It’s one thing to be good at writing marketing emails; it’s quite another to be good at using email as a mass-marketing tool that extends far beyond your physical list. It’s not an easy task. Email is not shared over social media, and it’s not always in the forefront of people’s minds to share them, even if the offer or the message seems like something that would appeal to their friends, co-workers, etc.
Today, I want to give you some advice on how to craft marketing emails that have high levels of shareability and actually get shared. I challenge you to put some of these ideas into practice with your next sequence or collaborate with your custom writing agency to ensure they do.
The Psychology of the Call to Action
When people open one of your emails, how long does it take before you get around to telling them to do something with it? Good calls to action are a vital part of making any kind of content shareable. The disadvantage with email is that it’s not always a one-click solution to share with the masses. Typically, we forward mail to one other person at a time or to a pre-established list, whereas, we can share content with everyone we know all at once via social media.
The key here is to get people to respond and behave when they open one of your emails the same way they would when they see a cool social media post. The response to share is almost immediate. Why? Because the platform tells them to share it and makes it easy. With email, the first part is simple. The second? Not so much. I’ll get to that a little later.
Calls to action in your emails are important because they groom the readers to do what you want with the information. If your goal is to generate a conversion, the roadmap to giving you one has to be clearly laid out.
You don’t want to hit them with a big decision early on, so, instead, you start small. Tease with information that you intend to relay later in the message (or sequence) and tell readers to “keep reading.” If they do, you know that you have established enough trust to ask for more. How will you know if they keep reading? Well, what is your next call to action? Did some of your readers follow it? Great! Now you know that your message is getting through.
Leaving the Comfort Zone
If you are seeding your emails with pointed calls to action and people are following them, you know that your message has the power to influence behavior. Expect that only a small segment of your list will follow through on subsequent CTAs and start steering the message toward the things to which they respond the best. Doing so, you will generate excitement. People share content that excites or motivates them.
Now, though, we go back to the original problem, that being the extra steps involved in sharing emails. You have to motivate the reader to make the effort to share your content. It usually doesn’t get done with one click, like a social media post, so how do you build up the excitement that it will take to motivate them? Here are a few ideas:
#1 – Incentivize Your Calls to Action
Use contests, free downloads, or access to exclusive webinars and benefits in exchange for a share. Most auto-responder platforms allow you to create forms that automate the process and allow you to track results. The reader simply enters an email address (or two, or twenty), and the system sends the message to the intended recipients using the reader’s email as the referring address.
Using this method, you give yourself an extra layer of credibility. The message is coming from someone the recipient already trusts, so it’s likely that they will be at least a little more receptive to your message than they would be on a cold contact.
#2 – Progressively Reward Readers for Sharing Your Emails
Start a new list segment that zeroes in on the readers who share your content most frequently and give them added incentives to share more. With these people, you need to offer incentives that have real value. Discounts and freebies are a great way to keep them excited, but I would go one step further, too. Offer the same discounts and freebies to the people with whom they share the content.
#3 – Congratulate Readers for Their Accomplishments
Send frequent messages to your most active list members congratulating them on how well they are doing getting your message out there. No additional incentives should be needed here; people love attracting positive attention to themselves just for attention’s sake.
If you constantly congratulate (notice I didn’t say, “thank”) them for a job well done, they will want to keep performing up to your expectations. Even if the rewards are small, if they are also consistent, you will keep people motivated to continue earning them.
#4 – Construct Progressively More Challenging CTAs
Keep raising the bar until you can motivate people to do the bulk of your selling for you. Remember: People will respond more favorably when the message comes from someone they know. If you give your readers good instructions on how to do it, you can amass a sales force out of your email list that can help you save money on ads and, subsequently, offer even better incentives to share your emails.
Final Takeaway
To be successful at this, you need to get inside the reader’s head in a way that most email marketers stop short of even attempting. Pay close attention to your numbers and zero in on the readers who are most impressionable and who will show their loyalty by following your calls to action most consistently. Once you identify that list segment, you have identified your farm team of salespeople who will help you extend your reach way beyond your existing contact list.