Sorry, email marketer.
No do-over for you.
If your emails don't deliver on these four basic needs, you're dead, says e-mail marketing guru Chad White:
- Respect
- Function
- Value
- Experience
Foremost, customers crave respect. Customers should be notified they're opting in to receive your emails, and find it easy to opt out. "Disregarding permission puts your brand at an immediate disadvantage in the inbox," White says.
Customers also crave function. Your copy should be accurate; your text, legible; your graphics, discernible; your links, clickable; and your design, responsive. "If your emails have broken links and images or have text that’s too small to read on mobile devices, for example, your clicks will suffer."
Customers crave value. Your emails should be useful. They should deliver news, alerts and special offers. Better still, they should be personalized, so they deliver content that's targeted and timely.
Finally, customers crave experience. If your email isn't an experience, it's a waste of time. Customers share treasures, not trash. Experiences, White says, are produced by:
- Targeting niche audiences with triggered messages
- Taking advantage of events and charity work, "which are innately more share-worthy"
- Delivering extra-special content on occasion
- Using design and layout to differentiate your emails; and
- Featuring “share with your network” buttons in share-worthy emails
It's easy to learn if your emails deliver, White says. Just count your opens, clicks, conversions, and forwards.
Ding-dong.
Ding-dong.
