How many of the emails have you received today would you say you found ‘interesting’? The answer is probably very few, if any. Email, in itself, isn’t seen as being the most exciting medium, which isn’t helped by the complacency of many marketers.
Email has long been many company’s most successful marketing method. It’s both simple and affordable, meaning it’s almost guaranteed to bring results. However, this means that many businesses are just sticking to their same tried and tested email marketing formula. Although this is likely to achieve success in the short term, it’s certainly not going to be interesting for the subscribers and may lead to dissatisfaction in the long term.
So, how can you stop your emails from becoming predictable? You don’t have to completely stray from your formula. Just occasionally do some of these things, and your emails will become far more interesting to your customers:
Be Helpful
Things that are helpful are rarely boring. Even if you’re writing about a traditionally dull topic (how to unblock a toilet, for example), if someone wants to know that information, they will be interested in what you have to say. So, you can instantly be more interesting to your customers by abandoning the sales pitch and trying to help them.
Take this example from Medic Animal:
This email provides information on keeping pets safe during the hot summer months. There is no mention of any of the products the company sells in the body of this message. But, by providing something useful to the customer, they are putting themselves in the forefront of their minds and marking their company as an authority on pet care.
That doesn’t mean that you have to forego your sales pitch completely. This email from Liz Earle offers skin care tips, but also ‘prescribes’ some of their products for some common skin complaints:
Personalise
Personalisation is a great way to better connect and engage with your customer base. People will be far more interested in something they think is speaking to them directly, rather than something millions of people worldwide are looking at. Start by including your subscriber’s name in your emails, and you’ll be much more likely to catch their eye in their inbox.
Take this example from Virgin Trains East Coast:
This email uses personalisation in a number of ways. My name is mentioned in both the subject line and in the body of the email. They also use language that speaks to the reader as if they are the only reader. By using words like ‘you’ or ‘your’, you will instantly get a personal connection with your customer.
Personalisation can go way beyond just putting someone’s name in an email. Just try to think of any way you can speak to your customers on a personal level. You could send emails based upon the interests of your customers, their location or even the weather they are due to experience. This email, from Westin Gourmet, was sent out to allow their customers to take advantage of a heatwave the UK was due to experience at the weekend:
Notice that they have also included my name in the email and used personal language.
As you can see, making your emails more interesting is simple, as long as you’re focusing on the needs of your customers. And, by making your emails more interesting, you will benefit both you and your customers in the long term. They will receive things in their inbox that they actually want to read, and you will maintain a relationship with them well into the future.
