E-mail is a widely used marketing channel, but it’s not always a good idea. Floods of spam emails and emails sent to people not in the target are the most common errors: if we want to turn prospects into customers, we need to define a precise strategy before writing our email.
Even in the case of email marketing, the fundamental teaching of Philip Kotler comes to our aid: it is important to set a relational marketing strategy, not a transactional one. Limiting ourselves to a single sale is useless, if not harmful.
Before setting a strategy, therefore, it is important to understand what the target is and thoroughly study its characteristics: According to the data collected, we can decide which type of email is best suited to achieve the objectives we have set ourselves.
The path is far from being free of obstacles: it is not easy to get email addresses (often, a little enticement is needed to encourage users to communicate theirs); it’s not easy, once the email address has been obtained, to be read; and it’s not easy to convince the users to do what we would like them to. So, let’s see some good advice that can help us create an effective email marketing strategy.
Writing emails that are too formal, except in rare cases, tends to distance the reader from the writer. Especially in B2C, it is important to write emails that bridge the gap with the prospects or clients (which must be called by name), and to give them a tangible benefit, avoiding remote sales tones.
Certainly, if we are writing an email to the CEO of a company to invite him or her to try our product or service, then our tone should be more formal (but never officious).
…paying attention to promotional emails, which, as mentioned above, should avoid taking a remote sales tone. It is important to pay attention to loyal customers, by not only offering them discounts and special offers, but also information in line with their needs and interests.
The subject of an email is the first thing we read, that is why it is so important. It is important to properly take care of the object based on what we want to achieve. We can choose to intrigue our user with an evocative title, with a question that implies the promised benefits (“Do you know how I managed to double my sales?”), or choose to be direct, going straight to the point (“All of our glasses for half price”). Leveraging the principles of scarcity and exclusivity is always a good idea.
Pay attention to the length of the title too: 50 characters max.
Someone has visited your e-commerce site, filled his or her shopping basket but, eventually, did not make a purchase? Well, it’s time to retarget, i.e. to invite him or her to complete the interrupted action. Amazon, for example, does this often; it is a good strategy, but be careful not to overuse it. Too many emails of this type can be annoying.
Mailchimp, MailList Controller, SendBlaster: the software applications to manage newsletters and email marketing are many, both for sale and free. Getting help from specific software to send our emails will greatly facilitate our work, enabling us to focus upon strategy and writing.
