Although creativity is one of the contributing factors when it comes to creating compelling email content, it’s not necessarily the most important. Contrary to what you may think, there are some other factors that are much more significant. There are certain steps you can take to help you create compelling content, whether you are blessed with the creative gene, or not. Follow these steps and you won’t need to strain the right side of your brain too much:
1. Use a content calendar
Before you actually put pen to paper, you need to invest some time into creating a content calendar to help you plan out your year. Email marketing is not just a game of numbers, it’s about sending quality content. Sure you can throw stuff against the wall and hope it will stick, but why not spend a little more time planning so that you can eventually become more efficient, and produce better results. Jotting down some guidelines based on holidays, seasons, and busy times for your industry is a good place to start.
2. Have a good balance between educational and promotional content
If everytime you send an email it’s promotional, for example sending a coupon, promoting a new product, or to entice your customers to buy something, people who aren’t necessarily inclined to buying at that particular time might get annoyed, and eventually unsubscribe.
On the other hand, if you never add a promotion to entice your clients to make a purchase, you may find that you’re not getting enough significant results from email marketing. And that’s why it’s important to balance it out. You need both to be successful.
Educational content
Think something engaging, educational, and interesting to read. Something that people will feel the need to open. Give them some tips and tricks, and some how-tos they won’t want to live without. Something with substance that will make their lives better. And of course they should be relevant to your business. Here are a few examples (fill in rest):
- 5 tips to get better results with…
- How to get…
- Tips and tricks on…
Promotional content
This might be a little more obvious – Coupons, sales, rebates, or exclusive offers. Promotions are meant to complement, and add to your educational content. It should reinforce the value of your product or service, and help you generate sales short term. Below are a few example of what could be sent as promotional content:
- Offer exclusive deals to your subscribers, this will increase their interest and will entice them to share your emails
- Send coupons to measure the impact on your sales, or to try to entice inactive clients
- Promote new produits and services
- Promote a special event
To put all of this into context, below are some concrete examples of some of our clients who have great success with email marketing. They’ve mastered the recipe to email marketing success by having a good balance between both types of content:
- A store who specializes in selling beer from local microbreweries – They often include great recipes for beer pairing, or beer cocktail recipes, and then add a coupon for the beer mentioned in the recipes. It’s genius!
- A mattress company – They give tips on having a good night’s sleep, and add a promotion.
- A realtor – They include advice on how to sell you house, or some information on the local housing market, all while promoting their services.
3. Solve a problem
I gave you a few examples earlier of content ideas. But where do those ideas come from? At the root of any good marketing strategy there is research to be done. What you learn from that research will give you the ability to personalize your content. To do this you need to communicate with your front line staff to find out who your clientele really is, and what problems occur that you can address in your content.
Once you figure that out it’s easy to come up with content that will pique their interest. By doing this you’ll know exactly what they are thirsty for, giving you a better response with the content you send. This will make them feel special, listened to, and will score you some definite brownie points.
4. Be Clear
With content less is more. Don’t crowd the message with unnecessary information. Prioritizing clarity before catchiness will go a long way. If customers are interested in your product, or offer but don’t know how to act after they read the message, the message will be useless. Always give a concise call-to-action within your emails so that people know how to proceed, depending on the action you want them to take.
If you want people to sign up for a service, or an email newsletter, tell them exactly how to do it. Give them clear links to follow, big buttons to press, and never assume that something is obvious. A person who can’t understand what you want them to do is likely to give up or ignore your message, so make sure that everything is clear. Confusion quickly loses customers.
5. Use a specialized tool
A tool like Cyberimpact will make organising your thoughts effortless. With the help of our ready-to-use email templates sending pertinent, and organised content has never been easier. Sending attractive emails is the first step to getting your message across. All you need to do is figure out what the message should be, and how you want them to act after they read it.
Your goal should be to engage your existing clients, turn leads into clients and pique the interest of past clients. With the help of these tricks, and Cyberimpact, this is all possible, even if you’re not the Van Gogh of email marketing content.
P.S. Don’t forget to spell check! 😉