I’m still in myth-busting mode and one of the areas of marketing that is highly prone to all kinds of false information and, yes, fake news is email marketing.
Of course things have changed when it comes to email marketing…
We have all kinds of innovations such as chatbots we can use in conjunction with messaging services to connect with customers and prospects but that does not signal the ‘death of’ email marketing or any other hyperbole you may have read.
What it does mean is that there are better ways to do things now, more efficient systems to use and strategies to employ to ensure your emails reach your intended audience.
There are also things that have stood the test of time – things you need to make sure you get right now and forever as far as email marketing is concerned.
A myth I hear a lot is that you should batch and queue up all your emails for the week or even the month ahead. Yes, this might save you time but I am a firm advocate of freshly written emails that respond to events.
Over the last 24 hours, for instance, there have been tragic events in Texas and Ohio that hit the headlines around the globe. All too often we have similarly awful events in different countries.
While you don’t have to mention these, you do have to remain sensitive to them so that you don’t unnecessarily upset or offend your audience.
Similarly, there are happy occasions that you may wish to mention. You can only do so authentically if you spend just a few minutes a day writing your email for that day. Try it and you’ll find that your audience is more responsive because they can sense that authenticity.
Another evergreen thing you need to focus on is your email subject lines. After all, 80% of your opens depend upon a good one.
Get your subject line right and you can vastly improve opens and subsequent engagement. Get it wrong and it will be email crickets for you.
There are some excellent collections of proven subject lines out there for you to emulate – note I said emulate and not copy outright!
Here are some of my faves…
Despite the URL, there are actually 164 great email subject lines here:
24 brilliant ones here (with another 100 you can download):
https://blog.hubspot.com/marketing/best-email-subject-lines-list
And 87 here with a worksheet you can download:
https://sumo.com/stories/best-email-subject-lines
You also need to get your preheader right along with your CTA. No idea what I’m talking about? Learn all about it here along with 11 powerful email marketing tips that I love:
https://www.searchenginejournal.com/powerful-email-marketing-tips/304009/
There are also excellent tips here from 12 email marketing experts that will genuinely work for you…and will also show you how email is, in fact, more effective than ever:
Your Ted talk this week is all about authenticity and writing – two things you need to infuse into your emails:
I’ll be talking more about email marketing in all its aspects as this is such a big subject…and of course highly relevant to my new course The Way To 1k.
