Email Marketing Part 2: Simple Steps to Creating a Great Newsletter
Last week, we talked about the importance of email marketing and how to begin setting up the infrastructure necessary to do it. So let’s say you’ve made your squeeze page, landed some subscribers, and are ready to start sending them updates, offers, and newsletters; what should you put in these emails?
It’s important to remember to whom you’re actually sending these emails. They’re your customers or at least an interested audience. As we explored last week, email marketing is more effective than algorithm-based advertising online (such as through Google or Facebook) or through conventional means like billboards precisely because their audience is highly specific. After all, recipients must opt-in and subscribe so you can even contact them in the first place, and if your targeting was good, then you should have a list full of interested subscribers.
This makes a huge difference in the effectiveness of email marketing, but it’s also worth keeping in mind that whatever you send to your subscribers should be tailored to them. You should base the content around how you marketed your squeeze page. If you follow these tips, you’ll be well on your way to making a great newsletter.
Keep your recipients in mind – what’s in it for them?
As you continue to build your email list, you should be doing so in the service of a goal. Why are you trying to reach this audience, and what do you hope they’ll do with what you give them? Each email should have its own objective, but it should also move you towards your larger goal.
So the real question is, “What’s in it for my subscribers?” You want to have something they can relate to or an action they feel compelled to take. As a real estate investor, you may want interested buyers to check out your listings. You may want wholesalers to send you their inventory. You might also want people to go to your website for information, education, or blogs.
Therefore, the content of your email should be informed both by what your audience will respond to and by what action you hope they’ll take in service of your goal. Ideally, these will have been part of your list-building strategy from the beginning, so your content needs to measure up. You might offer advance access to brand-new listings, or an opportunity for sellers to contact you directly. You can also hew close to the “newsletter” aspect of things and give your audience information they want to know.
Make your emails mobile-friendly.
People are increasingly spending more time on their phones and connecting to the web that way. You should assume that a large amount of recipients will open your email from their phones and format your email accordingly. It won’t do to have a newsletter that looks great on a desktop but loads oddly on a phone. You can lose out on valuable clicks and actions here, so facilitate those clicks and actions by accommodating audience preferences and make sure your email is viewable on mobile.
You should also make the destinations for your links (landing pages, blogs, etc) mobile-friendly as well. As the world gets busier – especially in a field like real estate – most people are taking care of business on their phones rather than their desktops or laptops. Don’t be left behind in this regard.
Create an engaging subject line that encourages recipients to open the email.
Your subject line is your golden window. Recipients who are interested in what the subject line hints at will open the email, while those who aren’t won’t bother and you’ll likely never get a second chance.
Make your subject line simple and clear, but don’t be so explicit that the recipient gets the whole story without opening the email. Hint at the email’s content, but don’t give everything away. You want the recipient to open the email and take action.
Also, never use all-caps or exclamation marks, because this usually causes spam filters to automatically block the email. Think of it this way: when you receive an email that says, “YOU HAVE WON AN ALL-EXPENSE PAID CRUISE!!!!! CLICK HERE TO CLAIM,” or, “You won’t BELIEVE what this celebrity did!!!!!” are you really going to open that?
Focus on simplicity and aesthetics.
In designing your email, keep it simple, clean, and looking good. We like to say, “lean and clean,” around here, and that’s a good rule of thumb. Busy, garish emails are for DJ night at your local dance club; as a business professional, keep your emails simple and becoming of a professional in a serious field who needs the trust of those with whom they work and those to whom they sell.
Simpler emails load faster as well. Nothing makes a person hit the “back” button faster than an HMTL-laden email that takes forever to load, which applies even more if they’re opening said email on a phone.
That being said, neither should you use text-only. Grab and retain the recipient’s attention, and a clean layout with tasteful images and relevant content will keep your subscribers interested. Speaking of which….
Every new email should encourage someone to open the next one.
Each email is effectively a referendum on whether or not your recipients should continue subscribing. Keep in mind that if you send them something annoying or irrelevant to them, they’re unlikely to open future emails. They may even unsubscribe from your email list.
So think of each email as a continuing demonstration of why your subscribers should consent to receiving future ones. All it takes is one annoying email for subscribers to ignore you in the future.
Link with purpose.
Don’t throw in a bunch of links just because you can. If there are a lot, then they’re less special. You also may not be able to direct subscribers to the desired goal or action.
Link your website, your socials, blogs, and have any other links be the main event. If the purpose of your newsletter is to educate subscribers, then link them to the source of your information, especially if it’s your own content. If the goal is for subscribers to view listings, then provide them with an easy and obvious pathway to do so.
Try to make one link click the main event of the email if you can. The fewer actions you demand of a consumer, the more likely it is that they’ll stay on track and focus on the action you want them to take. This also helps with choosing which audiences to contact. You don’t, for example, want to clog the inboxes of potential sellers with a link to your most recent listing.
Use analytics.
This information is all well and good, but they’re just general rules. How do you even know if they work, or how well any methods might work, for that matter? In a word: analytics.
Analytics show you how many people opened your email, how many might be unsubscribing, how many have clicked on links, and everything in between. Most of marketing is trial and error, so keep track of your successes and failures as you begin to send out emails. If something works, keep doing it. If you notice a drop-off in opens or clickthrough rates, then it’s clear that something needs to change regarding your strategy or content. Analytics will help you determine what’s working and what isn’t.
For more perspectives on real estate investment and web practices, check back with us each week as we post new blogs and be sure to sign up for our Priority Access List for advance listings and market updates. Next week, we’ll go into more detail on how to properly construct marketing emails and newsletters once you’ve defined your objective, formulated a method, and populated your email list. We’ll see you next week, and in the meantime, don’t forget that you can also keep up with us on Facebook and Twitter!
- Get It Right Solutions