One of the most important aspects of your email list outside of the subscribers is the actual emails that you send to your lists. You want them to be read and enjoyed. You want your audience to actually look forward to getting an email message from you. Here are some things for you to consider when you are writing an email message.
1. Personalize Everything – Don’t be too creepy but use the automation tools for personalization to add your audience member’s name to each message you send. Saying their name at important points in your message can bring the message home in new way. You want each email to sound personal to the recipient instead of like a mass email. It doesn’t matter if you have a list of 100 or 1,000,000,000 – each message can feel very personal to the receiver if you write it to your audience personas as if they’re the only one reading it, instead of “all” your subscribers at once.
2. Invite Them to Other Channels – Don’t exist for them only in email. People still sometimes forget to open their email, so invite them to your social media channels, too. Invite them to follow you, like you, friend you and be in your groups. This will help them get to know you even more so that they’re more likely to open your emails when they get them.
3. Craft Thoughtful Subject Lines – Each subject line should explain what’s inside the email message so that the recipient wants to open it. It’s not the time to write puns or be tricky. You can be creative but put yourself in your audience’s place and understand who you’re writing the subject line for.
4. Only Send Out Useful Emails – If you have nothing to say or offer of value you don’t want to send an email just to send an email. Granted you do not want to wait too long between emails. If you plan to take a break, tell your audience, but otherwise try to make every message something useful for your audience.
5. Use Your Real Name – The days of being anonymous on the net are over. You need to use your real name in the return field. People will be much more likely to open the message and feel as if the message is from a real person if you use your real name.
6. Add Value – You want your audience to be excited to get an email because they know they’ll learn something really valuable to them by reading it. You might share with them someone else’s blog post, or a hot tip you’ve learned, or you might offer them a sale on your products and services. Everything should be put in the words that make your subscribers feel important and thought of.
7. Test Everything – Sometimes assumptions, even very well-educated assumptions can be wrong, therefore it’s imperative that you take the time to use split testing (also called A/B testing) to help you determine the best subject lines, the best time of day to send an email and the types of offers your audience responds best to.
By spending a little extra effort mapping out the emails you’re going to send over a period of time, based on the products and services you plan to promote, you can make each person receiving your messages feel unique, special and important. That’s one of the best ways to build relationships with email.
