When trying to promote our businesses it’s easy to become distracted by the next big thing. All too often though, we’d be much better off sticking with things that we know work, and just trying to do them a little better. Email marketing is very much in this category.
With all the hype around social media, and influencers and pay-per-click, the humble email is often forgotten. It shouldn’t be though. Email marketing is the modern day equivalent of a style of marketing that goes back hundreds of years, and has made many people, very, very wealthy. People have differing ideas as to exactly when Direct Response Marketing started, but most agree it really hit it’s stride in the early 20th century.
Cheaper colour printing and a well established mail service lead to a boom in the distribution of catalogues and discount vouchers. The techniques developed by the likes of Anthony Montgomery Ward and David Ogilvy are just as relevant now for email marketing as they were then.
Have A Clear Goal
Like anything in life, it’s important to know what you’re trying to achieve. Don’t start an email marketing campaign without first deciding what the goal is. A campaign with no objective is worse than no campaign at all because you run the risk of alienating your audience. They get enough terrible emails every day, don’t add to the mess.
- Is the objective of your campaign to make an announcement?
- Is it to educate your audience?
- Is it to make a special offer?
Until you can answer that question, don’t go any further.
Link Your Plan To Your Content Marketing Plan
Whatever you decide to be the specific goal of the campaign, remember the overarching purpose is to continue building your relationship with your customers and to remove obstacles to making a purchase.
An Email Series is much more effective than a Series of Emails. What this means is that rather than thinking of it as sending a series of individual stand-alone emails, think of each email as part of a series. Each email builds on the information in the previous and leads to the information contained in the next. Like episodes of a TV show, leading to the eventual finale, a purchase.
An Email Series is much more effective than a Series of Emails
Andy N Burns
Use An Email Marketing Provider
Colour printing changed the direct response marketing landscape in the 20th century. Online software providers have done the same thing for email marketers in the 21st.
Email Marketing Providers such as Mailchimp and Aweber make it easier than ever before. Not only can you utilise their services to send mass emails, but they provide all sorts of other benefits
Segment Your Audience
The larger you list, the more important this becomes. Each one of those email addresses is a different person, with different needs and expectations. The more you can segment your audience, and tailor your message for their circumstances, the more likely you are to succeed.
As an example, let’s say you have a list of emails of your previous customers from all over the world who have visited your hotel. And let’s say that your hotel is located in Broome, Western Australia. It’s April and you decide to send an email letting your customers know that they can escape the cold of winter by coming back up to Broome. This is great for your audience who live in Perth and can feel the weather getting colder, but half of your audience lives in Europe, where summer is just beginning
Stay On Brand
There’s a reason that people all over the world recognise the CocaCola brand just by the shape of the bottle. It’s because everything they do is “on brand”. They have their brand colours and fonts and they stick to them. They update their marketing campaigns on a regular basis, but the fundamentals remain the same. Colour, Font, Language, Tone.
Have a Subject Line That Grabs Attention
I’m not going to quote stats about how many emails people receive every day, because I’m sure that number is increasing all the time. What’s important is that people receive lots of emails, and if yours is going to stand out enough to get read, you need a subject line that grabs attention.
How do you craft a headline that grabs attention? That’s a matter for a later article. To get you started, remember the Four-U’s. Useful, Unique, Urgent, Ultra-Specific.
- Be useful to the reader.
- Provide them with a sense of urgency.
- Explain how the main benefit is unique.
- Do all of the above in an ultra-specific way.
Write Good Copy
Copywriting is an interesting combination of art and science. Lot’s of people can do it well, but very few can do it so well it makes a real impact on the reader. There are entire libraries written on the subject of writing. My advice is to write as if you were talking to someone sitting across from you. Write as much as you need to, and no more.
Have an Effective Landing Page
Generally, the objective of your email is to get a response from the reader. You want them to take action. It used to be that you wanted them to cut out a coupon, buy a stamp, walk down to the corner and post you something. No, it’s much easier, generally, we just want them to click on a link and open a page on your website. That page is referred to as a “Landing Page”
You’ve put a lot of effort into creating an effective email campaign, so don’t skimp on this part and fall over just before the finish line.
Your landing page should be unique and tailored to match the message contained in the email that directs people there. It should be on-brand, with the same colours, fonts, language and tone. The number one rookie mistake is to send an email campaign that just directs people to your home page. If the email is talking about a specific offer, link directly to the page where your audience can book that offer. Not a different offer, not a general information page, that offer. Don’t make them search for it, because no matter how great your headline and copywriting were. If your customer has to search too long, they’ll lose interest and move on.
Track & Measure Your Results
Traditional direct response marketers would use different coupons or different phone numbers in their ads as a way of testing which ad got a better response. We can do the same thing now (and so much more) by using Email Marketing Software.
The data you can extract from these services will help you improve your email campaigns, but showing you things like which headlines were the most effective and which links were clicked on more often.
Like anything, the more you use it, the better it becomes
