A great promotional email starts with a good idea and ends with an engaging call to action. Here’s how to craft one of your own
Email is a great way to spread the word about a new promotion your brand is offering, but it can be tricky to separate yourself from the pack of newsletters and promos. Inboxes tend to fill up fast, and most users scan the list for their favorite brands, mark the rest as “Read” and delete. So how do you stand out? We’re glad you asked. Yakkety Yak Digital Marketing Manager Andi Summers has the answers. Read on to learn how you can pique readers’ interest, get them to click and engage with your offer.
1. An Interesting Promotion
Yep, you guessed it: A successful email starts with a compelling offer. “You want to find something that will resonate with your audience and be meaningful to them,” Andi explains. “Cater to what your audience wants and create a promotion around it.” The offer should not only be useful but valuable.
Ashland Women’s Health, one of Yakkety Yak’s clients, regularly runs promos for its female patients. “We know that moms are looking for breast pumps, breastfeeding advice and lactation services,” says Andi. “So, the promos we run are centered around information that benefits moms, their baby or their breastfeeding experience.” Analyze your target audience and determine what kind of offer makes the most sense for them.
2. An Engaging Subject Line
“It doesn’t matter how great your promotion is if you can’t entice users to open the email,” explains Andi. “The subject line is a user’s first introduction to your offer, so you need to make sure it catches their attention.” A successful subject line is concise, intriguing and timely. Avoid using phrases that may raise the red flag for spam mail; you want to catch your readers’ attention, not make them fearful of a software virus.
“Always remember to test your emails and track KPIs,” says Andi “You may think one thing, but data will show you another, so it’s important to test as you refine your subject line best practices.” Most marketing automation platforms with email capabilities will allow you to A/B test subject lines. You can use the results to make informed decisions about what’s working for your audience and what isn’t.
3. An Easy-to-Navigate Path to Purchase
The goal is to make it as simple as possible for users to get from the email in their inbox to the final action you want them to take. “Plan ahead and work to remove any roadblocks from the user experience, whether that involves updating an internal process or reconfiguring a system, you want to make the workflow easy for users,” Andi says.
Consider the user’s journey. How many steps does it take for a user to move from the CTA to complete the action? “Remove any unnecessary steps between the promotion and end result.
The CTA should be big, bold and direct. “Make sure your call to action is clear so users know exactly what they’re clicking on,” explains Andi. “Whether you want them to fill out a form for a breast pump or schedule a parking lot consultation with Rose Paving, they should know exactly what kind of landing page they’ll end up on.”
4. Consistent Language and Branding
We’ve talked about the importance of using consistent language before, and it’s just as important for promotional offerings. You have a mission statement that indicates the audience you want to target and how you want to interact with them. Your promotional offerings shouldn’t be irrelevant to your target audience or outside of your brand’s mission. “Keep your brand top of mind,” says Andi, “and stay true to your message––you don’t want offer tire services to breast pump patients or a sweater discount to paving customers.”
5. Readability
Hubspot reports that 67% of emails today are read on either a smartphone or tablet. Plus, earlier this year, Google announced the beginning of its mobile-first indexing, which prioritizes mobile displays for website rankings. This not only means that more users view emails on non-desktop devices, but major search engines are also concerned with how well your website is optimized for mobile.
Our team can help you strategize your promotional campaign and craft a mobile-friendly email to promote it. Contact us today to get started.
