With Social Media – Are Marketers Overlooking Email?
Social media has captured the attention of marketers in nearly all sectors. Brand managers and marketers salivate at thought of creating the “next Old Spice” of social media.
All the while, email remains a viable connection strategy.
Some complain that emails no longer work. Wait a second. Did the entire world switch to texting? I don’t think so.
Email may not be working for self-caused reasons including:
Having ineffective or irrelevant subject and “from” lines - A subject line should promise short, digestible information that is likely to be of interest. The reader only has to worry about reading two things and, if the email is properly targeted, there’s a good chance they’ll click through to see what it’s about. The “from” lines are also important. Few people are likely to open an email if they don’t recognize the sender.
Blasting irrelevant content - Make sure your emails are relevant to the audience you’re blasting them to. Obvious but imperative.
Providing no entry for dialogue - A good email is like a good tweet or a good blog entry. If people like it, they will pass it around. Maximize the chances that your message will be shared by writing provocative and interesting content. Don’t be afraid to ask your readers for their own content.
One brand that uses email effectively is Carbonite, the automatic computer data backup company. Consumers may tend to forget about the company once a subscription is purchased. Unless, of course, they have a file crisis or computer crash.
To stay in front of their customers Carbonite sends a monthly email the effectively reminds their customers, “hey, we’re here, we’re doing a good job for you, and so you don’t have to worry about your data”. A good example, below, from the Carbonite Customer Care Team was in my inbox just the other day.
