Email Marketing Tips. Part 2 – How to write an effective email.

This article is the second in a series of short articles each dealing with a certain aspect of email marketing and meant to help you, dear reader, to improve your email marketing campaigns. The second article in the series lists tips relating to the most common activity of email marketing – writing emails.

I hope you find the pointers given here interesting and useful. You are encouraged to contact me with tips based on your own successful experiences – I will add them to the list…

Pointers and Tips, Do’s and Don’ts, Hints and Suggestions,
for writing effective marketing materials for email campaigns

1. DON’T – Send for the sake of sending
   
   My mom always said:
   “If you haven’t got anything smart to say it’s best if you shut up”. 
   My mom is always right.From an email marketing perspective there is something profound in this adage. Email blasts should only be sent out to your list when they have a point:
   You have some new meaningful content to share with your list members, content they are likely to want to receive.

   Sending out email simply for the sake of reminding people you exist is usually a pretty bad call. Repeat the practice often and you should expect people to sign out from your list in droves…not a pretty sight.

   DO – Keep people up to date

   Let your list members know about new and worthwhile content you have to share with them. “Worthwhile content” could be any of the following:

   1. News from your organization and industry.
   2. Press and media coverage of your organization and its members or activities.
   3. New products or services from your company.
   4. Articles with fresh editorial content, commentary, or hints relating to your fields of expertise and operation.
   5. Events your organization is organizing, participating in, or sponsoring.
   6. Special or seasonal offers for your list members.
2. DON’T – Nobody enjoys being misledAvoid at all costs creating misleading subject lines for your postings. Not only is this type of deception unethical, in many places it is downright illegal. Using misleading titles will hurt your reputation as a trustworthy email sender and cause massive sign outs from your email marketing lists.
   
   DO – Stay on topic

   After evaluating which of the above mentioned message-worthy content is the prompt for your email, make sure that your content is closely associated to your chosen subject matter.

3. DON’T – Yap about yourselfNobody likes a braggart.
   Avoid the words “Me”, “We”, “Us”.
   
   DO – Talk about them

   People like hearing about themselves.
   Use the word “You” often.

4. DON’T – Be a bore
   
   Avoid sending emails that are composed entirely of blurbs extolling at great length the numerous virtues of your organization and its products or services. Most of the time we all find these company / product / organization descriptions boring to tears.
   
   DO – Be entertaining
   
   We all enjoy reading “human interest” stories.
   Focus your writing around story-telling that puts people at the center.
   Instead of giving endless feature descriptions or lists of your organizations virtues, try demonstrating the same benefits through stories about the positive experiences people have had with your products, services and organization.

1. DON’T –  No really, don’t be a bore!
   
   A dry description of even the most exciting activity, product, or event will still make for a dull and boring read – the kind that will largely be ignored by your readership. On the other extreme, too many superlatives cause readers to doubt the subject matter as being nothing but hot air and fluff. DO – Keep it interesting.
   
   Even the driest most tedious subject matter can be transformed into an engaging and exciting read by a talented writer, this is often the secret of the success behind great non-fiction writing. As a rule, write about people and experiences and keep your audience involved emotionally – A story that touches our emotions is one that we will follow to the end.

2. DON’T  – Give away all the goods in your email.Although this is a technical issue it is very important nonetheless. You should avoid using your email blast in order to tell full stories. The eye fatigue that your reader’s will experience during the course of reading your message from a screen dictates that you should avoid sending out emails that are longer than 250-400 words long.

   DO – Use your email as a lead to your site.
   
   A good email blast or newsletter will include several (2 to 4) story headers followed by short lead paragraphs introducing the items that the email newsletter covers.

   The purpose of including multiple leads in a single email is not only to relieve accumulated eye fatigue but also to allow for different tastes. We don’t all find the same stories interesting. By including a few leads you are multiplying the chance that your email will interest your readership.

   Moreover it is in your best interest to have your readers click on a link in your email so that they start viewing your site. Once a reader is on your web-site it is much easier to cause them to perform the action you are hoping for, whether this is the purchase of one of your items, signing up to an event or even just filling in a form.
      

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