Make Every Word Count

Although you can’t be ‘everything to everyone’, you can prioritise and target your communications – relevance is key. Don’t be afraid to address just one of your audiences’ needs at a time and save the rest for future mailings. If you’re too generic, in the hopes of getting more people to opt-in, you might end up being ‘nothing to everyone.’ The last thing you want to do is become irrelevant to your subscribers—if that’s the case you might just end up with an ‘unsubscribe request’.

Don’t hide your light under a bushel – studies show that most people won’t look beyond the first screen of information if there’s not something immediately interesting to them. You want to make sure you’re giving your customers a reason to scroll or click through. More and more people are accessing email through mobile devices, and all it takes is a few seconds to veto an email. Grabbing their attention and appealing to your customer’s needs and interests is critical in order for them to keep reading.

Similar to the world of social media, the ‘viral’ nature of such marketing tools allow people to pass along to others what interests them. If your message is targeted, well crafted and relevant, your subscribers may forward your message to others, who may forward to others and so on – influencing potential new customers, your ultimate goal.
The other key to successful email marketing is that ‘less is more.’ By providing valuable content with reasonable frequency, you can strive to create a community of recipients that actually anticipate your communications and in doing so succeed in keeping your brand in your customers’ minds and strengthen lasting relationships. A winning email marketing programme is one that is compelling enough to convince people to sign up, valuable enough to keep them wanting more, and useful enough to pass along.