Email Marketing fit for a Lockdown

This is rubbish, isn’t it?

No, really – it is. Everything was totally normal a couple of weeks ago and now it feels like we’re living in a disaster movie. Normality is on lockdown.

Surely, we’re just minutes away from that mad old guy in Independence Day jumping into a plane to take on the Coronavirus mothership?

Forgive me – it’s a weird week.

With that in mind, what on earth are you going to use your email marketing strategy for at the moment?

Happily, I have a few ideas.

Idea 1: Invite everyone to a virtual pub session in quarantine

The closure (forced or otherwise) of pubs in the UK is heart-breaking. Of all the industries hit, it’s going to be one of the hardest. We are swapping lock-in for lockdown.

So, why not show some love for your local boozer by holding a virtual pub session in their honour? Get them involved too, and it’ll keep their name alive.

All you need is a virtual meeting platform (Facebook Live might be ideal) and a playful email invite sent to all of your subscribers. Then, on the night, you can all grab a drink of choice and pretend you’re at the local boozer!

Idea 2: Send the funniest things you’ve seen online this week

There’s some absolutely brilliant content flying around at the moment, and it’s much needed. The perfect remedy to the cabin fever you might suffer during lockdown.

Try this. Whenever you see a tweet, Instagram post or shared WhatsApp group photo that makes you smile or laugh out loud, save it and collate them all in a week or two into an email campaign.

Your subscribers will love this light-hearted comic relief – even if they’ve seen some of the content a thousand times already.

Idea 3: Show how the team are working from lockdown

If you’ve sent your team home to work and it’s unusual for them to do so, you can have some fun and use it as an email marketing campaign.

Ask everyone to take a tongue-in-cheek photo of how they’re working from home (funny locations, distractions and unusual desks – that kinda thing).

This will show the human side of your business while reiterating that you’re still open for business.

Idea 4: Send personal messages from the team

We’re all in this together, remember, so why not use your email marketing capabilities to send messages of encouragement from the team to your customers?

Some of them might be suffering in lockdown too.

Just a short sentence or two from each colleague might be enough to put a smile on your subscribers’ faces.

Idea 5: Set a work-from-home challenge

If there was ever a time for hashtag challenges, it’s now.

So, with that in mind, try setting a work-from-home challenge for your email subscribers.

It might be a tried-and-tested gem like the cracker challenge or something more inventive that you’ve managed to conceive while self-isolating. Just keep it clean, safe and compatible with social distancing.

Wrapping up

The above suggestions are genuine email marketing ideas – I promise. Although it might look like I’m extracting the Michael, I’m really not.

Times like this call for solidarity, a bit of humour and teamwork. The above will provide that in abundance if you have some extra time on your hands to invest in this vitally important communication channel.

Hopefully we won’t be in lockdown for long.