Timing, tone and targeting: top tips for email marketing

• Updated on: 2023-06-02
• Read original article here

More than 330bn emails are sent worldwide every day – yet the vast majority go unread and many end up in spam folders. So how do you create emails for your company that customers not only open, but actually read?

Make sure the right people see your emailsAn email marketing campaign should be carefully targeted, genuinely useful and creatively presented to help endear your brand to the reader and to have a significant impact on their behaviour. Making sure your emails get noticed can depend on using the right etiquette and striking a tone that is appropriate to the task.

The key lies in the accuracy of the targeting. If the email’s message genuinely excites the reader, attention and action is more likely to follow. Every business, whatever they offer, can connect with consumers through an email if they have clear insights into what their audience is looking for.

To power accurate targeting, a crucial element of success can be to build an email marketing list that identifies and segments the audience. Some marketers tend to focus on the size and breadth of their email contact list, but the real work comes with segmenting those contacts into relevant groups.

Choose an email marketing platform that’s a good fit for youThe email marketing platform Mailchimp offers a suite of tools that can help brands create successful marketing campaigns by crafting emails that use appropriate etiquette and winning language.

Mailchimp’s Content Optimizer offers guidance on writing emails effectively, with suggestions offering advice on the best marketing practices, and comparisons with the best performing emails. In addition, A/B testing enables you to send email campaigns to different customers to get a better understanding of your audience’s preferences. And instead of creating emails from scratch, you can access a library of templates that can be customised to suit your needs, creating emails that look fantastic on any device.

How to compose an emailWhen it comes to composing the text of an email, there are four components to consider:

The subject line is crucial as it can determine whether the email is opened or sent to the bin. It should be to the point and sum up its purpose as succinctly as possible. The second element is the salutation, which addresses the reader with the right level of familiarity – “Hi” if you know them, “Dear …” for something more formal. For a marketing email, the greeting could be dispensed with altogether in favour of a catchy headline that entices them to read on. The body of the email is where the action happens – the copy should be sharp and engaging, drawing the reader through the paragraphs to make sure they get right to the end. Stick to one point as far as possible and hammer it home. Finally, the conclusion should present a clear idea of the action a reader needs to take, whether clicking on a link, replying to the email or perhaps visiting a store. The sign-off should be calibrated to the formality of the communication – from “enjoy” to “best regards”.

Especially for you …The copy could be written to sound personal and intimate so the reader feels it was written especially for them. Or it might be more detached, according to the nature of the email. Deciding on the level of intimacy depends on what the email is trying to achieve – promoting a transaction requires a more sales-based approach, while trying to convey a message about the brand needs more descriptive language.

Time it rightEtiquette demands that emails are sent at a time when the recipients are open to receiving them. So mailouts should be timed not to interrupt their leisure time, for instance over the weekend or during the Christmas holiday.

Embrace trial and errorNever stop learning about what approach works best with different audiences. For instance, some brands find that including a link to a website gets people clicking, while for others, it’s more effective to include all the information in the email. Email can be a great medium for testing, learning and optimising.

With Mailchimp, setting up and running an email marketing campaign is easy, offering a vast array of tools that help create brilliant targeting, strike the right tone, and craft beautiful content. The rest is down to the marketer’s insights and relationships with their consumers. If brands can bring their enthusiasm, their strategy and a warm connection with their audience, Mailchimp can help them take care of the rest.

Mailchimp is the number one email marketing and automations brand*. With plans suitable for every size of business and database, marketers are able to send the right message at the right time to convert more customers, get AI-assisted suggestions to make content more engaging, and set up automated workflows to cross-sell products, recover abandoned carts and to help drive more loyalty and sales.

*Based on competitor brands’ publicly available data on worldwide numbers of customers in 2021/2022.

The views, information and opinions expressed in this article are those of the people interviewed and do not necessarily represent or reflect the views of Intuit, Mailchimp or any of its cornerstone brands or employees. The primary purpose of this article is to educate and inform.