LJ Sedgwick

Content Writer for Coaches and Course Creators

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February 15, 2018 by LJ Sedgwick Leave a Comment

Improve Your Email Marketing By Doing The Unexpected

If you Google the phrase ‘improve your email marketing’, you get 11,800,000 results.

Being able to improve your email marketing should be an easy way to boost business. But can doing the unexpected snag attention and boost your brand? Click here to find out.

That’s a lot of content, which suggests a lot of people are looking for help with their emails. And it’s not surprising. Email use worldwide is predicted to top 3 billion users by 2020. Granted, they won’t all be users of your tech, but that’s a lot of potential subscribers.

But have you ever turned to your own inbox for inspiration?

You should because it’s amazing what you’ll start to notice when you browse the subject lines. Incidentally, ‘how to improve your email open rate’ is another popular related search – and by improving that, you’ll naturally improve your email marketing.

Anyway. Let me give you an example and then we’ll look at why it works. Then we’ll look at ways that you can use it to improve your email marketing for your tech company.

Ryanair and classic movies?

I’ve flown with Ryanair a few times over the last six years or so. Like their other passengers, I got hundreds of emails at the height of their ‘problems’ in 2017.

You know, when it felt weird to be getting emails about cheap flights when they had no pilots.

Normally, I delete the emails without opening them. I’m not the type of person to book a flight unless I actually have a holiday planned – so why read their emails in the meantime?

But this one caught my eye. Or, to be specific, the subject line caught my eye.

Being able to improve your email marketing should be an easy way to boost business. But can doing the unexpected snag attention and boost your brand? Click here to find out.
Specific to me while referencing a classic movie – genius!

Whoa. Did Ryanair just reference Casablanca?!

Yes yes, I know. In the movie, the line is “We’ll always have Paris”. But Ryanair made the email specific to me by referencing the last place I flew to with them. Stuttgart.

Being a copywriter, I nodded in approval at their use of ‘disruption’ to get my attention. Disruption usually refers to companies who disrupt a tried-and-tested formula and change the way a whole industry works.

Look at Uber, Deliveroo, or any of the other recent tech companies who changed the way we use taxis or deliver food.

Here, Ryanair disrupted their own brand to stand out. Let’s be honest, Ryanair isn’t the type of brand to usually quote classic movies. My own curiosity prompted me to open the email.

Being able to improve your email marketing should be an easy way to boost business. But can doing the unexpected snag attention and boost your brand? Click here to find out.
The references continue!

Here’s the email itself. The Casablanca reference pops up again, in the “as time goes by” line.

It’s short and to the point. If you want to improve your email marketing, that’s often the way to go. I know some people advise you write long and personal emails to your subscribers. But let’s be honest. People are busy. Why take 1200 words to say what you can say in 200?

Let’s look at what Ryanair did that was so unexpected.

They looked to the past, instead of the present.

First, the subject line referred to an earlier booking I’d made (last year, in fact). It established a relationship with the company and previous buying behaviour.

No breathless exclamation marks here.

The short subject line didn’t include the usual ‘book now!’ or ‘sale still on!’ desperation tactics I’ve come to expect from Ryanair. That provoked a ‘ooh, what do they want?’ response from me.

Nice preview!

They made good use of the email preview to include an extra quote – ‘You must remember this’. So many companies don’t add a preview so the first line of the email appears instead.

Provoking curiosity…

The link between a budget airline and a classic film is unusual. Humans like novelty and are drawn to new and shiny things (we’re basically magpies). That novelty prompted my curiosity – and humans can’t abide unresolved issues. To satisfy my curiosity about why they’d referenced Casablanca, I had to open the email.

Being able to improve your email marketing should be an easy way to boost business. But can doing the unexpected snag attention and boost your brand? Click here to find out.
Kind of weird to see Casablanca in a Ryanair email. By Trailer screenshot (Casablanca trailer) [Public domain], via Wikimedia Commons

Awesome use of pronouns

Brands like Ryanair often use ‘you’ to try and snag your attention. Or they ditch pronouns altogether and use subject lines like ‘half price flights now available!’ The use of the word ‘we’, while part of the quote, also builds a sense that we’re somehow in it together. We’re part of a team.

How can you improve your email marketing using the Ryanair example?

So we’ve looked at why the Ryanair example worked. But how can you use it to improve your email marketing?

Let’s go over those points again. Use this as a checklist if you want to try it out.

Make Good Use of Your Subject Lines

You want your subscriber to click on your email. Your subject line is the only real indication of what’s in the email. So use it to grab attention.

Don’t just tell them there’s a sale on, or you have a new piece of software coming out. Refer to your relationship together – even if that’s just a previous email, an earlier purchase, or something else that ties the subscriber to you.

Use segmentation to help you with this. You don’t want to refer to a previous purchase with brand new subscribers who have never bought from you. Send different emails to different segments based on their interactions with you.

Benefits, not Features

This is a maxim of copywriting for a reason. Ryanair’s usual tactic of ‘half price off all seats’ tells me they have a sale on. While the benefit is implied – I’ll save money – they’re still focusing on the feature. Their ‘We’ll always have Stuttgart’ subject line doesn’t have any features but its reminder of a previous flight demonstrates the benefit of their service. Those benefits include the romance and memories of travel.

For tech companies, it’s easy to default to the features of your software or gadgets. Focus instead on what benefits those features have for your users. Think about time-saving, or simplicity.

Use the Email Preview

Ryanair shoehorned in an extra quote using the email preview. That’s valuable real estate in the inbox. Real estate that, in this case, is totally wasted.

Being able to improve your email marketing should be an easy way to boost business. But can doing the unexpected snag attention and boost your brand? Click here to find out.
I love CreativeBloq but this preview could be more interesting

So if you’re wondering how to increase your email open rate, experiment with using the preview box. If you’ve got a more leftfield subject line, you could use the preview to be more concrete about the contents of the email.

Or make a game out of using the email preview to showcase classic film and television quotes. Let your subscribers play along. Perhaps you could turn it into a competition.

Be Unexpected

I’m going to stay something contentious here. I actually think it’s okay to go off-brand every once in a while. It’s an easy way to provoke curiosity that can only be satiated by opening the email.

Do it too often and subscribers will get bored. Or they’ll see it as gimmicky. And if your email subject lines have nothing to do with the email, they’ll get annoyed.

But threading something unexpected through your subject line and email is a great way to remind subscribers that there’s a human being at the other end of that email. People buy from people, not faceless brands.

Invite Subscribers into your World

Do you use the word ‘we’ to refer to your company? Try pivoting to use ‘we’ to encompass your company and your subscribers. Make them feel like they’re part of what you do, or that you’re going through something together.

If in doubt, test, test, test

No one gets email marketing right the first time. But in between devising target audience personas, using swipe files, and becoming a slave to open rates, it’s easy to forget your subscribers are people.

So A/B test your subject lines to find the ones that get the best results. Test out different email previews. Link your subject lines and email content to create a smooth experience for your users. Try using a conversational tone instead of a corporate one. Be unexpected.

And you’ll figure out how to improve your email engagement.

Not sure how to be quirky or unexpected in your emails? Check out my Tremendous Time Saver Package to see if a one-off email to your list (by me, ghostwriting for you) could improve your email marketing.

Filed Under: Case Study Tagged With: email marketing, ryanair

October 12, 2016 by LJ Sedgwick 4 Comments

Are you making these 5 mistakes with your email marketing?

Email marketing is the buzz phrase of 2016. You can’t move three feet in virtual space without being accosted.

“Do you have an email list yet?” “Why don’t you have an email list?” “Ohmigod you NEED an email list?”

So you set up an email list. And you even get subscribers. Amazing!

But what do you actually do with it? Well, you try not to make these 5 mistakes – and if you do, here’s how to fix them!

Everyone tells you to start an email list, but it's easy to start making these 5 mistakes with your email marketing. Here's how to fix them!
Are you making these 5 mistakes with your email marketing?

1) You don’t send any content.

You’ve followed all the advice and sent up a list. You’ve even got an opt-in form on your blog.

Mercy of mercies, people even sign up! But then you don’t send any content.

Maybe you’re scared people will unsubscribe. Or that you might annoy them. Maybe you just don’t know what to say.

Here’s the thing. People opted in. So they are interested. And if they’re not, and they do unsubscribe, then that’s okay too. It’s sort of the point!

Fix: Plan your content in advance, and come up with a schedule.

You’ll be able to tell from your analytics (or social shares) which of your posts are the most popular. Can you expand this content to send something exclusive to your email list that they can’t get elsewhere?

Or maybe your blog is focused on evergreen content. Send your email list content that’s more time-sensitive.

2) You do send content, but it’s too sales-y.

I see this a lot from authors, in particular. They’ve been told they need an email list, and they need to sell their books…but that’s all they do. I don’t want to go months at a time without hearing from you, only to get an email every week for a month telling me about your new release.

You’re not Top Shop, so send me stuff other than promotions, yeah?

I only send content once a month to the mailing list for my fiction efforts. I send a mixture of;

  • updates on cool places I’ve been that month (which I get comments on so I know it’s appreciated)
  • folklore titbits that I don’t put on my blog or on Twitter
  • book recommendations
  • free short stories

My readers get a whole host of content that’s not about selling. They might only get a ‘sales’ email once every five months!

Fix: Find other things to talk about other than your product or service.

What can you teach your subscribers to do? Or can you entertain them? Remember, most people’s inboxes are groaning under the weight of sales pitches. Something light or amusing can be just as welcome as a fabulous discount!

Everyone tells you to start an email list, but it's easy to start making these 5 mistakes with your email marketing. Here's how to fix them.
Does your email inbox look like this?

3) You only send your blog posts, rather than exclusive content.

I know, I know, this is the easy option. You’re not sure what to send, so you just email your post instead.

(Unless you’re a geek like me and you sort of use email like a weird form of RSS)

Now, I can totally see the logical behind doing this. After all, email marketing is all well and good, but your content isn’t searchable. You might send out absolute diamonds every week but no one can stumble across it by accident. It’s not shareable.

Blogs are. So putting your content on your blog, which is shareable, and sending it to your email list seems like a good idea. You get the best of both worlds, right?

Well sort of. If I can read it on your blog, why am I going to sign up to get it in my inbox?

Fix: Give your post some content within your email.

Sending posts can be a totally valid way of finding content to send. But if you’re going to do it, make sure you add some backstory as to why you wrote the post, what the main takeaways are, etc. Humanise it! Tell me a story. Make it impossible for me to not click the link to your post!

4) You don’t reply to the emails you do get.

This one is a huge problem. Say you send an email and in it, you ask your readers a question.

And they respond. What do you do? Do you;

  1. ignore their response. After all, you’re far too busy to reply
  2. send a five word reply that shows you at least saw their response, but you didn’t care enough to craft a decent answer?

I’ve had both – and from authors with smaller lists and fewer Twitter followers than me. Hell, if I can reply to every email I get, then you certainly can!

Fix: Reply to your emails!

You might not get to them immediately, or even on the same day. You might have way more people replying than I do, but some kind of response, even a few days later, is definitely appreciated. I’ve become firm fans of a few marketers and copywriters because they take the time to reply.

Remember these readers are your customers, your clients, your readers, or even your fans. You want to forge a genuine connection with them, and you won’t do that by ignoring them.

5) You don’t get permission to send emails in the first place.

This is a HUGE no-no. I’m sure you’ve suddenly had a raft of emails appear in your inbox and you know you didn’t subscribe for any of them. What gives?

Everyone tells you to start an email list, but it's easy to start making these 5 mistakes with your email marketing. Here's how to fix them.
Do not send junk.

Some new marketers think they can add emails from people they’ve been in touch with to their lists. No. Previous content is not permission.

Same as you can’t scrape emails from blog comments, or forums. And you certainly should never buy a mailing list.

Put simply, if someone didn’t manually put their name and email address into a form, and click a confirm button, then they didn’t give you permission.

What’s even worse  is if you send emails with RE: in the subject line, as if you’ve already spoken to them before. Just no!

Fix: Make sure you get permission!

This is so simple. Just make sure you only add people to your list that come via recognised opt-in forms. All the providers I’ve encountered will even provide you with forms you can embed on your blog. Simple!

Email marketing can be quite daunting, but once you get started, it can become fun. I love emailing my fiction list, and I love getting replies! It’s totally worth doing. Just make sure you do it properly!

Have you made any of these mistakes with your email marketing? Let me know in the comments below!

If you enjoyed this post, please consider sharing it with your friends or colleagues!

 

Filed Under: Digital Marketing Tagged With: content marketing, digital marketing, email list, email marketing, marketing

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