I’ve written a ton of articles on email marketing (and a few on the dangers of using too much hyperbole in your copywriting) and have discovered a few things along the way. One of the biggest ones is how little effort marketers put into their email marketing beyond just words.
Our email copywriting professionals have a real knack for understanding our clients and writing well on their behalf. What a shame that so many of those eloquent words go unread by huge chunks of your audience because you’re relying on the words alone to pull conversions.
Think of this article as a manual on how to sustain a successful email campaign after you’ve paid good money for copy. None of the suggestions I’m about to make cost more, but all of them can significantly impact conversions and other forms of ROI, including off-page SEO. I’ll get to how a little later. For now, six ways to get people to buy your stuff:
1. Use Conversational Subject Lines
A huge mistake that most marketers still make is trying to sell with subject lines. Does the car salesperson walk up and immediately start talking about payments and paperwork? No, they get to know the potential buyer by presenting an appealing persona for the buyer to admire. You want people to want to buy from you, even help you by buying from you.
So, talk to the members of your audience, not at them — and that begins with your first contact with a prospect: your subject line.
Good salespeople get people to not only buy but also become enthusiastic members of Team Brand X. This starts by putting your absolute best foot forward in your content and how you present it. Take the time to examine your subject lines and ask if they would motivate both you and your ideal customer to want to buy from you.
2. Take a Minimalist Approach to Your Layout
Email has never been viewed as a primarily visual medium; it has always been very word heavy. It also has a long history of blending visuals with the written content in a way that either appeals to or repels readers. Busy pages in email messages find their way into the trash folder quickly.
If the primary function of the email is to communicate through words, let your visuals enhance the messaging, not detract from it. For the most part, this means using visual content sparingly in emails. Save the busier content for landing pages or sales pages where more striking visuals are more readily expected.
3. Use Your Branding and Brand Colors
On the heels of my last suggestion, the primary focus of visuals in an email is to keep your brand and its associations in the forefront. That means matching colors with those in your branding strategy and using words to make even stronger ties between your brand image and its message.
4. Experiment with Various Marketing Approaches
There are several types of email campaigns, all of which the professional email copywriters at BeezContent can help you develop. If you haven’t experimented with most or all of these, you probably also haven’t tapped the largest possible audience:
Welcome Email Series — For new subscribers, usually three to five messages sent over the course of about a week.
Seasonal Promotions — Create a sense of urgency and scarcity.
Pre- and Post-Conversion Drip Sequences — Get the fence-sitters to choose your side, offer upgrades, or pitch new products and services.
Newsletters — Personal, transparent, and relatable.
Cart Abandon Series — Salvage sales with a few persuasive lines (and maybe a discount).
Reconnection Series — For when you wish to reattract some of the same buyers or reach out again to a few prospects who open your emails but never follow your CTAs.
Story Series — Narrative-style campaigns can have a huge impact on conversions, especially with methods like Autoresponder Madness.
The number and frequency of messages in any email campaign will have everything to do with how you typically approach your readers and how responsive they are at various intervals.
5. Analyze and Segment
Look at the raw numbers in your email metrics and decide how to segment your list(s) to maximize relevance. Another key part of success in email campaigns is having the best possible conversations with everyone on your lists. Crunch the numbers and start creating segment-specific messages and series to draw them in.
6. Be Consistent
I’ll leave you with this one and just one more small pitch: You want to work with professional writers, especially on emails. Most marketing copy hinges on good emails, so this is one area you don’t want to become sloppy or left to chance.
Decide on a delivery schedule and develop enough content to meet your deadlines. Again, getting help with this is advised. Farm out as much of the writing as you can and get familiar with one of the many scheduling tools that work with both email and every major social platform. It’s a great way to keep your focus on your business and still keep your messaging in front of your best prospects.
