Email marketing is one of the fastest and cheapest ways to promote your business. But that brings a few issues – mainly the avalanche of emails sent every day.
I bet when you opened your inbox this morning, it was overflowing with unsolicited emails. Of course, in theory, GDPR should have put an end to this but, let’s face it, it hasn’t. Under regulations, email marketers must collect freely given, specific, informed and unambiguous consent. That certainly hasn’t happened where my inbox is concerned.
Assuming you have a homegrown compliant marketing list, you can still use email marketing to get great information and offers out to your targeted market.
But how can you be sure you’re making the most of this marketing opportunity?
Well, as you would expect, the content of your emails is crucial to your strategy’s success.
Here are five tips to make sure you get the most from each of your emails.
5 top email marketing tips
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Length
No one wants War and Peace landing in their inbox.
Everyone is time-limited, so you must ensure that what you send is short, concise and to the point.
On average, about 400 – 600 words is plenty, any more than that, and people will start to switch off.
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Relevant
It’s essential to tie the content in with what’s happening at the current time. Make sure you give spring offers in the spring etc. If you have a local event happening, try to incorporate that to boost resonance with your readers.
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Get to the point
No one wants to read paragraph upon paragraph of waffle.
Make your point in the first paragraph so your reader knows the aim if of your newsletter. Also, make sure you include other subheadings so people can see at a glance what your newsletter covers. That way, they can pick out the information they need without having to wade through everything.
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Links
Introducing links to your text is an excellent way to a) shorten your email/newsletter and b) drive more traffic to your website.
These are especially useful if you want to add a lengthy article to your newsletter. You can add an intriguing snippet and then link out to the rest of the article so the reader can click through to it at their convenience.
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Be human
There’s nothing worse than receiving a bland, corporate newsletter. If you send out something like that, you’ll bore your readers rigid.
Inject some personality and be human. Write it in the second person and be chatty. You’ll find people are more likely to read something friendly than something overly corporate.
The final word
If you’re still uncertain about how to structure your emails and what content to add, take a look at the emails you subscribe to and that you read.
What makes them stand out?
Why do you read them?
If you can capture the essence of those that make you stop and read them, you’re halfway there.
Sally Ormond, professional copywriter