Email Marketing Will They Read What You Say?

In amongst the hoards of email messages your customers and prospects receive on a daily basis, there are those that stand out as ones that are very likely to be read.

What are they?

They’re the ones that are personal to the recipient. If I am your friend, or your colleague, your parent or your boss and I send you an email that is a direct one on one communication, how likely are you to open it? Unless you delete it by mistake, I’d say you’re almost certain to open it.

You’ll be slightly less likely to read an email from someone you know, that has been sent to numerous people such as a chain email or one that has obviously been forwarded by a number of people before it reaches you. Further down the list of email priorities are those from people you know of, but have not met, such as companies you’ve asked to receive communications from, and lists that you’ve subscribed to, such as a headline roundup sent by a newspaper.

Of course, right at the bottom of the list is spam, which most savvy computer users can now recognise without opening. They see that it’s from someone they don’t know, and has a subject title that is completely irrelevant to them. Of course the spammers have long since been wise to this and that’s why you’ll receive something that says “Just one more thing…” in its subject header only to try to sell you cheap Viagra when you click onto it.

Familiarity

The more familiar we are with the person who has sent us an email, the more likely we are to open it. We human beings take comfort in familiarity. Things and people that are familiar to us make us feel safe; McDonalds, soap operas, brands, and favourite items of clothing – are some such examples. A successful email marketing campaign creates an air of familiarity between you, your customers and prospects, so how do you go about achieving this status?

Personalising Emails

People are getting wise to their name being used in a subject header, so it’s important to make the rest of the subject line both interesting and relevant to them.

The best way to achieve this is to ask yourself what it is that they would want to read, and tailor your communication around the answer to this one question. Once you’ve mastered this and people have opened your email, don’t disappoint them. Deliver. Work on building rapport with the people on your list. Remember that they are individuals who, if you give them something that they value, will trust you and grow to like you/your brand/your communications -but this takes time to establish and has to be done skillfully.

Remember that relevance and persistence are vital: the longer someone stays on your mailing list, the more likely they are to come to you when they are ready to buy.

Let’s hear your comments and questions below!

Email Marketing When and How Often?

You may have slaved for hours over your email campaign, and your copy could sell snow to the Eskimos, but there’s one problem: if your intended recipient doesn’t open your email and read it then all your efforts have gone to waste. So how do you ensure that your emails are opened? The reality is that you can’t, but timing and frequency are both important factors to take into account when it comes to giving yourself the best chance of reaching your customers.

Who Are You Mailing?

There is no absolute timescale or frequency, because when and how often you send emails will depend not only on who you are targeting, but also your reason for getting in touch with them. Rather than concentrating solely on when you think you are most likely to get your message across, put yourself in your customers’ shoes. Target business people during the day, between 11am and 3pm, on Tuesday, Wednesday or Thursday. Consumers are most likely to be at their computers between 5pm and 8pm during the week, and during the day on Saturday and Sunday.

When Isn’t A Good Time?

Clearly, three AM on a Tuesday is hardly likely to be a good time to catch people alert and ready to read your emails, but sending at 9am during the week might not be either. You are the expert at your business, and you (presumably) know your customers, what they want and the solutions you are selling to them. It follows, therefore, that every email you send them must be relevant to them. If it doesn’t look interesting, by which I mean relevant, they’ll drag it straight to the trash. Make it too gimmicky or sales oriented and you could do your reputation harm. Your targets receive so much junk in their email folders each day that your communication needs to have as good a chance as possible of being read.

So How Often Should You Send Them?

Again, this varies depending on what you are trying to achieve. Send your communications too infrequently and people will forget to contact you when they’re ready to become a customer. However, if you’re the really annoying person who sends mindless, irrelevant emails to them twice a day then they’re very likely to get fed up and unsubscribe. If you send them information that is interesting to them, relevant to their wants or needs, and is well written – the chances are they will read them. If they don’t have time on one or more occasions, at least they’ll want you to keep them coming.

Think Like Your Customer

Of course, you can’t possibly be expected to know exactly when all your recipients are having a good or bad day, are distracted by something exciting, are fuming about something at work, or are simply too busy to open any emails other than the ones that are flagged as urgent. Similarly, people’s buying decision are cyclical and broadly fall into three categories: they can be happy with the status quo, interested and looking around but not ready to part with any money, or red hot and ready to buy. Show a series of emails to people on different days and you can be sure that they won’t always respond the same way.

So each time you send an email during your campaign, monitor the responses you receive. See how many respond positively, and how many unsubscribe requests you get. Over a period of time you’ll establish the best timing for your marketing communications, at regular (and predictable) intervals – and if your emails are relevant and engaging, people will look forward to receiving them.

As always your comments and questions are appreciated