Email marketing is a powerful tool for businesses to connect with customers and drive meaningful engagement. It’s cost-effective, efficient, and can be tailored to reach specific audiences. Done correctly, email marketing can help you generate leads, increase conversions, build relationships with customers and boost your bottom line. Done poorly, your email gets lost in a sea of boredom, along with hundreds of other emails that failed to generate an action.
Without action, an email is a waste of time and money. Let's explore how to make emails that will build your brand and increase customer lifetime value.
How to create engaging content
We're going to assume that we're not the first blog to tell you that your content needs to be engaging. But where other blogs may have failed is describing what engaging content actually is.
Subject lines
When creating engaging content for email campaigns, it’s important to remember that subject lines are critical. They should catch readers' attention and make them want to open the email. Of course, you don't want to be "clickbait-y" or try and shock your readers. Instead, you want it to be concise, to the point, and accurate to whatever the email is about.
Tricking readers into opening your emails is a surefire way to get more unsubscribes and lose your audience immediately.
Instead, your subject lines should be short, concise, and hit on an emotion or trigger that your audience has. This requires specificity, personalization, and an understanding of what it is your audience values.
For example, which of these is more enticing to open?
Subject Line A:
Get 40% Off Your Favorite Shoes Today
Subject Line B:
Hey Carol!🏃♀️Your favorite running shoes are 40% off, just in time for spring
The answer is B. Does it take a bit more work? Yes, of course. Is it worth it? ABSOLUTELY!
How to do it
We're glad you asked. It's actually much easier than you might think!
With Cakemail, personalizing your email subject lines using merge tags is easy. You simply enter the [Name] tag which pulls the person's first name from their sign-up information and use a segmented list to identify groups of similar customers. So, if you sell different types of shoes, you can put those who buy running shoes in one list and those who have purchased dress shoes in another.
This personalization and list segmentation allow you to make subject lines unique to those receiving the email and help your emails stand out amongst a thousand other subject lines vying for your reader's attention.
Personal stories
As humans have evolved over the centuries, one constant that email marketers can rely on is storytelling. People love stories. Don't believe us? Ask NPR; they know everything. A personal story (even if it's made up) has the power to move your audience and help them connect to you or your brand on a deeper level.
And the stories don't have to be about you. Writing personal stories about how your products or services have helped customers can also effectively connect with readers and inspire action.
How to do it
Start simple. Even if you don't consider yourself a writer, you can tell an engaging story by linking the benefits of your product or service to the outcome received by another person.
Here's an example. Let's say you're a flower retailer. Surely, you've had some customer experiences worth sharing that will connect with your larger audience.
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Steve had been out of town on a business trip and hadn't seen his wife or kids for the last two weeks. Worse yet, it was the day before Valentine's Day, and he'd forgotten to order his wife flowers like he did every single year since they'd been together. He stopped in our shop, hoping that we had some of her favorite red roses still in stock.
Unfortunately, we had just sold out. Steve was distressed and feeling like a fool.
Fortunately, since we've been in the flower business for 15 years, we knew all the other florists in town and were able to call around to find Steve a dozen red roses from the shop down the street to give his wife on the special day. We even added Steve to our reminder emails so that he'd never forget again.
The moral of this story? It's never too late to get flowers for your special someone. Give us a call or reply to this email and we'll add you to our reminder list or find you the perfect bouquet for any special occasion.
At Midnight Hour Flowers, we got your back.
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Did you read that email all the way through? We bet you did. And it was entirely made up! But it sounds like an authentic experience, and it drives home the type of service your potential customers can expect if they decide to go with your company.
Introduce new services or products
Another great series of emails to send current or potential customers is about new products and services. Everyone loves shiny new things, and if they are already a fan of yours, it shouldn't take much of a nudge to get them to try something even more valuable.
How to do it
Start with an email introducing the new product or service, including images and design that make it look appealing. Make sure to include customer testimonials, if available, to help establish trust in the product before purchasing it. If you've made any videos about the product or service, include links to the videos. The more benefits you can show, the more engaging your email will be.
Loyalty discounts for regular customers
In almost all cases, it's easier (and cheaper) to keep customers than to attain new ones. Reward your current customers with loyalty rewards or discounts that new or non-customers aren't privy to. Tell them why they are getting this special deal and ensure that they feel special to receive it.
How to do it
Let's talk about list segmentation in Cakemail. It's a powerful tool. Without it, it would be impossible to remember who your regular customers are and what they've purchased in the past.
With it, you can segment your audience in many different ways:
- By purchase history
- By geographical location
- By marital status or income levels
- By open or click rates
And so much more!
Focus on design & optimization
When creating a user-friendly design for emails, it’s important to consider the different devices and operating systems that your customers may be using. Responsive design ensures that your email looks great on all devices so you can reach as many people as possible. Keeping things simple with short sentences and clear formatting will help ensure readability across any platform or device. Additionally, optimizing the load time of images by compressing them before sending out an email or setting up responsive image sizes beforehand will ensure they appear quickly, even on slow connections.
It's quite a challenge to finish reading an ugly email. So make your stand out by using an easy and interesting design. Fortunately, Cakemail offers quite a few email templates that make this simple.
Analyzing Results
Analyzing the results of your email campaigns is essential for gaining insights, understanding customer behavior, and improving future campaigns. The most important metrics to consider when evaluating success is open rates, click-through rates, conversions, and unsubscribes.
Understanding these numbers and how they're performing over time provide the insight you need to know whether your emails are read and your readers are taking action.
In conclusion, email marketing is a powerful tool for businesses to reach their target audiences and drive meaningful engagement. By crafting engaging content and optimizing design elements based on customer preferences, companies can ensure that their emails stand out in the inbox and encourage readers to take action.
Ultimately, with thoughtful implementation of these strategies, and the right email marketing tools, businesses can create compelling email campaigns that generate more conversions than ever!
