Email marketing has matured. Audience expectations are high and the spam bin sits just one mouse click away. As a result email marketers must create good value emails or face shrinking click through rates and audience apathy.
Alongside maturity comes increased opportunity, however. Independent research concluded recently that email marketing is alive and kicking:
“Despite concerns about declining attitudes toward email marketing, the medium is alive and well. In fact, email lovers are some of marketers’ most valuable customers. They spend more online, buy impulsively, pay for convenience, and tell others about emails they value.” www.forrester.com, 2007
Creating valuable content is fundamental to good email creation. There’s no prescriptive formula to deliver value, it’s about understanding the wants of your audience.
Some readers will be interested in product and price - what they can get for how little. In such cases, online exclusives, introduce a friend discounts or functional product listings may be more valuable than lengthy text or fancy designs. Conversely, such enriched content may be useful to others and may provide the viral hook that gets people talking.
You need to ensure value for you too. Creating engaging and relevant content may bolster your brand but it’s likely you’ll have more defined objectives. Linking content to calls to action is crucial, whether this be purchasing a product or simply visiting your website where more sales focussed content exists.
Monitoring your campaign once it’s sent provides priceless intelligence about the success of your email. Many email distribution tools allow in-depth reporting and free services are available that let you monitor click through rates. Learning what works and what doesn’t will help your email evolve to deliver increased value.
If the argument for creating value isn’t strong enough, the advent of tighter regulations and best practices focussing on opt-in or permission based email marketing further reinforces the importance of creating relevant, engaging emails. Consumers will only give and maintain permission to email if they see value in your offering.
The matured marketplace for email marketing demands quality and value, but also offers an exciting opportunity to reach out to valuable, impulsive consumers willing to engage and buy. Your audience is ready and waiting. You just need to create value and send the right message.
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