Email Marketing Part III
First and foremost you need to understand why you’re developing and sharing your content. One of the main principles behind Content Marketing is that the information you’re sharing should be helpful to the reader, rather than being a sales pitch. Using the sales approach will ensure that your next email doesn’t get opened, or worse, leads your reader to opt-out of your email list.
This new approach creates trust, credibility, and positions your company as an authority in a specific area of expertise. Traditionally email marketing has been considered part of “interruption” marketing or outbound marketing. However if your readers are opted-in to receive emails from you, good content marketing can eliminate sales resistance, while providing a means for you to subtly introduce the benefits of a particular product or service you offer.
While your content should be presented in an engaging and persuasive way, it’s not necessarily about entertaining the reader — focus on presenting useful information in such a way as to motive the user to take a specific action, hopefully one that converts them from a prospect into a customer. Reaching out and touching your readers regularly will builds a relevant relationship that will provide you with multiple opportunities for conversion, rather than the “all or nothing” sales pitch.
So what specific actions are we talking about? Normally it’s something that continues the user’s relationship with your company — signing up to your blog, downloading a white paper, watching a video, signing-up for a webinar, or following you on Twitter. The options are endless.
But what would cause your readers to take one of these desired “calls-to-action”? Generally there are two ways to motivate anyone to do anything: to “avoid a problem”, or “gain a benefit”. In other words, your content should address a “fear” or “desire”.
One of the best ways to get started is to share the “how-to” you’ve gained over the years in your area of expertise. Try and pick a big topic and break the content down. Quite often topics or themes contain related pieces, enough to provide content for multiple emails. And with planning, you can re-purpose this content and provide a more comprehensive view of the issues by creating white papers, ebooks, training materials, etc.
“How to” make your content compelling:
1) Target the content. Be sure that you’re content is about something that the readers in your market actually would be interested in. A printer manufacturer might get plenty of downloads for a video on how to install an updated driver or fix a laser paper jam — which is something that all users face from time to time. However they might find fewer non-IT folks interested in content on a more difficult process, such as replacing a paper separation pad or adding additional memory.
2) Make it practical. Your content needs to be on a topic that is practical and relevant for someone in your target market to successfully accomplish. Articles on how to improve the SEO (search engine optimization) of their website, is not something that someone outside an IT department needs to know in medium-to-large organizations — and typically they don’t have the skill set or interest to implement any recommendations anyway.
On the other hand this type of article might be very relevant and feasible to owners of small businesses that have to wear many hats, and deal with issues like SEO or SMO (Social Media Optimization) — because they are the IT department.
3) Don’t tread into deep water.There are some things that simply fall into the category of “kids, don’t try this at home”. While “the latest techniques on how to blow up an abandoned building” might be morbidly fascinating to some, in most jurisdictions one would need to be a fully qualified and licensed to do this kind of work.
In many professional fields were the content is relevant to specialists only, try to avoid these topics even if you’re only trying to entertain the reader. Areas such as engineering, architecture, law, accounting, and health services are areas your audience wouldn’t normally try on their own.
Content that “Informs while Persuading”
The success of email marketing, like content marketing, lies in developing content that “informs while persuading” your reader to take action. Choose topics that are consistent with what your company does, but remember to choose something that “helps” your readers without removing the need for your products or services. In the long run your readers won’t forget who helped them along the way.
Creating effective Email Marketing content, as part of your Content Marketing strategy
March 26, 2012 by Mike Rusheleau • Outbound Marketing, Telemarketing Tags: avoid a problem, calls to action, Content Marketing, email marketing, email opt-in, email opt-out, gain a benefit, interruption marketing, Outbound Marketing, search engine optimization, SEO, SMO, Social Media Optimization •
Email Marketing Part III
First and foremost you need to understand why you’re developing and sharing your content. One of the main principles behind Content Marketing is that the information you’re sharing should be helpful to the reader, rather than being a sales pitch. Using the sales approach will ensure that your next email doesn’t get opened, or worse, leads your reader to opt-out of your email list.
While your content should be presented in an engaging and persuasive way, it’s not necessarily about entertaining the reader — focus on presenting useful information in such a way as to motive the user to take a specific action, hopefully one that converts them from a prospect into a customer. Reaching out and touching your readers regularly will builds a relevant relationship that will provide you with multiple opportunities for conversion, rather than the “all or nothing” sales pitch.
So what specific actions are we talking about? Normally it’s something that continues the user’s relationship with your company — signing up to your blog, downloading a white paper, watching a video, signing-up for a webinar, or following you on Twitter. The options are endless.
But what would cause your readers to take one of these desired “calls-to-action”? Generally there are two ways to motivate anyone to do anything: to “avoid a problem”, or “gain a benefit”. In other words, your content should address a “fear” or “desire”.
One of the best ways to get started is to share the “how-to” you’ve gained over the years in your area of expertise. Try and pick a big topic and break the content down. Quite often topics or themes contain related pieces, enough to provide content for multiple emails. And with planning, you can re-purpose this content and provide a more comprehensive view of the issues by creating white papers, ebooks, training materials, etc.
“How to” make your content compelling:
1) Target the content. Be sure that you’re content is about something that the readers in your market actually would be interested in. A printer manufacturer might get plenty of downloads for a video on how to install an updated driver or fix a laser paper jam — which is something that all users face from time to time. However they might find fewer non-IT folks interested in content on a more difficult process, such as replacing a paper separation pad or adding additional memory.
2) Make it practical. Your content needs to be on a topic that is practical and relevant for someone in your target market to successfully accomplish. Articles on how to improve the SEO (search engine optimization) of their website, is not something that someone outside an IT department needs to know in medium-to-large organizations — and typically they don’t have the skill set or interest to implement any recommendations anyway.
On the other hand this type of article might be very relevant and feasible to owners of small businesses that have to wear many hats, and deal with issues like SEO or SMO (Social Media Optimization) — because they are the IT department.
3) Don’t tread into deep water.There are some things that simply fall into the category of “kids, don’t try this at home”. While “the latest techniques on how to blow up an abandoned building” might be morbidly fascinating to some, in most jurisdictions one would need to be a fully qualified and licensed to do this kind of work.
In many professional fields were the content is relevant to specialists only, try to avoid these topics even if you’re only trying to entertain the reader. Areas such as engineering, architecture, law, accounting, and health services are areas your audience wouldn’t normally try on their own.
Content that “Informs while Persuading”
The success of email marketing, like content marketing, lies in developing content that “informs while persuading” your reader to take action. Choose topics that are consistent with what your company does, but remember to choose something that “helps” your readers without removing the need for your products or services. In the long run your readers won’t forget who helped them along the way.