3 Ways to Send Your Contacts Running
Are You Chasing Away the Contacts on Your Email List?
Even the best-intentioned email marketing plan can go awry. It’s important to know what will and won’t work. Otherwise, all your efforts will be in vain.
Know When to Send – Releasing emails only when you have something to sell is a real turn-off to your contacts. It’s like opening your front door to a vacuum cleaner salesman. You may or may not need a new vacuum cleaner but you know he’s just there to sell you something.
It’s a lot like that with email marketing. By constantly sending emails with the sole purpose of selling something, you run a great risk of having your contact hit the delete button. Like the vacuum cleaner salesman, you’d be better off to build up to the sale. Send useful information; a newsletter, a holiday card, tips and tricks, etc. This helps you build credibility and trust. Your contacts will be far more likely to pay attention when the sales pitch is given.
Headlines – No doubt you’ve heard that your headlines need to be attention-grabbing. A boring headline would say something like, “Open this Email Before It’s Too Late!” There’s no incentive to open your email.
Standing in a grocery store line provides endless entertainment. There are usually “rag” magazines with headlines like, “Man-Eating Monster from Mars Gives Birth to 3-Headed Baby”. This headline might be fun to read but a clever headline like this does nothing to entice your target contacts to open your email.
It is never appropriate to use profanity. It’s extremely unprofessional and gives your contacts a bad impression.
When creating your headline, avoid words like “Urgent!” or “Expiring Soon” unless your offer actually has an expiration date. People who see these words on several emails will get wise quickly. They’ll see it as a tired ploy and stop opening your emails altogether.
Does Controversy Work? The short answer is, “yes and no”. Your demographic helps you know what type of controversies will work for them. If you’re working with seniors, for instance, they’re probably not as interested in the same things as millennials would be. For instance, “large home vs. smaller home” or “close to town vs. rural living”
The point is to step back and think of topics that will help your demographic. And, in all circumstances, it’s best to avoid hot-button issues.
Take these three tips and use them to create your email marketing plan. Think of ways to connect with them individually as well as in a group of other contacts. Let them know that it’s not all about the sale.
Other important email marketing posts:
- Email Marketing Success: The Single Most Important Question to Ask
- Are Your Emails Making it Past the Spam Filters?
- How to Plan Your Next Email Marketing Campaign
