5 Ways to Help Emails Reach People
There are so many things that impact an email’s effectiveness. Often, what matters to the consumer and what matters to the email service are very different things. It’s important to strike the right balance in making the consumer and email service happy, as well as reaching your goal in sending the email. So, how can you make sure your emails reach people?
The Email Services
What do email services care about? They care about the backend/behind the scenes stuff. Things like how heavy images are and the amount of content and the types of links. This is where general best email practices come into play.
It’s important to give consumers an opportunity to opt in (and out if they want) of your email campaigns. If you don’t give people a way to opt out, you are breaking federal email laws and get blacklisted or penalized. Give people the option of choosing what types and how much email content they want from you. Follow through on their requests promptly. Legally, you are required to honor their request within 10 business days. Honoring that request promptly will build on their opinion of your brand.
What other email practices are required by law? Don’t use misleading or inaccurate header information such as your “To,” “From,” and “Reply-To” information. You want people to know where the email is coming from and so does the email service provider. Consumers don’t want to get an email from someone they don’t trust, and the email service provider doesn’t want to deliver email like that.
Don’t mislabel the email. The CAN-SPAM act requires that email subject lines accurate reflect the content of the email. That includes ad information. Like most social medias, email is required to tell the consumer if it an #ad. However, there is a lot of leeway on this and how you choose to disclose this information is up to you.
Consumer’s Opinions
Now that you have followed all the email laws and best practices to get your email in your consumer’s mailbox, what else should you do? Well, consumers care about catchy subject lines, engaging and interactive content. Here’s 4 things that will impact your emails effectiveness from the consumer’s point of view:
Choice of Words
Email marketing provides freedom for trying out different types of copy until you find works best for your audience. Every audience is different so what content will be the most effective is also different. It is important to understand your demographics and who your audience is.
Personalized Content
Email is more than just delivered information. It’s a conversation between brand and consumer. Often it a brand’s only way to communicate with customers and can feel very one on one. The consumer feels like they know the brand like a person, so it makes sense if the brand communicates with the consumer as if the know them as well. They are simple things that make that conversation more memorable, for example, many brands use the customer’s name in emails.
Beyond that you can use audience segmentation to separate your audience into groups that share common characteristics like demographics and behavioral information. Using your audience segments to target your message to things that each group are actually invested in can greatly increase how personal your marketing will feel to the customer.
Brand Consistency
Since email is often one of main touch points brands have with consumers, it’s really important to maintain brand consistency. The consumer needs to know that the message is from you. Keeping that brand consistency helps your brand’s personality shine and helps people get to know you. Brand consistency builds loyalty and trust. It helps the consumer maintain the connection to your brand.
What brand elements should you include in your emails? Your logo, brand colors, and fonts are good places to start. Due to the nature of email, you don’t want to over crowd it with branding. Instead, think about how tone and feeling. Does the way this email is set up feel like how my brand feels?
Don’t waste people’s time
Most office workers receive 127 every day. People don’t have time to read lengthy emails that actually provide them value. Email copy writing is about providing value as succinctly and quickly as possible. Be direct and to the point. Don’t word vomit on people. Use infographics, bullet points, and short paragraph too highlight the point of your message.
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