Sometimes we’ll get nostalgic ’round these parts and look through our old ebooks, and then happen upon little nuggets of wisdom that we feel would be super beneficial to you and your marketing program.
We found today’s hiding in our totally free ebook (which we highly encourage you download) …
… and decided it was absolutely worth sharing.
4. Have Value
This might seem really obvious because of course you should be sending valuable content. But sometimes it’s not always clear cut what is making your emails valuable, who’s finding them valuable, or even if you and your subscribers are on the same page of what “valuable” is.
What one subscriber may find interesting might not gel well with another. Will all your subscribers love your recipe for deep dish pepperoni pizza? What if some can’t eat meat? Or cheese? Or pizza?
That look you get one when someone says they don’t eat pizza.
Then the information that you find valuable to share suddenly isn’t anymore, and worse: It could drive people away. Puzzling all this out might seem daunting, but you likely already have all the information you need at your fingertips to put the right message in the right inboxes.
What do we mean? Well that brings us to …
3. Target. Target. Target.
Are we starting to sound like a broken record? Good! We want this pounded into your grey matter because it’s important to separate yourself from the people who still don’t get it and send batch-and-blast emails to everyone and their moms, and their moms’ moms.
Pictured: Everyone who got your batch and blast, and precisely how they feel about it.
Use the subscriber data you have to segment your peeps into lists you can target with certain types of emails. Those people on your pizza list that don’t eat meat? Segment them into a non-meat pizza list. Those people who don’t eat cheese or pizza? What the heck are they even doing on your pizza list? Get them out of there, c’mon. What’s good for the goose is not always good for the gander.
‘Sup.
Segmenting and targeting will not only increase the value of your email marketing program, but it will provide a more personal experience to your subscribers.
2. Be Timely
We live in an age where information literally moves as fast as person can make their fingers type. Social media has revolutionized information sharing and the news media in general. What’s trending on Twitter worldwide one minute could be easily forgotten in the next 10.
That’s why being timely is hugely important. It seems kind of like a weird thing to harp on, but if your sending emails to your subscribers that are referencing Star Wars Kid then you’re risking that reference dating yourself and turning your readers off. Coming off like a codger might seem fine to your family and absolutely no one else, but your subscribers may not find you so endearing.
Someone just said “YOLO” to me. Better tweet about it!
Conversely, capitalizing quickly on something that is trending could be a huge boon for your brand. In that same vein, taking advantage of upcoming holidays or calendar benchmarks is something you should always keep in mind.
1. Stay Relevant
We kind of sort of touched on this in the entry directly before this one. Like, literally four sentences ago. But it goes a little further than coming across as the old person who isn’t “with it.”
Being timely is one thing, but stay relevant requires you to go a little bit deeper with your email program. Sending bland, uninteresting emails can make your email program fade into obscurity quickly with your subscribers. Like we mentioned above, sending information they don’t find valuable will likely do the same.
If you can’t capitalize on what’s trending or what’ll be coming down the shoot, at the very least you can send emails that are consistently on brand, on message, and never leave your readers feeling like they’ve wasted their time clicking on your message.
Also check out Capture Customers’ Attention With Lifecycle Email Marketing and Create A Better Customer Experience With Transactional Email Marketing