Simpler ways to achieve relevancy in emails
Latest posts | Feed | By Mark Brownlow on May 15, 2008
According to a recent SubscriberMail survey, the problem most cited by email marketers is "swamped inboxes." Getting attention in a cluttered marketplace is not a new challenge, but an irritatingly persistent one.One solution mentioned with predictable regularity is to make emails more relevant to the recipient. In fact, the word relevant comes from the Latin relevare, meaning "to raise up." Which is exactly what we want to do with our emails.
But relevancy is itself a challenge if you don't have funky databases and targeting technology whirring away in the background. Or is it?
Relevancy implies making a connection between the recipient and your email.
Email marketers tend to think of this too narrowly, seeking to relate the next email directly to something the recipient did before (past purchases, past clicks, ticked content fields on a sign-up form, etc.)
"You bought a book on religion so this email contains offers on other religious books."
Which works.
An alternative and simpler approach is to pursue relevancy by exploiting different kinds of connections...
Connect to the recipient's wider environment
What is likely occupying the mind of the recipient these days? Think expansively - cultural trends, changing seasons, upcoming TV or sporting events. How can you make a connection there?
This is largely what Nick Usborne calls giving your emails a sense of now.
Nick writes:
"...it is essential that you make a connection with what's important to them right now...That connection with now could be about the weather, the news, a holiday or anything else you can think of."
This approach is implicit in seasonal offers and content, like those suggested by Evan Adlman for the summer.
You do, however, need to be aware of issues raised by different time zones and geographical locations.
Summer in Wellington, Florida is winter in Wellington, New Zealand. The Superbowl is a big deal in the USA, but passes without comment in most of Europe.
Connect to the human being
Really. There's a man or woman sitting in front of a PC, laptop or mobile device with all the needs and wants typically associated with a selfish lump of sentient bone and muscle.
Now it becomes obvious that your newsletter editorial, for example, should talk to the subscriber as an individual not as one of a group.
If you send out an email on a Friday afternoon on a hot summer's day, you can imagine the kind of mood the typical recipient is in at that time and adjust content and tone accordingly.
Connect to a representative of your wider audience
If you don't have sophisticated data on subscriber preferences and past actions, simply extrapolate from what you observe of your wider audience.
What products and content are "hot" right now on your website? What search terms are people using to find your site at the moment (or to search within your site)? What are people talking about in relevant forums and blogs?
That's all useful intelligence for planning relevant email offers and content.
Any other tips on making your emails more relevant?
Tags: email marketing, email relevancy, email copywriting, targeting
[This post brought to you by Campaigner Email Marketing]
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