While many email marketing tip lists will tell you all about being mobile-friendly and consistent, let’s be honest with each other—those are things you should already know by now.
What about the heart and soul of your marketing?
How about getting more personal and creating better content for in your emails?
Quality content and the art of connecting with your subscribers on a deeper level are necessary and frequently work in tandem, though they do deserve individual analysis. Each involve moving parts that—if you haven’t started already—you need to start working into every marketing email you send your prospects and clients in 2016.
Remember, emails are not relegated to just creating conversions. They can help you extend the influence and credibility of your brand. They can also provide helpful insights for your loyal customers long after the sale, especially as they continue to use your products or employ your services over the long term.
So how can you become more personal in your emails this year? And what can you do that you haven't already done to make your content more compelling with refreshing ideas?
Showcasing Pain Points
Your business exists to solve problems for people, right? Well, touching on pain points in your email marketing and offering solutions is one of those instances where being more personal and creating good content join forces.
The first step toward doing this is to understand your customers thoroughly by creating customer persona. It also pays to scope out more than one problem your product or service can solve so you have extra material to work with in your email content. By creating a series of emails that touch on how your product or service solves a series of problems, you'll prove that you fully understand what your customers want.
Keep in mind, if you sell products that your customers continue to use over time (like software), sending regular emails with examples of problem-solving can keep them interested and engaged with said product. And when you offer upgrades or similar products down the line, this approach can work well in cross-selling.
Content with Expertise
Email marketing experts say educational content in emails for brand awareness is a top goal for 2016. That kind of content needs credibility, though, and just writing without proving your knowledge can ultimately hurt you. Consumers today are more astute when it comes to real expertise and whether you can back up any technical information or claims.
Sending emails with content that comes from real experts helps tremendously with your clout. Don't be afraid to use experts from within your company to write content, or other influencers in your field. You should feature them and their credentials to prove you're an industry leader. Plus, this can help shake things up if you’ve been sending monotonous emails up to this point.
Do the same with any comparison charts that prove your team has more industry knowledge than your competitors. Cold hard facts about your product or service’s ROI, for example, are always better than just saying, “This is great.” Of course, make sure you use research from reliable sources so each email doesn't leave questions on legitimacy.
Clear Actions in Each Email
Email is a primarily text-driven part of your content marketing strategy, but it doesn’t have to be just text. If you already have content embedded directly in each email, you may want to complement it with other media you've created to round out the experience.
When nurturing leads, entice them with PDF downloads or infographics to further elaborate on your expertise. For 2016, things like guides, e-books, and videos will continue to be popular alternative media choices. Consumers are becoming more and more visually driven, and this trend will only continue to gain ground in the coming 12 months.
Make sure you provide strong, sourced persuasions to download your content so you give readers the promise of something useful now and in the future. This can be aided by the use of strong calls to action, and will be reinforced if the content you’re providing has been created with the aforementioned pain points and buyer personas in mind.
