Email marketing is an important marketing tool that businesses should consider when creating a marketing strategy.
It is used among many different people for both personal and business use, therefore making it an effective way to communicate and grab your recipient’s attention.
When creating an email for your marketing strategy you must consider a variety of things in order for it to be successful, these include:
- Whitespace
- Good imagery
- Short subject line
- Limited but to the point text
- A call-to-action
- Personal touch
- Social media icons
The Eight Essential Rules.
- Stop talking about your list – Write as if you are emailing just one person, it makes the email a little more personal. You can also search individual professionals on LinkedIn.
- Be useful – Don’t email just when you need something out of your readers. Be helpful, generous, and friendly and act like a friend.
- Quit wasting people’s time – The only email when you know you have something valuable or helpful to offer.
- Use your actual name as your address – Put your name and reputation on the line.
- Be trustworthy – Let people know what they should expect, be clear and concise regarding what your recipients will be receiving.
- Don’t be creepy – Don’t repeat a person’s name too often, it is right to personalise the email a little, but it makes you look like a script if you overdo it.
- Be on their side – Remind people that they are not alone, emphasise with them and ask how you could help them.
- Give people a reward for reading – Make sure people benefit from reading your email. How? Sharing useful tips and inspire them.
11 Tips on How to Write an Engaging Email.
- Write Fast – It how your personality and enthusiasm comes through.
- Keep it short – Long emails slaughter your reader’s interest, challenge yourself to cut your text by half.
- Ask questions – Imagine having a face-to-face conversation with your reader.
- Don’t follow a strict formula – Blueprinted emails will quickly bore readers.
- Add a personal touch – You are trying to get readers to know, like and trust you! Being a little more personal will make the recipient believe you are there to help/benefit them.
- Don’t automate your greeting – Mix it up! It makes it less robotic and more personal.
- Use the word ‘you’ – It is one of the most persuasive words in the English language.
- Develop a natural voice – Consider your emails to be a way of talking to your customers or readers.
- Add personality – Use words and expressions only you can use. Just be human.
- Stop being dull – Understand the tell-tale signs of boring writing. Write strong and short sentences, being to the point is better as your recipient will constantly stay intrigued.
- Quit being selfish – Don’t be cold-hearted, care about your readers.
Top 10 Business Email Marketing Campaigns of 2016.
In 2016 there were many different email marketing campaigns that were very successful in terms of increasing clientele. Below are the top 10 of 2016:
Virgin: Email represents one of the brands biggest marketing channels. They create emails for their ‘Virgin Experience Days’. Their email campaign revolves around showing off these amazing experiences through great imagery.
They receive 20,000 new subscribers each month. This campaign allows them to instantly reach out to their audience, they use it to target people that have already purchased and already trust the brand.
They use some whitespace throughout their campaigns and also keep their text short and sweet.
Topshop: Email is a phenomenal channel for them market campaigns and drives sales.
Their use of eye-catchy imagery and persuasive words eg; ‘Meet your’ is a way of grasping their recipient’s attention quickly. They also include the point text along with plenty of white space to break everything up.
They also use a call-to-action, ‘In-store now’; this call-to-action is encouraging the recipient to either search for them on their own or click on the button which will take them to a page of their website.
Converse: They use email to embrace the brands history, new products and fan following.
They have made their email campaign very visually pleasing for their recipients, including plenty of white space and to the point text.
They keep their recipients intrigued by ensuring their email campaigns have plenty of whitespaces to make the email easier for them to read as well as using good use of visually pleasing photos to break up the text.
Rooftop Cinema: They use email to connect with their community about upcoming showing and events.
Throughout their email campaign they use persuasive words such as; ‘you’ and ‘you’re’, they also use plenty of whitespace around their text in order to make it easier for their recipients to read.
Belgium Olympic Team: Their Olympic committee kept the spirit alive for their athletes and fans with their regular email newsletters.
Their emails have good use of a few things such as; imagery, whitespace, short to the point text. This enables recipients to move effectively through the email and not get bored halfway through.
GUESS USA: They wanted to spread the word to customers about their favourite colours for the summer: ‘Black and White’. They created a simple but fun Black and White email campaign to promote this.
Guess the USA have used plenty of white space, simple and short text, with a big image. This email campaign is probably one of the most effective emails of 2016 because of the simple idea that Guess USA have adopted, it keeps recipients interested.
Pizza Hut: They use email to promote special offers, like the ‘Triple Dipper Meal Deal’ with special coupons and other special offers, this encourages customers to buy.
Their email campaigns are mainly made up of imagery; this is a more effective way of keeping customers attention because images are easier to digest.
Adidas: They used email to launch their Superstar collection, email is an effective way for Adidas to reach their customers because many of their customers will have email accounts that are fairly active.
Their email campaign was simple, but to the point, grabbing attention instantly and ensuring it wasn’t a bore. They mainly used imagery to promote the collection, with a few choice words used within the email as well.
Huck Berry: They created a Scarcity email campaign. They have used cold email subject line to instantly grab the recipient’s attention. ‘We Never Do This.’ Furthermore, they use discounts, imagery and whitespace throughout their cold email subjectline to ensure that their content is broken up and isn’t becoming boring for the recipients.
Huck Berry also reiterate their discount offers later on in their email campaign, this will create a sense of urgency for the recipients, encouraging them to take action.
Lastly, they use Social Media icons at the bottom of the email; these should be at the end of every email campaign as many recipients will want to see what the business is about before taking any action.
Birchbox: They create personalised email campaigns; this is done by addressing the recipient by their name at the beginning of every email. They have created an eye-catching subject line to engage with their recipients from the word go!
Their email is acting as a letter to the recipient explaining what they have forgotten in their February Box, this makes the email a little more personal to the recipient.
Furthermore, Birchbox uses plenty of whitespace throughout their email to break up their text and ensure their email doesn’t become a bore. They also use discounts as a way of keeping the recipient’s attention, the discount is for Rent the Runway, a clothing store they know their customers will enjoy.
They also use persuasive words throughout such as; ‘you’ and ‘your’, not only this but they make the email again more personal. Finally, they have social media icons at the bottom of their email for recipients to click and go into their social media platforms.