Get Engagement from Your Emails

Marketing is all about results.

What results are you going for?

There are a ton of different goals you can set, but usually, a sale, a donation, or some sort of action is what you want to happen from all of your hard work, time, and or money investment.

Email marketing is one of my favorite tools to use for most of my clients.

It is effective and efficient.

Or I should say it is effective and efficient when done right and well.

First, you need to add value for your readers.

If you are reading this blog post and thinking that you want to learn how to do better “email blasts,” then I need you to stop and pause and stop thinking about email marketing as a blast and more of an email to a person. (Create personas if that helps you. Read our blog on how to create personas here.)

Go ahead and click the link. it will open in a new tab and you will remember to go back to it.

Anyway, let’s get back to the WIIFM? or the What’s in it for me?

That’s what you should always ask as a writer of an email or a blog, BEFORE you start writing. What’s in it for your reader?

Here, in this blog, I sat down with the intention of providing you tips to get more clicks and engagement from your emails.

That means that the emails are a bit more personalized than what you think.

There is a ton of competition in your readers’ inbox trying to grab their attention.

The normal complaints I hear and those heard at Constant Contact are that:

• You don’t know what to send
• It will take too much time
• You don’t think you are a good writer

First, everyone can write. I love the book Everybody Writes by Ann Handley. Check it out on Amazon. (I am not affiliated with Ann or her book. Just a fan. If you are interested in learning more about her, be sure to check out Marketing Profs- they have great resources. She has a she-shed in her back yard or a tiny house where she does a lot of her writing. It is super cute.)

However, what matters is really what you write about.

I am not a great writer. I won’t be writing the next great American novel, but I do love sharing information with you about how to do marketing better for you and me (just in case I get your emails.)

There are two main types of emails:

1. Time-based
2. Informational

I don’t recommend doing all time-based, ever!

You don’t always want to ask people for things.

You want to share information and tips and information overall.

Time-based emails are things like sales, promotions, events, donation campaigns, recruiting volunteers, etc.

Informational emails share information and provide valuable content. If you are a retail store, can you show me information about how your products are made or how they can go together with other items I already have?

I love sharing content ideas and have done a few webinars on the topic. Unfortunately, I don’t record that one because I help the attendees find topics that are specific to them, so I only do it live. Stay tuned on my events page to see what’s coming up or join my email list at the bottom of this page to be informed.

Here are some great ways you can get people to engage with your emails:

1. Have a clear from name and email address. People won’t open or engage with your emails unless you have the basics set up.
2. Set up DKIM authentication to keep your emails out of SPAM filters. (Check with your email solution provider if  you don’t know what this is and feel free to reach out to me if you have questions about how to do this in Constant Contact.) Keeping your emails in the inbox definitely will get more engagement than if it ends up in junk.
3. Send emails consistently. You need to determine your frequency. Most of the professional service firms I work with send monthly. Some retail or non-profits that have events send more often. Send as long as your subscribers will see value, but make sure you clarify it up front and stick to it.
4. Create content that adds value for your audience
   1. Events- save the date, invitation, reminders, last chance to sign up
   2. Coupons/discounts
   3. How-to
   4. Surveys, reviews and feedback requests
   5. Behind the scenes
   6. News
   7. Newsletters- no more than 3 articles!
5. Keep it short- You don’t want a ton of content. Keeping it short and sweet with clicks to read more for longer stories, etc. is a great way to do it.
6. Easy to read and follow across devices- have a picture, a paragraph of text and a call to action.
7. Use “you” and “your” often
8. Have a subject line that will be opened- use power words and be sure to read more in my blog about power words here.

Good luck with writing your next email. I would love to see it and what you have learned from this post.