If you are like many marketers, you may view email as very ‘spammy.’ You know how dangerous spam can be to your brand’s reputation and you do not want to run the risk of becoming a viral joke.
What if I told you that email is NOT dead for marketers? In fact, your customers prefer it as a form of conversation.
It is true. An estimated 77 percent of your customers prefer email when it comes to receiving communications from brands and marketing departments.
Email also puts you in a fantastic position to reach your intended audience. There are more than 3.2 billion email accounts in existence and 95 percent of online consumers use email.
That means that the people you want to reach most likely have an email account that they use on a regular basis. When you use email correctly, it can be a fantastic content distribution system and a wonderful way to engage readers and direct them to your company website and your social sites.
The art of sending a valuable email
Like any type of content in the modern world of digital and inbound marketing, your first priority when drafting an email should be to provide value for your reader. You can only provide value if you know with whom you are speaking. ‘Value’ will mean vastly different things to a new page visitor and one that is on the verge of converting. For this reason, segmenting email lists is crucial. You can segment your email list based upon a variety of factors, such as:
- location
- job
- budget
- decision maker/researcher
You can also develop emails that will respond to particular triggers on your website. Say, for example, a person visits your pricing page but does not make a purchase. They have, however, shown concrete interest in your product. This can trigger an email that contains a comparison case study or white paper showing how you benefit your clients and an offer to connect the reader to sales to learn more.
What do you email?
Once you know how to send the email, the next important question is what to send. There are a variety of different types of material you can use. When it comes to successful content delivery, however, you want to use your email to engage your reader with your site content. You can send out regular newsletters that include several popular blog posts and give links encouraging people to read more. You can include teasers about promotions you are using on your social media sites and encourage people to check your sites.
Use your email as a way to engage with your reader and entice them to come check out the rest of the interesting content you have published. When you combine high value content with a segmented email list, you create the perfect recipe of broadcasting your content in front of people who have a real interest in learning what you have to say.
Email is still alive and well, even after the battering it has taken through misuse and spam. Customers rely on their email and they actually enjoy using it to communicate with companies of interest. If you want to maximize your content delivery, you should carefully consider how email can help you get your message in front of the right people.
Jessica B spends her days writing content for her customers and laughing with her children. She loves learning about the latest in marketing and how it intersects with her background in psychology.
