4 Simple Tricks to Make Customers Crave Your Emails Like an Ice Cream

Imagine creating emails as satisfying as a cup of coldstone ice cream!

Sounds good, doesn’t it?

Your readers would savour hungrily into your content. And wait impatiently until the next time you hit send.

But, could an email ever be that good?

Email marketing is one of the most effective ways to pique your customers and prospective customers’ interest in your products, and get them to shop with you.

If you run an e-commerce business, affording customers the opportunity to shop with you every other month, then you will really need to reach people via email. Email marketing has definitely helped businesses gain more traction and increase sales. But here is how to stop mindlessly sending emails to prospective customers.

Below are 4 ingredients of crave-worthy emails for your business:

1. Start With an Enticing Sign-Up Experience

In these busy days, customers want to be lured into doing anything – from following your brand on social media, to doing business with you, referring your brand to other customers… including, reading your emails!

And that’s why the process of getting customers to subscribe to your email newsletter should not be some tedious assessment forms or clumsy sign up process.

Tell a story with your sign-up process, and make it a truly worthy and remarkable experience.

• Make your email newsletter sign-up forms visible on every page of your website – not just the homepage.
• Be sure to use the the Join My Mailing List Facebook app so anyone who visits your business’ Facebook Page, can join your mailing list easily; but the sign-up info has to be truly exciting, for anyone on your Facebook page to take the bait.
• Offer incentives to your audience: For an e-commerce business for example, offer small incentives to entice people to sign up for your email newsletters. A cupcake store in Lagos Nigeria has their email sign-up invitation as “Get on board of our Friends Treat mailing list” and when customers sign up, they’re entered into a monthly raffle to win a dozen cupcakes. How Nice!

2. Only Send Valuable Information

Warning: Only send valuable information to your customers, about your brand. Do NOT market to them.

• While growing your list of subscribers, be sure to make every email count. Your emails should include information on upcoming flash sales, business events interesting and valuable to your customers, and creative solutions your brand is sure to provide your prospective customers.
• Never – in the history of email marketing – should your brand send out mindless marketing campaigns. Want to know the end result of that?

“@prospective customer just unsubscribed”

– That is the end result of all mindless email marketing campaigns. And you probably have unsubscribed from one, or a couple of them in the past, yourself.

• The idea is never to put together a newsletter that feels like there’s no reason for sending it in the first place.
• While sending out your email campaigns, be sure to feel like you’re informing your customers of something truly exciting♥♥♥ Like a breaking news!
• The clue is to never make your customers think for a split second, that you’re sending them junk, or something they already know.

And how do you do this, exactly?

• Ensure your emails aren’t always promotional. Our advice for stand-out marketing is to simply understand your customers in-depth, and know what interests them.
• And a simple-smart way to get this information, is to seldom check them out on social media, and observe the things they like, or love!
• In all, try to solve a problem, or offer some inspiration – in ALL your email campaigns. It works!

3. Be Timely with Your Campaigns

Yes, be very timely. Timing is a huge part of email marketing strategy. When deciding what to send, a cupcake outlet in Lagos Nigeria, thinks about what holidays are coming up, and how their cupcake bar can fit into their customers’ plans.

Also, a Taxi service in Abuja Nigeria has the approach of sending customers codes for free rides, to major events happening in the city. And what that does is that, the organizers of the upcoming events usually re-post on social media, the free-ride campaigns by the Taxi service, to their events. How strategic!

• So, the next time you are planning an email campaign, be sure to put your nose to the ground, and speak the tone of that season.
• The best way to do this is to plan ahead – Think and research a lot, at the beginning of every new month, what your game plan is going to be, regarding email marketing.
• What events are upcoming? what flash sales have you got up your sleeves? what breaking news would you like to share? But always remember, all offers, jingles and breaking news, should in some way, relate to your brand.
• Our advice is to write your game plan ahead of time – it saves you a lot of time when you have a pre-planned schedule on the contents you want to send out in emails for the month. And then, beyond planning, sticking to that game plan is the best you can do.

4. Keep Emails Short and Sweet

A recent Constant Contact survey found that emails with approximately 20 lines of text and three or fewer images resulted in the highest click-through rate.

• Using a mobile-responsive email template allows you to create short and focused messages that are fast to create and easy to read.
• You want to be sure your emails are clean, and that from the moment someone opens it, they’re able to see the purpose of the email without scrolling down, yet.
• Then, let the promise of an offer or a gift in the opening of the email, be the reason why they scroll down, and read the newsletter to the end.
• That way, they already are expecting something, and will be obliged to give your newsletter the rapt attention it deserves.
• Also, be sure to include contact information and buttons to your social media channels, in all your newsletters.

Make Your Readers Hungry For Your Next Email!

Using our guidelines and email ingredients above, your business can start creating emails your subscribers are excited to consume.

Don’t bite off more than you can chew, however — you may choose one of the four tips above for a start, where you think you can make the biggest improvement. Even small improvements can make a big difference and go a long way in building loyalty with new and existing customers.

Excited to learn about these email marketing strategies? Let us know in the comment box below.

And we’d be back with more helpful strategies, in our subsequent email marketing series. We have a whole lot more up our sleeves! See what we do best HERE.