What Emails Do Customers Want to Receive?
Last month, we wrote about how (and why) you should be segmenting your marketing email list. In short, segmenting helps you send the right emails to the right people, keeping them relevant, interesting, and captivating.
But what do you actually put in the emails? You want the content of the email to be interesting enough that your customers stay engaged, but open rate isn’t the end goal in and of itself. Emails are a means to an end — you want them to do something.
Here are a few types of emails that you should be sending to keep your customers engaged, happy, and taking action.
Welcome New Users And Subscribers
One of the simplest emails you should be sending is the welcome email. If someone signs up to your email list or subscribes to your software-as-a-service (SaaS) product, a welcome email is the perfect way to thank them and welcome them.
It’s also a good opportunity to help them with onboarding. Welcome emails can include instructional videos or links to articles that will help your customers start using your service more deeply, speeding up adoption and making renewal more likely.
Though the welcome email isn’t the first piece of content a new customer will see from your brand, it’s still important to put your best foot forward. Make sure that the imagery, formatting, logos, and language in your email are consistent with your branding everywhere else. If your emails don’t “sound like” you, they won’t create a strong connection with your brand.
Promote New Content
Lots of the people on your email list are there because they signed up to download a whitepaper, infographic, or some other piece of content. Chances are, if they’re interested in one piece of content, they’ll be interested in more. This is a great chance to remind them.
Don’t be pushy — frame the email as “we thought you might like this article on social media marketing” or something similar. If you publish content on a wide array of topics, you can even segment your list by which kind of content they downloaded in the first place, then only send the most relevant updates. Some companies even include a form in the email so that subscribers can check the topics they’d like to hear more about.
Let Customers Know About New Products or Services
The same logic applies to people who have already purchased from you. Lots of email and marketing software can build up-sells and cross-sells based on the type of products your customers have already purchased — if they bought a new phone, they might be interested in chargers, cases, and similar accessories for that phone.
If you offer a SaaS product like Adobe Creative Cloud, you’ll want to let people know when new features are added — both features they’re already entitled to and ones they might want to add to their subscription. Keeping customers up to date on everything their product can do increases the perceived value of the subscription, even if they don’t use the new features.
Send Out A Company Newsletter
One of your goals as a marketer is to foster a sense of community between your company and your customers, and a newsletter is a great way to do that. Sent once or maybe twice a month, a newsletter is a perfect catch-all to announce new products, internal news, new hirings, and new content, as well as catching your customers up on what’s happening elsewhere in the industry.
You can provide a recap of recent blog posts they might have missed, make suggestions that they read an interesting article you’ve found, or anything else you think they might like. Remember, the purpose of a newsletter is not primarily to sell anything. It’s about making a connection.
Get People Interested In An Event
If you’re holding some kind of event, you need to promote it — a lot. Whether the event is in person or online, like a webinar, keynote, or product launch, you’ll need to remind people about it at least five times or so to make it stick in their mind.
Emails are a perfect way to do this. Tell them that an event is coming up, what the purpose of the event is, and direct them to a landing page with more info. As the event gets closer, add more info to the emails — maybe a famous guest speaker or a discount code on tickets. Keep people interested and your attendance numbers will thank you.
Show You Care With Anniversary Emails
You should definitely have a record somewhere of when each of your customers first signed up for your service or first purchased a product. Send them an email on the anniversary of that date, thanking them for being a loyal customer, to show them that you appreciate their business.
You can even use these anniversary emails as an opportunity. Prompt them to renew their subscription, remind them of features they’re not using, or offer them an upsell to another tier of service. If you’re selling a particular product, offer them a discount on re-stocking. Even if it’s just a simple thank you, an anniversary email is a great personal touch that builds a connection between you and your customers.
Solicit Reviews/Feedback
Customers like to know that their concerns and feedback are being heard, and email is a great way to show them that you’re listening. If you ship them a product, follow up a few weeks later — once they’ve had a chance to use it — and ask them to review the product.
If you offer a service instead, ask customers for feedback. Wait until they’ve had a chance to incorporate your service into their everyday life and workflows, then ask them what they think. Ask if there are any improvements you could make and what their favorite features are.
Not only will this make your customers feel heard, it’ll provide you with valuable insight into which features to improve, which to spend less time on, and which to focus on when marketing to future prospects.
The death of marketing emails has been heralded for years, but it’s still one of the best ways to reach an attentive, willing audience of people who have a genuine interest in what you do. With these tips, you’ll keep your customers interested, engaged, and involved.
