What are the benefits of using humor and storytelling in email marketing?

The strategic use of humor is very effective in getting people to engage with your emails. But don't just use humor to try to look clever. Tie it to the point of the email, and a benefit the recipient will gain by opening and reading it. Humor can be very tricky. What's funny to one person can be insulting to another. Before you click send, have a couple of other people read your email. Did they get the joke, or did it fall flat? Is the joke related to the purpose of sending the email? Did it provide some insights in a clever way? If you can say Yes to all three of those questions, click send and away for a positive response.

Doing debate and other public speaking activities in high school and college really taught me the value of humor in making a memorable point. We humans love to laugh, and we tend to like people that make us laugh. Making people laugh makes you memorable and more noticeable. With email it’s key to remember that context is everything, and timing which is a huge part of context is the essence of comedy. Make sure to look at your joke from multiple different perspectives and cultures to manage the risk of unintentionally offending some or all of your audience. I think it also helps humanize the email that we all know full well was sent to us in bulk with hundreds to millions of others just like it.

If there's one thing that people like and would pay for, it's Entertainment. And that's what humor and a good story do for your readers. It fosters connection, makes your brand relatable, and unconsciously deepens the emotional bond between the potential customers and your offerings. The best part is, that the impact of a humourous, story-loaded email is truly scalable! You can send it to 10, you can send it to 100, and I'm not even counting the people who will receive a forwarded copy of it. We've also seen screenshots of well-written emails posted on social platforms. That's just gonna make your email viral! So now you know why it pays to inject humor and solid storytelling in your emails?

Humor's great. Laughter is one of the strongest ways for people to bond. But make your humor consistent with your brand personality... and make sure the audience has a similar sense of humor. For example: Don't use memes that won't resonate with the audience.

Storytelling works because they are memorable - far more than just conveying facts about your products, services or brand. Various studies suggest stories with facts are 10-20X more likely to be remembered vs. a fact by itself. A London Business School study indicates that storytelling can help drive the retention rate of your audience by as much as 70%! Why? We remember what we feel in the story. Stories create images and emotions in our heads. Take your audience through a story, create heroes and villains and the be solution to their specific problem.

The best way to use humor in emails effectively is to spend some time studying the craft. Learn, and understand, the structure of humor and joke formulas. Then apply them to the point you are trying to make in your email. Practicing doing this and writing humorous emails that are persuasive (which is the point of this), will become a natural part of your writing style.

Make sure your humor matches your brand personality AND that it resonates with the customer. For instance, don't try to use stale, years-old memes with a young and Internet-savvy audience. Know your audience well so that you can inject humor (where appropriate) that makes them laugh with you, not at you.

So true. It’s a balance because humor often points to a shortfall or ridiculousness . Can easily be misinterpreted. I have a bit of an absurd sense of humor. Often feel misunderstood. Great call to have another review.

The best humor makes your readers feel smart. They're in on the joke, and you're all laughing together. This is why an inside joke, which is risky, can have a powerful impact if you're able to pull it off. You have to know your audience to get this right.

It's always good to keep humor in a universal context. What that means is that anyone will be able to enjoy it because it isn't only understandable by region or nationality. Although there is a place for regional humor, it doesn't belong in business correspondence. A good example of universal humor is not offensive and it is easily understood by everyone. One way to test out the humor is by having a diverse group of colleagues react to it prior to launching the content.

Stories are a great way to illustrate a point, but don't get too carried away. Keep your story short. The average person spends 8.9 seconds reading an email, so make your story scalable. The recipient should be able to scan through it and get the point. If you've done a great job with it, they will invest the time to dive deeper into it. Use short, and even one-word sentences to draw the eye, and get them to read the next sentence. For example: But... Why... And then... These draw the eye and entice the person to read the next sentence. It's not just the story, it's how you present it that will get the recipient to read it, and respond to it.

Customer testimonials are excellent raw materials for stories. Just expand their testimonial into a story and drop that in the email. Add a snippet of the customer's testimonial where appropriate. If you can get full-blown case studies, even better. You barely have to do the work yourself.

I agree, and I think the old writing rule of “show, don’t tell” applies in email marketing just as it does in short and long form content. Stating only what you see is boring and drags the reader along. Giving them sensory details invites them in to experience your story.

Storytelling may be effective in email marketing, especially if it is connected to successful results as in testimonials. Another way to use storytelling is by delighting the reader with a rich and fun story that will demonstrate positive results by taking action.

The best stories are ones where the reader can see themselves in the story. A good example is a difficult, yet common, problem that someone in the niche you are selling to is experiencing, and you show how the person, in the story, overcame it. Bonus points if the character in the story is seen as the hero, and you are the guide. This will make the reader feel that with your help they can be the hero, solve the problem, and save the day.

Humor: Memes and gifs (if they resonate with the audience) to communicate a point. Funny asides, often in parentheses. Storytelling: Find a story that covers a common problem and, ideally, an objection or hesitation to buying and why they proceeded despite the objection. "John Doe had been burnt by other XYZ, so he was skeptical. But after a conversation with [sales rep], he was willing to give [company] a shot."

An underrated section of the email where you can use storytelling and humor is the post-script (P.S). I recently got an email, that ended with: 'P.S. I bought a new thesaurus last week. Not only is it terrible, it's terrible.' The email was on copywriting, and the joke was perfect for the target audience. In another instance, an email for an eco-friendly product wrote: "P.S: Did you know? Just last month, a whale was found with over 30 plastic bags in its stomach. Our new product aims to combat this issue. Let's make a difference, one purchase at a time."

Humor and storytelling are a work in progress. Let your analytics guide you. Never lose sight of the action you want the recipient to take. Have a clear call to action in your email. The goal is for the recipient to take an action, not think to themselves, "that was a clever email." You're not a mind reader (or maybe you have that gift), so getting the recipient to take an action, any action, is the only way to gauge if your story/humor is on the right track.

Some forms of humor are universally appealing. If you find the "sweet spot" of humor that is interjected in your correspondence you have a winner. Two examples of "sweet spots" are Flo from Progressive Insurance, and the gecko from Geico Insurance. The image of Flo and the gecko are translated into cross platforms such as digital media, email, etc. By coming up with an "ambassador" like Flo or the gecko, you have comedy gold. People will look forward to your emails rather than seeing it as an intrusion on their busy day. It's definitely worth considering.

When using humor, make the recipient the start of the show, but not the butt of the joke. If you can put a smile on their face, they will be more open to what you are sharing with them. Which will result in them taking the action you want them to take. Try using storytelling and humor in your emails. When you do it well, they work great.

Just like real-world comedy, email humor is best received by an audience when it doesn't feel fake. Know your brand voice, have a pulse on how your customers perceive you, and copy-write from a place of authenticity. Readers can sniff out ingenuity and click-bate-y copy, even in an email. Keep it light, and more importantly, keep it true to your brand.