With people being exposed to multiple types of email communications daily it is important for your emails to stand out. When building your email communications, you need to know the answer to these two questions:
What is the purpose of the email?
Is the message meaningful to the recipient?
1 Segmenting your data
Once we understand the purpose of the email it is fundamental that we segment our database to target people where the purpose of the email will benefit them. Most marketers will send a generic email to their entire database which means people will switch off as their email isn’t relevant to them.
A lot of people will send out a generic newsletter on a frequent basis, what we should be doing with the newsletter is applying dynamic content blocks for the news articles in the email communication. For example, if your sending out a Newsletter to marketeers you might decide to create dynamic content logic based on job title, so directors and managers receive more strategic content whilst anything lower than a manager receives email communications on how to achieve certain things.
When we understand who our target market is and we’re now writing the content to fit the target audience. It is a good idea to start the piece of content off asking a few questions or list the points that the email will cover as this will allow the reader to identify if they’re going to benefit from the content.
2 The CTA
Once you’ve written the content it is imperative that you don’t use the standard read more, buy now CTAs it needs to be transactional, so the recipient knows what they’re reading more of and what will happen to them once they’ve made that click. We would also recommend that you include your call to actions in the first sentence of your email. If you’re looking to book someone onto an event, webinar, or purchase a product, it is recommended that you have two call to actions: one taking them through to an end goal, the second taking them through to a page for additional information. This ensures that the email caters for people looking to take the immediate action as well as people that are interested in the product/service you’re promoting. This is something that you want to continue with your website journey.
3 Utilise your fan base
When capturing contacts through gated content on a webpage where you have a whitepaper, include a case study on the same page which backs up how good your company is at delivering information. You will have a lot of competitors where your product/service will be like theirs. But your edge is showing that you have these testimonials from customers who trust and love your product.
Once downloaded, you should send potential customers an email containing other whitepapers that people have downloaded, showing you have the content and logic to back up everything you do.
If your company is certified or has a high Trustpilot score this is something you want to share with your database, so don’t be afraid to put it into the footer of your email. As you should be shouting to the rooftops about how great your organisation is!
For more email tips, download our whitepaper on using email campaigns to generate leads.