In this case, I’m not talking about spam, as that’s a whole different can of worms. The only thing I’ll say at this point is that however well-intentioned your email is if you don’t execute well, you will quickly end up in the spam box.
So let’s jump straight into some examples.
Don’t make you users work hard.
I’ve been on a networking kick lately, so when Eventbrite sent me an email with the subject line “Nicole’s Weekly Event Guide” I opened it.
The intro was a little jumbled, but in a nutshell it told me that based on my previous event history it was recommending the following events for me. So far so good.
The problem? As I was skimming through their list I saw an event that looked like it had potential, so I clicked on it. Nothing happened. I did all the privacy acceptance things – downloaded my pictures, allowed the links, etc. I clicked again. Still nothing happened. I evened clicked on the “view the email in your browser” and tried one last time. Nada.
The 12 events listed on the email didn’t have a single link on them.
In fact the only link was “To View More Events,” which took me to the default list for my geographic area.
Why is this bad? Because they sent me an email promoting events, and then didn’t let me view or register for those events. I would have had to go searching for the events on my own, and the chances of a user doing that are not good.
Users are lazy. They can get distracted. They might even go off and write blogs about why your emails annoy them, and then unsubscribe because at the end of the day if they can’t take an action, what’s the point of the email?
Do: Be Relevant
Also in my inbox today was an email from Sarah Dwyer of Chouquette.
Sarah was sending out a message to let us know that the Washington Post has featured her election-themed chocolates. She was funny and personable, but she also did several other things right:
- Telling us about the appearance in the Washington Post gave her credibility.
- It was also a sneaky way to tell us about one of her product lines without overtly selling.
- With the election only days away she’s newsjacking the only story in the news. (Not sure what newsjacking is? Watch the video)
Now do I want chocolates with Hillary’s face on them? Nope. But, I happened to be thinking about the need to send a client gift yesterday and hadn’t gotten around to it. Sarah’s email (complete with links to the chocolates) made it super easy for me to order that client gift and go on my way.
Remember
All of your marketing efforts should be goal-driven. When it comes to email marketing, you want to drive people to your website and ultimately increase sales. A large part of that is simply staying top of mind, but if your emails are not useful to the people reading them, they aren’t actually useful to you either.
If you’re not sure how to make your emails useful, give us a buzz and let us help.