(i) Email Beginning
When you open an email, you can see the sender and subject information of the email at the first glance. They are located at the top of the email and are the first content that customers see. The sender information can be displayed according to actual needs, and the specific company or team name should be provided.
(ii) Content Information Layout
After solving the problem of email sending, you should also pay attention to the specific content and format of the email. The applicable principle for planning the content of marketing emails is “consider the user and be useful to the user”.
1. Things to note when planning email content
(1) Send regularly. A mature email marketing plan must determine the frequency of email sending and strictly implement it. Never send several emails in a row and then have no news for a few months.
For monthly or weekly electronic magazines, the sending cycle has been determined, that is, once a month or once a week; even if it is not a regular electronic magazine, its mailing list should have an appropriate sending cycle, usually 1 to 2 times a month. In this way, subscribers will not forget that they have subscribed to this mailing list or website because they have not received mail for a long time, or even think that the mail is spam when they receive it again. They will not feel annoyed by receiving too many mails in a short period of time, resulting in unsubscribing or reporting spam.
Establishing a fixed psychological expectation of receiving mails is very important for retaining subscribers and building trust.
(2) The content of the mailing is always consistent. The content of the marketing mailing should not deviate from the direction promised when subscribing. If the registration instructions promise that the mailing will be mainly about tips, do not send too many advertisements; if the promise is mainly about new product information and discount information, do not send irrelevant company news. What content is promised to be sent should be sent in the actual implementation process, so that subscribers will not feel dissatisfied.
(3) Do not oversell. Marketing mailings should be careful not to oversell, unless the mailing list itself is dedicated to providing sales information and users are mentally prepared for this.
The vast majority of mailing subscribers are interested in practical content such as industry news, comments, skills, etc. that are useful to them, so marketers should focus on sending content that users are interested in. The purpose of marketing is to generate sales, but it should not be too high-profile. You can add a sentence at the end of the email to extend the sales. If the user is interested in your product, he will definitely click to view it.
2. Common content formats of marketing emails
The body of the email can be divided into the following five parts.
(1) Email header. For example, “You have subscribed to xxx e-magazine. This is the xth issue of xxx e-magazine in 2020. If you do not want to continue to receive our emails, please click here to unsubscribe.”
(2) Email content directory. If the email contains 2 to 3 articles, you can list the article names and a brief description of 1 to 2 sentences in the email content directory so that subscribers can clearly understand the content of the email and decide whether to continue reading. Of course, if each email only has one article, this part can be omitted.
(3) Email body. The body of the email should usually have 2 to 3 articles.
(4) End of the article. At the end of the article, you can moderately promote the products on the website in the form of extended reading. In addition, if the email sells advertising space to third-party advertisers, it can also be inserted in the middle of the article, but there should be clear text indicating that the content in the middle is advertising. After the main article content ends, there should be a short preview of the next issue’s content, listing the content title and introduction of the next issue’s article to attract subscribers and reduce the unsubscription rate.
(5) Footer. The footer must contain the following content.
① User registration information. For example, you received this email because you subscribed to xxx monthly magazine from address xxx on xx/xx/xx.
② Privacy and unsubscribe options. For example, we respect the privacy of all users and subscribers. If you do not want to receive xxx monthly magazine anymore, please click here to unsubscribe. The words “Privacy” and “Click here to unsubscribe” should link to the corresponding privacy policy page and unsubscribe procedure link.
3. Personalization of marketing emails
The entire email should emphasize personalization, that is, cleverly insert the subscriber’s name in the title to attract subscribers to open the email. The subscriber’s name should also be inserted in the appropriate place in the email content.