So you decided to surprise your customer at their doorstep with a wonderful cake. One of three horrible things can happen:
- They don’t answer the door;
- They slam the door shut when they see you; Or worse
- They instruct someone to dump this cake or any future cakes from you in the trash!
This is a sad little analogy that marketers can relate to their email marketing strategy.
You can’t blame the customers though. Some of them just don’t want cake!
The secret to a successful e-mail marketing campaign is to understand:
- What kind of emails you need to send,
- Who do you send them to and
- How do you package it?
Here is a list of emails that marketing ninjas are using today in their killer email marketing campaigns.
#1) A Warm Welcome E-mail
Your subscriber is your new best buddy, and you need to open up the lines of communication. A warm welcome email is a great way to start and it encourages new members to engage with your business.
The content of your email will vary with what exactly you wish to offer.
In general, the email should reflect your brand’s personality and the value that recipients can expect to receive.
See how Ledburry brings in the sophisticated tone and explains about their product with being salesey. Every man wants to be that guy, right? And we also like how they link to video.
The welcome is a great place to explain how everything works and what users need to do to get started.
But be sure to make your copy warm, short, sweet and good to eat (Sorry, I’m still thinking about eating cake).
You want to send your welcome email out pronto. Send it fast – as quickly as you can. Email tools are very affordable these days, our tip is to to add the speed of triggers to your check list when you are evaluating cheap email marketing software. Realtime get the best engagement, and if you are not a well known brand – you want them to directly recognise you.
#2) Promotional E-mails (This one is tricky)
Approach with caution fellow marketeers. Millennials will shoot you down if you annoy them with promo-emails that are all flash and no substance.
Promo-Emails are crucial to a marketing strategy. It’s how you announce your next sale, eBook, webinar, coupon, free trial and other campaigns.
Remember that this email should describe and promote one marketing offer with a CTA that links to a landing page made for that specific offer.
And that’s it.
You want your copy to be a perfect balance of being brief yet descriptive enough to demonstrate the full value of your offer.
Make sure to use a large CTA button with actionable language that is perfectly clear.
#3) Regular Newsletter E-mails
Newsletters are a great way of sharing the highlights of your business with your customers.
Customers can get an overview of the various articles that you create for your business or blog.
When they are sent out regularly, customers can relate to your business as reliable and trust worthy.
The best way to ensure customers read these emails is to make use of good visuals and a brief yet descriptive copy.
Follow the format described below. It’s getting amazing results in the marketing world right now.
- Only include one to max top 3 articles in the email. If the user wants to read more, provide a CTA to the rest of the article at the bottom of your copy!
Use great visuals and an attractive heading to get your audience hooked to the article. Animated .gifs like the one in the moosend newsletter (see the animated portion here) can gather additional engagement.
- The actual content of the article will clutter your e-mail. Omit it! Use a CTA to direct your reader to the landing page of the full article. Not only will he avoid a headache from a large email, but he will also end up on your website where he has access to other articles.
#4) Form Submission Kickback Emails
If you went “The what?!” after reading the title, fret not. It’s just a fancy name for Confirmation E-mails or as I like to call it Thank You E-mails.
Whenever a form gets filled and submitted on one of your landing pages it should trigger an automatic email response to the user. These emails are absolutely essential if you are asking your audience to submit a form.
They should be very brief and only include the important parameters of the transaction.
Visuals are not worth the effort for these emails. A simple layout with your brand logo would suffice.
Just thank the reader for their form submission, and give them what you promised.
Provide all the info to be shared in a capsule size ready-to-be-digested format.
Remember, the reader isn’t looking for extra information. So don’t try to promote anything over here. Simply provide a CTA to similar products or services if you feel it necessary.
#5) Event Invitation
Email is probably the most effective means to promoting an upcoming event.
But it’s important to present the event in such a way that it would be worth the attendance for the invitee.
Not like this guy
So instead of a well worded copy, focus more on visuals or photographs of the event of the previous year.
Or take a step further and invite the audience through a well-crafted video. It could showcase some of the highlight attractions of this year or best moments of the previous year and so on.
This would give the user a realistic experience of what to expect while attending the event, which is difficult to capture through written copy.
To summarize – Don’t sell the event, sell the experience.
#6) Anniversary or Holiday Emails
What is the best way to retain customers?
Make the relationship personal.
Remember that loyalty stems from human emotion. It may seem unlikely that a customer would be loyal to you just because you sent him a Happy Christmas email. But this little gesture can go a long way as it subconsciously builds trust and familiarity with your business.
This is a great way to engage with your customer and it is especially effective when tied in with a special anniversary day promotion.
Imagine it’s your birthday today.
You got an email from an e-commerce website you have subscribed to.
They are offering a special 15% discount for items in your wishlist exclusively for you just because it’s your birthday!
The best part is that these e-mails can be automated and you only need one copy!
So there you have it, the 6 types of emails you can delight your customers with. Remember guys, e-mails are very important for your business. So it’s a no-brainer that the content within these e-mails have to be strategically crafted.
Happy E-mailing! 🙂
