I receive a number of business and consumer email newsletters, some of which I open as soon as they come in, others that I file away for later reading or because there's something useful I think I might need down the road, and many of which I often delete without reading unfortunately (I'm sure I'm not alone in these habits either). Here are three simple things to think about that, if done right, could help improve your email marketing efforts and hopefully have your newsletters fall into one of the first two categories above when they land in your customer’s inboxes.
Segment Your Data
Not everyone is the same, and not everyone wants to read the same information. If you know enough about your customers and prospects, segment your data and send out separate newsletters with content that speaks to a certain type of audience. If you can't do this for whatever reason (time, resources, budget), try at least using different subject lines that speak to a certain article or topic covered that each different audience group would be interested in – even if there's no difference in newsletter layout or information.
Set Benchmarks For Your Company, then Compare Them to the Industry Standards
What is it that you want people to do when they read your newsletter? Buy something? Click to the site? Visit an ad? Determine your newsletter’s objectives and then review your previous stats against those objectives. Determine your average statistical numbers for those objectives and set your own benchmarks. Then worry about what your competitors and the industry say. Once you have your own affairs in order and know what is "good" for you, you can then set up to improve – and you never know, perhaps you'll find you're doing better than you realized. In any case, the important thing is to learn. Walk before you run.
Write Shorter Copy
Yes, people are busy, and yes, studies show people tend to skim or scan versus read every word on a web page, but in my opinion, that's not the "main" reason you should write shorter copy. Don't you want people to visit your website? Write little snippits that make it easy for scanners, and entices people to click through to your website. After all, you have other great content or reasons you want them to stay on your site and surf around, right? Right. If you give your readers everything in the newsletter, there's no reason for them to really click through to your website, now is there?
*Photo Credit: simonok/Stock.xchng
3 comments:
I agree with you on writing shorter copy. I just want the "meat" in an email. Bullet points and short sentences. If I want to read more, I'll go to you website or blog.
Lewis
I'd also like to put in a vote for "if you're going to 'personalize' your pitch, make sure your mail-merge program does what it's supposed to do." I remember getting a donation request from a major charity that seemed to regard all Atlantic Provinces as one -- so all references to "at home, right in your own community" ended up being about a city in an entirely different province. Did I feel moved to donate?
@lewis I couldn't agree with you more. Well said.
@rjleaman - Definitely. I purposely left out that because I think personalization in emails deserves it's own post. I'll have to work on that soon I think.
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