Four Sensational Emails to Send to Your Subscribers
22 June 2018
269 billion emails were sent every day in 2017. With business emails making up a large portion of that number, how many succeeded in meeting the sender’s desired outcome?
Emails that accomplish your marketing objectives are readable, valuable and intriguing. They sell products, secure subscriptions and enhance relationships to improve your bottom line.
Finding the inspiration to craft relevant and targeted emails is a challenge many small business owners face. My aim is to give you a leg-up with the most effective email ideas going. But first, here’s how to prepare for your writing session.
Your Objectives - Write Them Down
Get clear on your objectives to build a results-based strategy for a dynamite email campaign. Here are some examples:
- Build brand awareness
- Enhance customer relationships
- Increase subscriptions
- Build a social media follower base
- Acquire new customers
Writing down your campaign goals helps you focus making your call to actions clearer, increasing the chances of click-throughs, signups or social media follows etc.
Your Audiences - Group Them
We get frustrated when our inbox is full of unwanted emails. They’re either irrelevant, as bland as a fridge manual or you get too many of them. Your customers and prospects probably feel the same. Which is why you need to make a great first-impression to be heard in all that noise.
Group your audiences by their demographics such as:
- Gender
- Location
- Age
- Seniority
- Product purchased
- Industry
- Education level
- Buying frequency etc.
Use an automated email disperser like MailChimp to store your lists. With the ability to quickly reference different groups, you can create targeted emails for the most bounteous results. And once your content is written, use MailChimp to quickly send out your emails individually.
Once you’re confident with your objectives and customer research, you’re ready to craft subject ideas.
Idea One: Your Story
Humanising your brand builds trust, making your business more attractive and strengthening your brand loyalty. One way to connect with your audiences is to share real stories about you, your team and your business.
Great topics aligned with your story could be:
- A day in the life of…
- Team news / updates
- Event coverage
Go with a ‘did you know?’ approach without taking up to much of your reader’s time (keep it short and sweet). This approach works when your goal is to nurture your audiences at awareness level (prospects who aren’t ready to make a purchase but want to know more about your offerings). Sign off with a call to action such as getting readers to subscribe to your newsletter or blog.
Idea Two: Solutions to Problems
Personalisation makes your customers feel valued and appreciated. That earns you loyalty. Achieve this by identifying the groups you want to email. Then ask yourself: Why do they care about this product? How does it solve their problems?
Say you’re an accountant. Individuals seek your services because it saves them time and gives them legal security. Emphasise these solutions: you could create content that goes into more detail about these benefits or covers the risks of managing finances independently.
If your goal is to drive more traffic to your website, include an attractive snippet of your post followed by a ‘read more’ link to your site. Or you could replace that link with a newsletter signup request in order to unlock the content.
Idea Three: Top Tips
One big benefit of having a great email subscription is getting information that teaches you new things. It helps you develop skills, get educated on new topics and keep up with the latest trends or news.
Be generous with your knowledge as a sender. Offer insights that aren’t common knowledge: topics that build your authority as an industry expert and offer real value for your readers.
Take this opportunity to set the bar for the rest of your information-based content: attract customers by consistently delivering amazing information.
Idea Four: Client Success Stories
Showcase your business in its best light by illuminating positive customer experiences. Client success stories are proof that you do deliver on your promises and are true to your values. Send your case studies as snippets with links to the full versions on your website. Or round up the main points for a quick-read email.
There’s also an opportunity here to create more sales-driven CTAs. Finish your email with a ‘contact me’ button or a link to your services pages when your objective is to gain more customers or sell a product.
Top Template Tip
With your email ideas in hand, you can pick templates based on the needs of your content. Look at different formats, structures and styles for the most appropriate design.
MailChimp, Dotmailer, Constant Contact and most other email service providers offer lots of good quality templates to choose from. Or you could go to an agency and get them designed personally.
Make sure your templates are optimised for different platforms like mobile or separate email suites. The benefit of using a tool like MailChimp is that it the testing is done for you. Use an agency instead and ask for proof that the template you want to buy has been fully tested. Otherwise, email format errors will do no favours for your first-impression.
Always Remember...
With direct access to people’s inboxes comes great responsibility. But don’t let this discourage you. Use the email marketing hacks you’ve gained today to ensure consistent quality content that achieves your marketing objectives.
Mike Pye,
Mike set up his own marketing consultancy business after becoming frustrated with agencies that promised the world and under delivered. He now works alongside the best local talent helping businesses grow through personalised data-driven marketing campaigns. The passion, insight and imagination delivered is second-to-none, and Mike’s clients walk away feeling confident and content that the consultancy and strategies gained will elevate their business to the next level. https://www.mikepyemarketing.com
"Email Marketing is essential in your business strategy when done correctly. Any good email marketing strategy comes down to content and audience, you want to deliver the right message to the right person. A great place to start is MailChimp, with helpful templates and tracking tools, you can begin your email marketing journey and start building campaigns.
If you want to learn more about email marketing why not book onto one of our email marketing workshops, email me @olivia.axon@growthco.uk and we can get you booked on."
Olivia Axon Digital Marketing and Events Apprentice at GC Business Grwoth Hub