Effective Email Marketing Feels Like A Dialogue – You’ve probably heard the expression, “The money is in the list.” Any modern marketer worth their salt knows the importance of building up a list of email subscribers.
However, subscribers don’t pay the bills. You need to engage those subscribers and move them through the customer journey so they become customers.
The problem is that with so many emails attacking our inboxes, how can you connect with the audience that signed up to hear from you?
Getting good at anything requires repetition
I’ve been running email campaigns since 2007 for dozens of businesses in all different industries. In the last couple years alone, I’ve sent over 4 million emails. Here are my lessons — so you don’t have to risk carpal tunnel.
People listen to people, not businesses
The most important element of an email campaign is not the subject line or time of day, but the name that the email comes from.
Send your emails from a person, not “company name” from [email protected] I’ve found that the best-performing emails are always from a person, not a generic name or email address.
Did you open the last email your best friend sent you? I bet the answer is yes. Did it matter what the subject line was or what time they sent it? No. It mattered that you recognized the person and valued what they were sending you.
That’s the relationship you need to have with your subscribers. They’re people, not numbers in a CRM.
Good marketing feels like a dialogue, not a monologue
If you want to get responses from your emails, don’t try to sound like you’re presenting to a board of directors (unless, of course, you’re writing an email to your board of directors).
When someone opens an email, they’re typically reading it alone. So treat the conversation as a one-on-one message that you would send to a friend or colleague. Be conversational, and people will feel connected to you, with a greater likelihood to respond.
Don’t be so long-winded that they stop paying attention. Make it as long as it needs to be to make your point, but keep it as short as possible.
People don’t send fancy HTML emails to their friends
Humans are conditioned to avoid commercials and sales pitches. If they open an email that looks like a flyer for a promotion, they’re going to skip it, and your message will never have a chance to get read.
RELATED: Email Marketing Increases ROI Significantly
Keep emails text-based to maintain that conversational feeling.
Only send what’s relevant
The better you can segment your list, the better you’ll perform. Sending tips to grow an accounting firm to insurance reps is a sure way to get ignored, unsubscribed or even flagged as spam. So, how should you segment?
Make sure you’re only sending information that the person receiving it would consider relevant. A few things to think about are industry, customer journey and their understanding of your product.
If you’re sending information to people who have never purchased a product like yours before, don’t send that same information to experienced customers, and vice versa. Continue reading
