How to Create an Effective Marketing Email

Reading Time: 5 minutes

Email is an effective channel to generate leads and keep them warm, drive customers towards Calls to Action (CTA) and sustain your company’s visibility. A marketing email shouldn’t just be about the hard sell; it should also constantly give value and make an impact on the people on your mailing list.

However, bombarding them with mass, generic emails without giving much thought to the form and content is a completely different story (not to mention a complete waste of time). It’s a surefire way of getting people to unsubscribe.

To avoid this, we’ve listed down marketing email tips that will give you an idea on how to create relevant and engaging content.

Note though that these are general guidelines. It’s still best to A/B test each piece over time to know what works for different audiences and eventually maximize response and open rates.

1. Create short but snappy subject lines.

Subject lines are often taken for granted. How many times have you received an email that either had a long subject line, that had their message on the subject instead of the email body, or something that’s too short, it’s vague?

Your subject line is a vital component to creating an effective marketing email since it determines whether it gets opened or not. Hence, it should capture your readers’ attention, spark curiosity, and read clearly.

A good rule of thumb is to keep the subject line to five to seven words. This way, readers will get the gist of your email instantly. To prompt them to open the rest of your email, include strong action words like the following:

• “Watch”
• “Get your complimentary…”
• “Download”
• “Learn”
• “Improve”

2. Make your email sender consistent and relevant.

What influences readers whether they will open the email or not, is what shows up on the “From”. If the email is coming from an unknown sender, they’re likely to consider it a spam and ignore it. What helps is to send the series of emails from a consistent source so that it’ll breed familiarity. Having the message come from the same person is generally the best way to maximize open rates.

3. Personalized messages can go a long way.

Your readers will likely receive multiple emails in a day. Therefore, stray away from sending generic email blasts. Personalizing your emails will send the message that you’re treating your readers as human beings instead of just email addresses.

To get a better chance of having your marketing email read from top to bottom, your message should communicate to your readers as if you are someone who knows them well. As you learn more about your readers over time, you’ll want to personalize every email you send.

You may do this by:

• Using personalized images

Perhaps the easiest way to personalize a marketing email is to use images that are highly relevant for your readers. Using images makes the piece visual and engaging. It also ensures your readers can relate to your message.

For instance, if you’re sending an email to a group of photographers, you may want to use inspiring wedding imagery for wedding photographers and charming landscape images to landscape photographers.

• Incorporating details from their interaction with your other platforms

Let your readers know that they’re special and you’re sending emails specifically for them by including details such as their preferences and personal information, i.e. their name in the salutation. Reflect some of the actions they’ve taken on your website. It may be worth checking your web analytics for these.

Following the example in the personalized images, you can include details about how many photos they’ve critiqued from your website or how many photos they have left to be critiqued in their membership.

• Using a conversational tone

Avoid robotic sounding emails by treating your readers as actual human beings and communicating to them like one. By doing so, you can increase response rates. The more you sound familiar to them, the more likely they are to relate to you and respond to your email.

• Complementing your email with actual personalized actions

Some of the more effective marketing emails include a sentence or two about an action you’ve made following recent interactions.

For instance, a highly personalized email has this:

“I left you a voicemail earlier following our conversation at the event yesterday. I remember you’re interested in launching a new website and I’m happy to discuss this further with you.”

Personalize an email by referencing any of the above actions. Be sure to make the reader feel that the email is an actual interaction.

4. Keep the body brief, bold and compelling.

While an email body doesn’t seem to have any word limit, it’s important to remember that the more straightforward your message is, the better. Keep in mind that your email is just one of the many messages your readers have in their inbox and sometimes they must read them on the go. To act accordingly, your email body should send your message straight-across without making your readers go through a roundabout ride.

Make your email brief, bold and compelling by going straight to the point. Also, add a dash of creativity and story-telling when necessary. However, the important thing is that you’re adding value to your readers. Instead of spending a ton of time telling them about how great you are. Focus more on how they can benefit from you. Gauge the significance of your email by answering the readers’ question: what’s in it for me?

For example, if you want to talk about making Facebook a more effective tool for marketing, sales and customer service, you may approach the email body as follows:

Many businesses have been using Facebook for marketing, sales and customer service. Unfortunately, many have also been using it ineffectively. Some pages reflect posts that are so hard-sell they don’t fit “social” at all, some appear to be lacking goals and strategies, and some just don’t post enough.

But there are tons of ways to make Facebook a more effective tool.

If you want to know how to make better use of your page, we’ve prepared something for you. Read this definitive guide to making Facebook your hardest working employee.

Let us know how it goes!

The above example is brief, direct, conversational, value-adding, and has a Call to Action, which we’ll discuss next.

5. Include a Call to Action (CTA).

When all’s said and done, it’s important to remind the readers what they’re supposed to do. Your CTA is the reason why you’re doing a marketing email in the first place. It increases your response rates and also boosts conversion. Thus, it should be prominent and visually distinctive. Ideally, it’ll be “above the fold” so it’s visible to the reader without scrolling. Like the subject line, it’s helpful to use strong actionable language. Your CTA may also be spread throughout the email through multiple links.

6. Be social and share your links.

Your marketing email is a terrific way to share your social platforms. Email is just one component of your marketing campaign so make sure you link it to your other communication channels. Also, by providing social sharing links, allows your readers to share your content. Consequently getting you more exposure and generating leads. It’s an effective way to spread the word about your brand and what you have to offer!

To optimize, it’s key to:

• Write a copy that makes sharing easy. Again, it’s worth working around the principles of simplicity and relevance.
• Optimize the meta description of the landing page as that’s generally what’s picked up by most search engines.

Has this has been helpful to you? If you’re keen to know more, we’re happy to give more information and show more examples. Contact Your Marketing People and we’ll walk you through the process of creating an effective and successful marketing email!