“Treat your Email subject line like the movie trailer – give a preview so they know what to expect.” – Anonymous.
Have you read Jane Austen’s PRIDE AND PREJUDICE, Ayn Rand’s THE FOUNTAINHEAD, or even Leo Tolstoy’s ANNA KARENINA? These are classics, and the person who is fond of real literature knows why these are classics and will remain so.
The richness of the text, effectiveness, language, characters, and tropes – are timeless. These lit-rich texts teach us so much even today. The same is true with Emails. They are classic. Sending an email to someone will not be effective because it is personal.
Whenever I open my mailbox, I am excited because it feels personalized, like someone might have taken time out of their busy schedule to send the email, even if it was system-generated.
Hence, email marketing is one of those classic marketing techniques that will never go extinct and will always remain effective. Although the dynamics and algorithms have changed, the base remains the same.
7 Effective Tips to Leverage Email Marketing
Since the inception of Email Marketing, people have liked emails that are personalized, actionable, to the point without any BS, and full of recommendations and information.
Thus, below mentioned are a few practical Email Marketing tips:
1. Personalized and Catchy Subject Line
When people open their Emails, they don’t want to see boring stuff that makes no sense to them. These days, a person is smart enough to understand that what companies do is their promotion and will immediately spam or unsubscribe.
And no company wants that.
Thus, you need to create a catchy subject line that will arouse their curiosity and encourage them to open your email. And not to forget, it needs to be personalized too. Because despite everything, people like being pampered.
Some of the best brands in the world send personalized emails with catchy subject lines and become successful email marketing. If nothing comes to mind, you can always rely on humor to create the subject line.
For example, If you are an apparel brand, you can go for – ‘Boyfriend shirts but husband material that you could never divorce’ to promote XXL shirts with materials that are so good in quality that people wouldn’t want to get rid of them ever.
Another example of a personalized and catchy title is – ‘Chef on leave, so we tried creating this new dish for you, Sophie/Oliver’ to launch a new dish that people should come and experience or can order at home.
2. Humorous and to the Point Email
Emails that are not to the point get discarded easily, and people often unsubscribe from them. However, if your emails are to the point, then people might not see them regularly, but at least they will not unsubscribe from them.
The screenshot of James Clear’s email, which he sends every Thursday, is below. For a year, I did not see what he sent, yet I did not unsubscribe it because it might not have my active attention, but it did have my passive attention.
Another factor one can rely on is humor. You can never go wrong with humorous emails. See the below example of ‘Who Gives a Crap’ and how they have used humor to their advantage and grabbed the attention of people.
3. Set the Timings Correctly
Time is crucial in Email Marketing because if you are shooting emails at the wrong time, you will not be able to capture anyone’s attention. WHEN in Email Marketing is as crucial as WHAT and WHY.
Demography matters when timings are to be set correctly. If your content is for audiences in countries with different time zones, you must update the email list accordingly.
For example, if you live in Mexico and target an audience in Germany, you must understand the 8-hour time difference and set the email shootout accordingly. No one will read the Email at night.
While time to send emails is essential, one also needs to consider the days of the week, people’s ages, and the devices they use. Different umbrellas should be created under which the list can be categorized based on varied criteria.
Tons of tools are available for email marketing, such as HubSpot, MailChimp, Sender, etc. These are free and can save tons of time as one should spend time on forming the Email rather than getting into the hassle of sending it.
4. Follow DEI – Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion
Many companies practice DEI—diversity, Equity, and Inclusion. This means making all kinds of people feel welcome despite their gender, race, color, background, ethnicity, sexual orientation, age, etc.
When this practice is incorporated into Email, conversions will happen not on the basis of tempting offers and content but respect as well. Biasedness and grudges only go so far with the content.
A human being who does not consider another human being as one and judges them, keeping these criteria in mind, will eventually remain behind. And the same goes for the company.
A company that makes a certain kind of people feel excluded is not likely to last long compared to companies that believe in including everyone and not discriminating against anyone. This is reflected in their Email.
Thus, practicing DEI with Emails is a must in 2023 to get the utmost advantage of Email Marketing.
5. Separate the Lists for Email Marketing
Companies often think that sending one kind of email to all the subscribers is the key to email marketing, but one could not be more wrong because one size does not fit all.
The list needs to be separated according to the content because not all of your subscribers will have the buying capacity. You cannot send an Email to anyone in the middle of the night because it will go down in their mailbox, and they might end up ignoring or spamming; thus, time zone matters.
Some Emails need to be sent to people who live close by because they require coming to a brick-and-mortar store. This does not apply to people living in other cities, states, or countries.
You cannot send an Email in Spanish to Nigerians, and you cannot expect everyone to understand English. Thus, the content needs to be created/appropriately curated, and the timing of sending Emails needs to be managed with tools, too.
And each list should be kept separately.
6. Try Not to Buy the Email List
Only the organic subscriber list lasts long. There is no point in buying the Email List because it is ineffective. Most people will unsubscribe and block immediately; the rest will not get conversed.
If you want accurate conversions, collect the data of people who visit your brand’s website. Local brands can quickly grow and establish themselves like this. Once a person buys something from a local brand’s website, their data will be stored, which can be used to send them Emails at certain intervals of time.
Also, the blogging method still effectively creates a subscriber list because people might learn about your brand from a blog and subscribe to receive more such content from you.
Hence, the paid list can only get the companies so far. It is the organic list that will bring more conversions.
7. Focus More on User-Generated Content
When User-Generated content is sent to subscribers via Email, it builds credibility for the brand. When people see user-generated content, they are curious to see why people have chosen to associate with the brand, what their purpose was, and how it has turned out for them.
Although one can easily create fake reviews these days, there are a few genuine ones as well. Not only that But user-written guest posts about the company, product, service, experience with staff, etc., are always more well-received than those of companies that showcase awards and accolades.
User-generated content takes authenticity to the next level because people eventually smell fakeness, cheating, and fraud, which could damage the brand\’s reputation. They are smart enough to call out the bluff.
Plus, retrieving everything back and turning the clock is not easy with Email Marketing. Once the content is out, you cannot delete or edit the post. Hence, a lot of thought should be put into user-generated content that acts as a trust signal.
Conclusion
We hope that the tips and examples mentioned above will help you understand how email marketing can be the most effective way to promote your business and reach a wider audience.
And you can always seek help from the experts. As Email Marketing is now needed more than ever, invest in improving your business by sending compelling and actionable emails and not spam.
