Five Tips for Achieving Tap-Worthy Marketing Emails

Do consumers still want emails? Yes. Sixty-one percent of consumers report preferring to receive offers via email as opposed to other communication methods.[i] The good news for you is that email is cost effective, controlled by you, offers a low cost per acquisition and provides a high return on investment. The downside is that there is no silver bullet for email success because email is part science and part art. And the art is where we’re going to dive in. We are providing five tips for crafting tap-worthy emails (pro tip: users tap, not click, emails on most devices).

Tip #1 Read the Room

We’re going to assume you’ve already fully fleshed out and established your goal (e.g., increase sales, increase brand awareness, etc.), so we’re going to hop right into talking about your audience. Do not put pen to paper until you know who you’re talking to. Are you delivering emails to existing customers, prospects, leads … someone else? What types of consumers, prospects, leads, etc.? If you don’t have buyer personas set for your audience, we recommend you first do that. Then, “read your room.”

In other words, ask yourself what these recipients expect, what they want and why they opted in for your emails in the first place. If you were delivering a presentation to a room full of marketing professionals and it promised to give them the latest trends and technology, you wouldn’t spend time explaining basic marketing tenets. Likewise, you wouldn’t stand at a podium and read off a bulleted list of your company’s features. Same applies to emails, it’s simply a different vehicle. No one wants to hear all about your company – don’t stuff your email with your brand’s/company’s features and benefits. Provide them with tips, advice, education … or even make them laugh! Be sure you deliver what you promised in that initial sign-up message.

Tip #2 Use Your Wheel

As you stare at your computer screen, you’re wondering how to deliver on tip #1. Don’t reinvent the wheel! Dig into existing content that is relevant to the offer or information you want to send to your audience.

Look at your social channels. What content has performed well? What comments/questions have been posted? What have brand advocates posted? Check in with your customer service team. What questions do they frequently receive? What about other marketing content – blogs, white papers, case studies, etc. Check your Google Analytics. What content performs best there? Monitor (do NOT plagiarize) your competitors’ sites and social channels. What interests this like-minded audience?

Or, try a tool like Answer the Public to discover what people are asking about your topic. Their site states that “There are 3 billion Google searches every day, and 20% of those have never been seen before. They’re like a direct line to your customers’ thoughts…”

Now that you have the content flowing, building on tip #1, deliver your audience something they want. Be something. What do we mean?

Be helpful (solve a problem or save them money).

Be funny (provide entertainment).

Be insightful (educate on a subject that interests them).

Notice nowhere in the above did I include “Be promotional” or “Be sales-y.”

Tip #3 Write in an Inverted Pyramid

If you’ve ever taken a newswriting class or been a journalist, you know exactly what this is. While it originally applied to news stories, we apply the concept to all writing. Why? Because we live in a scan-and-leave world. You need to get to the meat and potatoes of your email in a quick scan before the reader leaves. Even if you’re successful at drawing in your reader to read the first line, you may not get them to the fifth.

So, draw yourself a mental picture of an upside-down triangle. Lead with the most important pieces; answer the who, what, when, where, how and why. This way they get a sense of what the story (or in this case, email) is about in just the first paragraph. Then layer in the lesser important details as you go on.

I see way too many emails that want to tell you a story for two paragraphs before getting into the email’s purpose. Trust me, we still embrace storytelling while using the inverted pyramid approach. The art is in storytelling succinctly, and in the right order.

Tip #4 Grab the Red Pen

Once you have architected your inverted pyramid, go back at least once (if not more!) with a red pen and delete superfluous information. While you have the red pen in hand, check on these items:

• Have you written in active voice?
• Have you varied your sentence lengths and structures? (i.e., don’t start every sentence in the same way)
• Have you removed repetitive words?
• Have you replaced overused words? Pro tip: Become one with Thesauraus.com. Switch out “excited,” “fun,” “great” and any other words that are so overused (especially in short-form content pieces like emails) that they become meaningless.
• Do you have a clear call to action? Pro tip: Research has found that personalizing the call to action (“my” vs. “yours”) leads to a 90% increase in click-through rates. For example, “Try my 30-day trial” would perform much better than “Try your 30-day trial.”

Tip #5: Punch up your Preview Text

You already know the importance of an email subject line. Are you putting as much energy into the preview text? Studies reveal brands that use preheaders effectively increase open rates by a margin of up to 30%.[ii]

 Mailigen suggests the following best practices to secure more opens and clicks.[iii]

1.  Make a personal connection by including your recipient’s name
2. Pique your reader’s interest with a brief question
3. Use emojis to inject some personality into your message
4. Highlight the value of your email with numbers
5. Don’t waste your preheader text by repeating your email subject lines
6. Open with a bold statement or promise
7. Create a sense of urgency to tap into your followers’ FOMO

The common thread of these best practices is that they offer the reader something distinctive, personal, off-the-beaten-path or unknown. Regardless of the direction you take, be sure you support the subject line and provide a call to action.

Perform this test before you finish your preview text: have you seen the exact same, or almost the same, preview text in your email box? If the answer is yes, hit delete and try again!

Pro tip: Use a recognizable name in the “from” field. For example, “Trisha from CenterSpoke” or “CenterSpoke” vs. “Trisha Smith.”

We didn’t delve into designing emails today, but yes, you need to ensure your emails are aesthetically pleasing and on-brand. Use images to enhance your email but don’t go overboard and keep in mind that in Gmail, for example, 43% of Gmail users read email without turning images on.[iv]

GIFs can increase click rates, conversation rates and revenue, but just make sure you have a good reason to use one. Lastly, video can also increase those same metrics. Again, just make sure you know the technical ins and outs of how to deliver them correctly.

And for many marketers, they understand these principles, but their skillset is stronger on the science part of email marketing and that’s okay! We’re here to be your content creators. Contact us today.

[i] https://smallbiztrends.com/2017/09/promotional-email-small-business.html

[ii] https://blog.zerobounce.net/2020/07/08/optimize-preheader-text/#:~:text=Studies%20reveal%20brands%20that%20use,your%20overall%20ROI%20or%20ROAS.

[iii] https://www.mailigen.com/blog/email-preheader/

[iv] https://www.americaninno.com/boston/gmail-data-analysis-reveals-image-blocking-affects-43-of-emails/