Email folklore may not be as popular as the campy stories and urban legends you heard in your younger days, but it’s the kind of stuff that will raise the hair on the neck of any marketer. Unlike some of the typical ghostly tales, however, these grim accounts are based on true experiences that will chill any witch or warlock to the bone.
Don’t believe it?
We’ve summoned a few forbidding tales, so read ahead if you dare…
The Never-Ending Email
The biggest benefit of email is having a guaranteed way to communicate with your customers. But what happens when you own multiple storefronts and have customers from all over?
According to a pet shop retail chain that has store locations along the entire east coast, the answer is to cater to all customers in one shot. The result? The lengthiest email I have ever read. The events section alone listed 43 events in the tri-state area. That’s right, 43 events — each containing a one to two sentence description of what it entailed. Talk about overkill.
The Lesson
While it can be difficult to determine what you should share with customers in an email, it’s imperative that you do so to avoid overwhelming your readers. It also makes it easier for them to consume your content in the short period of time that they’ll actually spend reading your email.
In this particular case, the pet store could have taken a couple of different approaches. For one, they might want to consider segmenting their email lists based on geographical location, such as city and state, to ensure that subscribers only receive information about events in their home towns.
They might also want to feature a few main events and include links to an events web page that lists every occasion in greater detail.
The Email With No Purpose
There are certain fundamental elements that one would expect to see in any given email. Actual content, for example, being one of them. Content that provides value, being another.
However, there are those that completely skip out on both of these:
While I appreciate the well wishes, I have trouble justifying the purpose of this email (something every small business owner and marketer should consider before sending a message to subscribers). If the intention was to encourage engagement with the sender, they failed at providing me with a good reason to do so. There are no coupons, no compelling information for me to mentally chew on, nothing.
While they did include a call to action (“Have a health question? See a doctor now”), they failed at sparking my curiosity and getting me to at least think of something health related that I might want to know more about.
After clicking the call to action button to potentially shed some light on this confusing email, I’m brought to a landing page to sign up for a paid version of the company’s services. Lightbulb. Unfortunately, not many readers are going to even make it this far based on the email content alone.
The Lesson
If the goal of the email was to promote the paid version of the company’s services, they failed to do so because it was unclear in their email message. If you want your subscribers to take a specific action, whether it’s to download a white paper, read your latest blog post, or shop new discounts at your online store, then you must explicitly tell them.
This company also missed a huge opportunity to reconnect with a subscriber who has not engaged with their site in over a year. If they had shared common user questions and answers, for example, that might have prompted me to click to find out more. To re-engage your subscribers, include valuable content such as tips, questions, or even recent news that readers might want to learn more about.
The best way to make yourself relevant again to your inactive subscribers is by bringing value to them — end of story!
The Chaotic Email
When it comes to email content, less is more (unless you’re like our friends in the previous example who included nothing at all). But that isn’t always easy to do when you have a lot to say and not enough email space to say it.
I recently received an email that contained 10 hyperlinks and had information in both the middle and sidebar sections of the email. Needless to say, there was too much information and no visual direction on how to consume it.
The Lesson
To make things a little less cluttered and a little more clear, the email sender might want to focus more on layout. If you want to include a message, feature past events, and showcase upcoming ones, keep it visually organized. Email content should flow in a logical manner. It should not compete with other content.
Visual images and line dividers can also help organize your emails so they’re easier on the eyes. And as far as the sidebar goes, it’s probably best to eliminate placing content there altogether.
The Deja Vu Email
Email and consistency go hand in hand. People love knowing when they can expect messages from different businesses, which ultimately builds a level of trust and dependency on your brand. Sticking with the same template is also a good habit to get into, as it makes it easy for your subscribers to know where to find specific information.
However, sending the same email template and the same email contents are two totally different things.
One e-commerce site regularly sends emails with 20 or so pictures of a variety of products, from women’s fashion and accessories to home decor items. While we encourage the use of visuals in your email marketing efforts, there is a balance that’s important to maintain. For one, don’t rely on images alone.
While the pictures are visually intriguing, there are no product descriptions, no mention of whether or not these products are popular, or if people are?buying them. After a while, all emails begin to blend together.
The Lesson
To make their emails stand out from one another, they might want to start featuring less products with more details. By including product descriptions, designer names, and items that are customer favorites, readers might be more encouraged to check out an item.
Organizing product images by category would also help visually organize the email, so loyal readers can easily find what they’re looking for, or simply browse with little confusion.
If you don’t have any products to feature or sell, you can freshen up your emails with new published content (e.g. blog post, white paper), curated industry-related content, or even a ‘tip from the pros’ to provide exclusive actionable advice for your readers. As long as you keep your message from going stale, you’ll be golden.
Do you have any tips for creating great emails? Share with us in the comments below!
Invasion of the Rotten Emails
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