Are you using an email marketing strategy as part of your integrated marketing communications strategy? Are you tired of email recipients who open your emails but don’t act? Are you sick of crafting the perfect email subject lines and bodies, not to mention postscripts, only to have your efforts rewarded by a trip to the archive folder or recycle bin? It’s time to stop the madness. This short but effective integrated marketing communications checklist will ensure that your emails get read and compel your readers to act, whether it’s to click a link, watch a video or flat out buy.
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Art of the Email Newsletter: Having an Recognizable From Line
If your recipient doesn’t recognize your name or the name of your company in the From line, off to the recycle bin your email is likely to go. People don’t want to be harassed by spammers, and an unwelcome email is exactly that — spam. It’s unwanted, unneeded and a nuisance to people who would rather read valuable emails they can use. Your email marketing strategy is all about branding.
So make sure that your recipients have opted to receive your emails, and you might want to send a note to every subscriber that lets them know who their emails will be coming from. This is a sure way to boost your open and conversion rates in one fell swoop.
Viral Marketing with Honest and Useful Subject Lines
People today have been bombarded with marketing for years, most of it sleazy marketing, and they can recognize sleaze from across the room. They know all the tricks, all the exclamation points and ALL CAPS that marketers used to use to get people’s attention with email subject lines. And back then those types of tricks may have worked. They don’t anymore. According to Greg Sterling of Local Search Association, “Email marketing is a proven tactic for small business and one that continues to be heavily used despite the rise of numerous other channels.” However, it’s often misused by marketers. Rather than use email marketing best practices of providing information, content that is useful to an individual who has signed up for your list, many marketers have just constantly send out email blasts to buy there next product or some random affiliate product they never even bought themselves.
Today’s email recipient wants a subject line that gives an honest account of the email’s contents. That’s pretty much it. So if you’re offering your recipient a hint on how to feel better today, don’t include a subject line that says, “FEEL BETTER RIGHT NOW!!”
Instead, go for subtlety and honesty, and you’ll get much better results. For the above example, you might say, “Use this one feel-better trick to boost your mood right now.”
As long as the person is looking for what you have to offer, using straight-forward subject lines will go a long way towards improving your email marketing results.
People today have little time to waste. And even if they’re bored and do have tons of time to waste, that doesn’t mean they want to read three paragraphs of you introducing yourself.
The person you’re writing to opted-in for a reason. They may want to lose weight, get a discount on today’s latest fashion or they may want to look or feel younger. And in that sense, they don’t care about you so much as what you can do for them.
So get right to the meat of the matter and get your recipient closer to their goal. Instead of starting off with, “You signed up for my email tips because you want to get out of debt,” which the person clearly already knows, you might start with, “Hello, this is the best way to get out of debt. First…” and then go right into your tips.
The faster you can teach your recipient something new, the longer your recipient will continue to read, and the more likely the person is to take action. This is the right path for your small business email marketing strategy.
Integrated Marketing Communications: Easy-to-Digest Information
Few people are going to read a wall of text. That’s a block of paragraphs that require the reader to strain and pay attention to decipher any clear meaning out of the message you’ve sent. Most people, if they can’t easily read what you’ve written, will promptly close your email never to look at it again.
So go easy on your readers. Use short, concise paragraphs and easy-to-understand terminology. A person should be able to glance at your email a single time and get its meaning, and it should take very little effort to read the entire thing.
Short and simple are the keys. Remember that and more of your emails will end up converting, guaranteed (as long as your information holds value for the recipients on your list).
Call-to-Action – Email Marketing Best Practices
Your email marketing recipients aren’t mind readers. They won’t know what you expect of them unless you tell them outright. If you want your email readers to click, tell them ‘click here’ or ‘click this link’. If you want them to call, tell them so, and provide a phone number to dial. If you want a snail mail postcard or if you want your recipients to ‘Buy’, write it out in black and white and make it crystal clear what you expect. This very trick can drastically improve your click-throughs and any other KPIs you’ve set out to measure.
Put all of these steps together and you’ll have simple emails that speak to your recipients’ desires, that help your readers get even closer to their goals and one that commands that all readers take action, thus driving your bottom line.
With these five tips, you’ll have the best email marketing strategy be an unstoppable email marketer. So get to writing. The path to greatness starts now.