Every morning, I wake up and see this little red square next to my email icon on my phone, showing me all the unread emails in my inbox. Some people might think I never check my emails, which is quite the opposite; I check them 3 or 4 times a day. Instead, I have signed up for so much stuff and started to receive content that I find less valuable or catchy to open. I will open the app, scroll through the emails I received today, and see if any subject lines catch my eye or if I have any important emails that need attention. I will open, read, and reply when necessary. The rest live in my inbox forever unopened until I finally hit the select all button and either delete all or open all just to get the red square off my phone for a few hours. I know that I am not the only one in the world with this morning ritual, but how do marketers overcome the unopened email route many consumers have?
Well, this might sound pretty basic, but it is a fundamental component that most companies struggle with writing content that is valuable to the consumer. Email marketing should be almost like a free add-on tool your consumers receive for their benefit. I have seen the same mistake happen repeatedly, where a company will only send out emails that push consumers to buy the following product and offer some deal to "close the offer." This deal closer is the wrong way to approach email marketing, but I want to highlight something that one of the hosts said on the Target Internets podcast. "We need to start doing things for the consumers and not to the consumers." -Target Internet. That quote is so powerful when thinking of anything that does with marketing.
Now I know what you are thinking: "We are a business and we need to make sure that our ROI is positive and we need to increase sales." I want to share a quick story to hammer this point home.
Albert Einstein is one of the most brilliant people that has ever lived. Most people don't know about him, but he taught physics at Oxford University in 1942. Mr. Einstein had a group of about 40 students that he taught the whole year, and of course, when he gave his students the exam, they all passed. The following year, he taught the same class to another group of students, and when it came time to take the exam, he gave the same one as the previous exam. (To other professors and his assistants, they thought this was crazy, I mean, what if they cheat?)
When he was finally approached about why he did this, his response was quite simple: "The questions on the exam might be the same but a lot has changed within a year, and the answers are different than last year." The reason I tell you this story is that in business, we have the same questions every year, "How are we going to increase our ROI and Sales?" but the answers have changed how people engage with our content and what we do to take some of that brain space to remind them of our messaging and to lead them to sales eventually. This concept is why email marketing, mainly, is a campaign and not just one email. We must first capture the consumer's attention with the content they want and then lead them down the sales process.
Outside of creating good content for consumers, I suggest having fun and creating a unique subject line. The subject line should be true to what you are talking about in the email, but it can be fun and engaging to the audience. It could be questions that make them want to ponder what might be on the other side of your email, or it could just be something that sticks out, and they recognize that it is your brand. Most of the time, if you as a marketer have filtered down your email, people should be opening it because they had to sign up somewhere. Why would anyone who did not want to know what you had to say sign up? The hard truth is that they were forced to do so at some point in the sales cycle, and they did not want the company's emails because it is not engaging content for them. (They just wanted the deal then and said it was okay for that company to send the email, but they will most likely ignore it anyway.)
Lastly, looking at the small stuff, have someone read over the email and make sure there are no spelling mistakes. Look at the design and ensure it is simple and the images do not pull you away from the message you are trying to send. Do not stuff the page with several calls to action. One tip I do when reviewing an email is to let it sit for a day and then come back and see if this is an email I want to read. If not, make some adjustments and keep working on the messaging. Then, once the message is finally sent out, wait and look at the results, let the data come in, and see where you can improve. These are a few ideas that I would look at, but there is no perfect way to do email marketing. It is an everchanging market. New ideas are always on the rise, with a new trend following closely behind, so if you have an idea, try it, and if it fails, all you can do is adjust and try again. If anyone else has any ideas on this topic, please share them in the comments below because Iron sharpens Iron, and we are all trying to grow!
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