When it comes to email marketing, traditional assumptions about content and style no longer apply. Now, with email marketing software like HubSpot, you can create highly personalized messages that draw people in with compelling content.
Traditional wisdom suggested creating emails that are short and to the point. But, according to HubSpot Bloggers, concise yet effective emails can actually hurt your outreach. In fact, they say it’s better to give people more information in fewer emails. Therefore, it’s important to know what content works best for your potential customers.
Since the digital world is always changing, it’s important to find methods to follow that adapt with the times. One such method is email marketing. Thanks to innovations like A/B testing and personalization, you can tailor your approach to fit evolving consumer demands. So, whether you’re just getting started or you’ve been using email marketing for years, here are some tips and best practices for your next outreach campaign.
Personalized Emails
Personalized emails give your customers a special experience. Now, normally, we think of personalized emails when we think of CRM. However, the term CRM incorporates many different marketing techniques, so personalization shouldn’t be limited to customer relationship management software.
With the right CRM software, you can take every aspect of your customer’s journey — from the phone call to the transaction — and use that information to create an individualized experience. And, since email is often the medium through which customers interact with your brand, utilizing CRM software with email marketing makes perfect sense.
HubSpot Bloggers say that your customers should define your brand, not the other way around. And, with personalized emails, you can give people a reason to engage with your brand. Moreover, you can put a human face on your brand and make people feel like you’re talking directly to them. In short, with personalized emails, you’re not just “talking at” your consumer, you’re engaging with them and showing them you’ve heard their voice.
Creative Subject Lines
The subject line of your email serves two important purposes. First, it helps get your email in the inbox. And, second, it helps ensure the email is read and, most importantly, opened. Since people have so much information flooding their inboxes, catching the attention of your potential customer with a creative subject line is key.
Unfortunately, many businesses use bland, stock subject lines that often don’t even contain the customer’s name. So, to grab people’s attention, you need to come up with a creative subject line that will compel the recipient to open your email.
As a general rule of thumb, make sure that your subject line is short and to the point. In addition, keep it engaging. Some entrepreneurs create funny, quirky subject lines to increase click-through rates. For example, maybe you’re working with a pet store and you want to remind people that pets are man’s best friend. So, you might want to use a subject line like, “Wishing you happiness along with your pet.” You can also try, “Your guide to a luxurious lifestyle,” or “20 ways to make your partner jealous.”
As you see, even mundane subject lines like “Wish you happiness” or “Petiquette” became interesting and creative because of the phrasing. While it’s always important to be relevant and helpful, you should avoid using too many flowery phrases when writing subject lines.
Content Is King
If you’re using an outbound marketing platform like HubSpot to send your emails, you have complete control over the content of your message. And, since you’re the ones crafting the entire email, you can be as creative and unique as you like.
So, what should you include in your content? More importantly, what shouldn’t you include? In general, HubSpot Bloggers say that it’s better to have more information in fewer emails rather than fewer emails with more information. This makes sense when you think about it. If you had to read through a string of long emails to find out what the brand was offering, you might just turn off and tune out. In general, people hate reading long emails and they hate even more getting clogged up with irrelevant information. Therefore, if you want your email to be effective, short and sweet is the way to go.
Usually, your content will consist of some combination of the following:
- An introductory paragraph.
- Key benefits.
- An offer.
- Contact information.
Of course, your introduction should briefly explain what your brand is and what it does. Moreover, you can use this material to create relevant content for your blog. For example, if you’re working with an e-commerce store, you could write an informative blog post about the importance of good quality products and how those products relate to your customers’ experience. Or, if you’re trying to promote a new restaurant, you could write a piece on the history of Italian food or the recipes for the different types of pasta served there.
Once you’ve laid the foundation with a well-written intro, you should follow up with three benefits your product or service provides. These benefits should be substantial enough to make your audience interested in what you have to offer. Moreover, you can use these same three benefits in the content for your blog. For example, if the product you’re promoting is a digital marketing tool, you could write about how the tool simplifies your digital marketing efforts or how it helps to grow a business’ profile on social media platforms.
Use Statistics & Tech Analysis To Support Your Arguments
If you want to persuade someone to take action, you’re going to have to use strong arguments supported by data. Fortunately, there are several statistical techniques that can help you make more convincing cases in your favor. One such technique is called correlation analysis. If you’re unfamiliar, correlation analysis is the process of finding out whether there’s a significant relationship between two things.
For example, let’s say that you’re an entrepreneur looking to raise capital for your company and you discover that the IPO market is active right now. Based on that hypothesis, you pitch your idea to investors and see how many people want to listen.
If you do a bit of research beforehand and find that investors generally like businesses that have been around for a while and have a proven track record, you can use this data to back up your argument that the market is poised to reward your efforts.
Investors may ask questions about why the market is responding the way it is. To adequately answer those questions, you would need to conduct some statistical analysis. For example, you could group your sample into two categories: those that bought a product before the economic recovery and those that bought the product after the recovery. Then, you could compare the two and report on any significant differences. Based on the data you collect, you could draw a correlation between the economic recovery and the increased interest in your product. In essence, you supported your case with evidence. Moreover, you showed that the way you interpreted the data was indeed statistically significant.
Another technique that makes your arguments more compelling is tech analysis. Sometimes, businesses can get so focused on the task at hand that they forget to think about the bigger picture. For example, let’s say that you’re launching a new product and you want to make sure that people know about it. You might want to run a social media campaign to increase brand awareness. However, you only have a certain amount of resources to spend on this campaign, so you decide to use tech analysis to determine the most cost-effective channel to use.
If you use social media analytics software such as Hootsuite to track the performance of your social media accounts, you can see how many people are talking about your brand and what types of content people are sharing. Based on this data, you can choose to pursue paid ads on social media or you can decide to try and grow your audience organically through content that’s worth sharing.
Link To Other Materials
Another tip for crafting an effective email is to link to other materials. Other materials can include anything from a case study to a blog post that’s relevant to your content. While this material might be difficult to produce, it potentially has the power to greatly increase the effectiveness of your email marketing campaign. And, to make your case even stronger, you can use various techniques to help secure a link to the materials you reference.