Email Marketing Content Ideas
The opportunities presented by email marketing show no signs of slowing down, however, as the medium has evolved, so has the competition for your audience’s attention. This article provides ideas for creating the kind of email content that will help keep your audience engaged and steal their attention from the competition. Before you begin creating content, consider two key elements: your objectives and your audience.
Short-term and Long-term Objectives
When it comes to your objectives, it’s important to consider not just the immediate objective, or what you want to achieve from a particular campaign, but also, the long-term objectives of your overall email marketing strategy. Thinking long-term is important because email lists require nurturing and cultivation, something that occurs over time. Anyone can send one campaign that will get people to click – i.e. “The first 100 people who open this email will win $1,000,000.” But this approach is not necessarily sustainable over the long term. Most marketers will tell you, the most valuable email lists are those that have a loyal and growing audience, and this doesn’t happen over night. So, when you create your content, you want to think about how a particular campaign fits in with your other campaigns and overall strategy – the messages, the style, the timing, and the calls to action.
Knowing Your Audience
Today, it’s common to receive hundreds of emails every week, so you face a lot of competition for your audience’s attention. From this standpoint, email marketing is a touchy relationship. It’s all too easy to unsubscribe, delete without opening, or simply hit the spam button. You don’t want to burn out your email list. This is why it’s so important to know your audience –think about their needs and address their hurts and delights, and speak in their language Timely and relevant content and providing value above just selling is key.
A Note on Newsletters
Many businesses provide extra value to their audience with newsletters. Newsletters are a great way to keep your list engaged, so you can continue to email to them. The most effective newsletters focus on delivering value above and beyond showcasing products. In this way, you can develop a loyal audience who will be more receptive to hearing about your product updates and receiving promotional emails.
Content Ideas
1. Personalize It
If possible, try to personalize your email campaigns. Personalization can mean addressing your recipient by first name and also providing other customized and specific information about them in the email, for example, about a product they own or have inquired about, etc. Studies show that personalized emails get better click through rates than generic ones.
2. Write for the Both Short and Long Attention Span Audiences
Business people can be both short attention span types and detailed analytics. Why not write for both audiences? For those with the short attention spans, make sure your content is scannable with bolded headlines, bullet points, and quick facts. For the more detailed type, include more prose. One way to write for both audiences is to have anchor text at the top of your email, with the key headlines or synopses that people can read quickly, and longer content at bottom of the email, or available after clicking over to a Web page on your site.
3. Email Preview and Mobile Devices: Important Info at Top
Along these lines, you also want to consider how your audience is viewing your emails.
According to market research firm SurveySampling, 65% of decision makers view email campaigns in mobile devices, and usually in text. In addition, many business people view their emails in preview mode in their email clients, such as Microsoft Outlook. Sending test emails and viewing them in the way your audience will can help you design your content for optimal impact. Putting your most interesting content at the very top of your email is a good rule of thumb.
4. Minimalism Will Never Go Out of Style (Especially in the Age of Information Overload)
While newsletters tend to be content rich, which can appeal to a broad audience, you can also make an impact with simple emails that focus on one clear message and one call to action. In our age of information overload, opening up a concise email message that is easy on the eyes can be a breath of fresh air. Along these lines, watch the overuse of colored fonts and too many graphics. Not only are they triggers for spam filters, but they can take away from the main message of your campaign.
5. Series Emails
Another way to create content that keeps your audience engaged is to think about an email as part of a series. A series works by keeping your audience engaged and looking forward to the next email. Topics can cover everything from training or on-boarding materials for new customers to games or special promotions that increase in value with each subsequent email and action taken. For example, one company offered increasing discounts at various deadlines for consumers who provided promo codes from previous emails.
6. Coupons and Promotions
Coupons and special promotions are proven to be popular content in email campaigns. According to Experian Marketing Services, 80% of email campaigns that include coupons receive better click through rates than those without. Those with coupons that were redeemable online received 17% higher click throughs and those with coupons redeemable in-store received 24% higher click throughs.
7. Video and Multimedia (Infotainment Is Good)
Today, even with the rise of social media sites, 50% of shared or viral content is sent via email. While text still rains supreme on the Internet, video as well as other forms of multimedia, such as Flash demos, are becoming more prevalent in email campaigns and on websites. If you have the capacity to tell your audience a story using multimedia and to reach them via email to view it, it’s a great way to keep them engaged.
8. Best Practices from What the Most Successful People Are Doing
Business people are naturally curious about what their peers are doing, particularly the ones who are successful. Publishing best practices from experts in your field to help them sell more, keep customers, and be more efficient is a great way to deliver value and even establish yourself as a subject matter expert.
9. Interviews
Along these lines, interviews also provide great content. Just look at every magazine on the rack in the check out stand at the grocery store. Video interviews also make great content, including a strong call to action to get email recipients to click over to your website to view them. Interviews with your best customers, trainers in your field, and other experts offer content that is distinct from your other marketing messages.
10. Case Studies and Testimonials
Case studies and customer testimonials can serve a similar purpose to interviews and can be in video or written format. Providing real world results that come directly from customers can be more impactful than messages sent directly from the marketing team.
11. Lists
Late Night with David Letterman has proven that Top 10 Lists work. Even in a serious business setting, lists appeal because they provide an easy way for an audience to get a lot of information quickly. Examples can include “5 Mistakes to Avoid when Hiring a Sales Person” or “Top 10 Features to Look for with an Email Marketing Company.”
12. Most Popular and Best of Content
This is another idea taken straight from the magazine rack. Featuring content that is labeled “Most Popular” or “Best of” is immediately intriguing to audiences. They know this content is tried and true and not something they’d want to miss.
13. Surveys, Stats, Fast Facts, and Forecasts
Another way to convey quality information that is quick and easy to absorb is with interesting statistics or other quick facts. This also plays on the problem we have today with information overload and trying to make things easier for your reader. Aggregating relevant statistics for a specific topic from various sources can be helpful for your reader and can tell an interesting story. Generating your own surveys, even asking your audience to provide their industry forecasts, and sharing responses in an email campaign can provide targeted and original content that is especially relevant for your particular audience.
14. Timely Events
Notices of special events, conferences, webinars, and other timely announcements that have a deadline (especially in your subject line) is the kind of content that generates click throughs as long as it’s relevant for your audience. Whether they are events being put on by your own company or industry-wide, making your audience aware can make their jobs easier and position your company as the subject matter expert and “in the know.”
15. Call to Action
Surprisingly, marketers can focus so much on the email campaign itself that they forget about including a strong call to action. Even if you’re just sending a non-sales-focused newsletter, you don’t want to waste an opportunity by excluding a clear call to action. Your call to action can be anything from “Forward to a Friend” to “Click here to learn more” to “Call today.” The key is to avoid guessing games. Tell your recipient what you want them to do.
16. Digital Signature and Address
Finally, every email campaign you send should include a digital signature with your company’s street address, email, and phone number. In addition, you should include a one-click unsubscribe link. Emails that lack this are not CAN-SPAM compliant and can appear unprofessional and even illegitimate. Your digital signature is the final stamp on your content that shows your organization is professional and on the ball, and that you welcome responses from your recipients.