Email That Never Fails

Email That Never Fails

By David W. B. Parker

7/25/2012

Email marketing is one of the most effective ways for a company to reach prospective clients.  Amazingly, it is almost always underutilized and even used so ineffectually as to be a complete failure in its objective.  In order to be an effective email campaign that doesn’t fail, several things need to be considered:

• What are you offering?
• Who are you offering it to?
• How are you going to get them interested?
• When will you get them to move to action?

The easy way to remember this is by the first words in each of these:  WHO, WHAT, HOW, WHEN.  Remember to answer these four basic needs with your email marketing efforts and there will be NO fail with your email.

What are you offering?

If you are offering products or services, your emails need to include descriptions and images that support what is being promoted.  Offerings should not be stated, but provide an exciting view of what it is.  Generate excitement utilizing the following:

• Manufacturers of products can provide content, if you ask for it.  Companies that manufacture products you offer are excellent sources for descriptions, images as well as exciting headings.
• Capture images and photos.  It doesn’t take much to snap a photo of the products or services you are offering, but it does require some professionalism.  Images must have professional appeal.  Find a professional who can portray images in the best possible manner or keep shooting until you have something that is professional.
• Customer descriptions can go a long way to satisfying others.  Sometimes customers have better descriptions than you can ever create.  Ask customers for their input and see if they can speak to your prospects better than you can.
• Testimonials from customers or past customers and clients will help.  People are more willing to listen to others as long as the testimonials are written in a professional manner.  Keep the rights to take excerpts from their testimonials and have judicial use of editing to ensure that your testimonials speak to people.
• Check your email for other examples of how to write your emails.  Keeping track of the types of emails your customers and prospects send to you can give you insight into the topics that interest your audience.  Listen to their questions.

Who you are offering it to?

Who you are targeting is the major question most companies and their emails seem to forget.  It is one of the most important questions that often goes unanswered.  Who is interested in what you are offering?

Demographic studies and marketing research is important in determining who is interested in your services or products.  Surveys and opinion questionnaires are excellent methods in determining this kind of information.

How are you going to get them interested?

What is the great game plan you have planned to get your prospects interested in your products or services?  It isn’t enough to assume that once you have the right product or service and have identified the people who might be interested, the question becomes how are you going to get them interested.  There are many methods to interest people:

• Call them
• Send Emails
• Put up billboards
• Buy print advertising
• Speak to them via Social Networking
• Have others tell them

All of these methods will help to inform your prospects of the products and services.  It is important to find a way to track these and determine the effectiveness of each.

When will you instill the Call to Action?

After you’ve managed to do all of the work to write a great newsletter of email to your customers, clients, prospects, and others, you have done nothing at all.  You can’t get anywhere with anyone anyhow without a call to action.  You have to entice them to move forward with you or your products.  What does it take to have an action item worth acting on?

• Making an offer is one methodology.  Making an offer does not entail necessarily a sale of some product or a purchasing of something to create an interest or a value to a prospect.  Offers can be utilized to motivate people to considering action or move them from benign to interested.  An offer could be just to Like your Facebook page or follow your Twitter or even visit your website to create value.
• People need direction.  There is no call to action without step by step instructions on how to complete the process.  Ensure you have a definitive process by which the reader can become engaged with your company and the products or services you are offering.
• Even when the content of the email is valuable or useful to the reader, most people will scan it and delete the email unless there is some reason to do otherwise.  Likely, you are interested in having a decrease in deletion rates and therefore you will need every email you send to include a strong call to action.  A call to action is a statement or offering prompting your readers to engage in something specific in relation to the objectives you intended in the email.
• A call to action isn’t as basic as just including an email address or phone number for your company or including a click for the reader to press.  This is wishful thinking. Readers need specific reasons to move forward with you or the offerings you have proffered.  Compelling the reader to move to action requires a compelling reason to do so as well as specific actions to take in order to engage with your business.
• Don’t just include a link to Click Here for More or something as generic as that.  It is important to offer a specific call to action such as Contact Us Today or Take Advantage of this Deal Today.
• Passive is not aggressive.  Don’t use passive phrases in your call to action.  Utilize strong action words such as verbs that propose a specific task for the reader.  Look at the email you are sending with the following strong verbs in mind associated with your objectives when creating the email:
  • Read the email – Read, consider, look, scroll, notice
  • Fill out a form – Respond, contact, comment, advise
  • Save the email – Keep, save, store, file, move
  • Request more information – Download, learn, request, email, compare
  • Print the email – Print, post, hang, bring
  • Visit the geographic location – Drive, park, attend, come
  • Forward the email – Forward, share, refer, send
  • Visit a specific web page – Visit, go, view, Like, Follow, navigate, join
  • Purchase something – Buy, purchase, add, own, order
  • Register for something or for an event – Register, reserve, join, RSVP, sign up
  • Phone the company – Call, dial, phone, contact
  • Make an appointment with the company – Schedule, meet, set up, arrange

Create an Email That Doesn’t Fail

• It’s not enough to use these words in an email specifically for these purposes.  You need to develop a strong message that engages and drives your readers to action.  Build on your message one step at a time.  Think of what message you want to convey and then create an engaging piece to interest your prospects.
• Don’t know how to do this?  Get a professional such as PTC Computer Solutions and their team of experts at PTC Communications in conjunction with their partner, REDdot Marketing Solutions to create the best possible marketing plan.  PTC and REDdot have teamed with the marketing research specialists at Parker Associates to provide the most in depth understanding of your prospects.  Parker Associates specializes in understanding WHO you are looking for with unparalleled innovative techniques and methodologies.  If you think you want to try writing some newsletters or emails on your own, take the following steps to action:
  • Look at the action words and combine them with the subject of the action word as in:
    • Order this item.
• Don’t forget to include where this item can be attained:
  • Order this item online.
• It’s imperative that you have an urgency in your message by including a time frame for acting:
  • Order this item online by this coming Saturday before it’s too late.
• Adding some adjectives to enhance the offering is useful to develop the engaging conversational tone of the message as well as to underline the inherent value in the action:
  • Order this tremendous item online by this coming Saturday before it’s too late.
  • These are simple steps to developing a direct methodology to engaging your prospects and encouraging them to action.

PTC Computer Solutions in conjunction with PTC Communications has been involved with bringing the business community to the internet community since 1996.  With our partners, REDdot Marketing Solutions and Parker Associates, PTC has a full menu of services for all of your marketing needs from online marketing, to email marketing, to traditional marketing and prospect research to engage your prospects and proffer all the aspects of your products or services.  Contact PTC Computer Solutions at info@ptccomputersolutions.com or call us at 904-992-1742.