are a little bit different – meaning interesting and worthy of their attention – you can add surprises …

People love surprises and yours will be the first email opened as soon as it lands in their inbox because they can’t wait to see what you’ve come up with this time.

Just remember, the people on your email list have given you permission to email them …

So surprise and delight them and make them happy to be on your list.

Email should never be boring, it’s too easy to unsubscribe.

 

Keep the Faith