“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, or 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 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 that 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 which will never go extinct and will always remain an effective one. 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:
Table of Contents
1. Personalized and Catchy Subject Line
When people open their Email, they don’t want to see boring stuff that makes no sense to them. A person these days is smart enough to understand that what companies are doing is their promotion and will immediately spam it or unsubscribe it.
And no company wants that.
Thus, you need to create a catchy subject line that will arouse curiosity in 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.
Below mentioned is the screenshot of James Clear’s Email, which he sends every Thursday. 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.
Source: Email Screenshot
The above chain of emails shows how James Clear is true to his subject line and delivers what he has promised. Plus, the subject line is catchy, and one would want to click it right away and see what the mail is about.
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.
Source: Who Gives a Crap
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, then you need to update the email list accordingly.
For example, if you live in Mexico and are targeting an audience in Germany, you must understand the time difference of 8 hours and set the email shootout accordingly. No one will read the Email at night.
Like time to send emails is essential, one also needs to take into consideration the days of the week, the age of people, and the devices that they use. Different umbrellas should be created under which the list can be categorized on the basis of 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 Inclusivity. It means to make 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 not considering 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 making a certain kind of people feel excluded is not likely to last long as compared to the companies that believe in including everyone and not discriminating against anyone. It reflects 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 here – one size does not fit all.
The list needs to be separated according to the content because not each 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 it requires coming to a brick-and-mortar store. It does not apply to people living in other cities or states, or countries altogether.
You cannot send an Email in the Spanish language to Nigerian people; at the same time, you cannot expect everyone to understand the English language. Thus, the content needs to be created/appropriately curated, and the timing of sending Emails needs to be managed with the help of 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 trying to buy 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 to happen, then collect the data of people who visit your brand’s website. Local brands can quickly grow and establish like this. Once a person buys something from the website of a local brand, their data will be stored, which can be used to send them Emails at certain intervals of time.
Also, the method of blogging still works effectively in creating a subscriber list because people might learn about your brand from a blog and subscribe to obtain 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 the 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 to be.
Although one can easily create fake reviews these days, there are a few genuine ones as well. And not just that, User written guest posts about the company, product, service, experience with staff, etc., are always more well-received than companies that showcase awards and accolades.
User-generated content takes authenticity to the next level because people eventually smell fakeness and cheating, and fraud, which could lead to damaging the brand’s reputation. They are smart enough to call out the bluff.
Plus, with Email Marketing, retrieving everything back and turning the clock is not easy. Once the content is out, you cannot delete the post or edit it. Hence, put a lot of thought into User-generated content that acts as a trust signal.
Conclusion
We hope that the tips mentioned above and examples 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 the betterment of your business by sending compelling and actionable emails and not spam.
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