So you’re ready to expand your email marketing program, but not sure how to create all the content? Below, we offer four steps and five sources to get you thinking.

STEP 1

Segment your subscribers into your audience and your customers to draft at least one persona for each. Their needs for content are different.  A customer has had an experience with you. They have self-identified their needs. Therefore, you have knowledge of what products they would have an interest in to sell to. An audience, on the other hand, needs content other than the product or service. You need to build trust, nurture them. An audience anticipates an experience with you. Most likely you’ll have more than one persona for each, but designating at least one for your audience and one for your customer will be a good starting point in defining goals and curating content.

STEP 2

In addition to your overarching email marketing program goals, you need to set goals for each of your email campaigns. What do you want to happen for each email? For example, the central goal for our monthly newsletter called “From Your Email Horticulturists” is to have our audience click-through to the content we offer guiding them on email marketing best practices, how to’s and lessons with specific functionality within their email marketing tool.

STEP 3

Begin to compose your content for your email campaign(s) using the knowledge obtained and data collected through the five sources below. Keep in mind; it’s essential to test your email content and email design before you launch to your segmented audience.

STEP 4

Draw. Whether it’s in a notebook, on a program like Omnigraffle or even a scrap piece of paper, I find that drawing helps me visualize a subscribers journey. It guides me from where I am today to where I want to be. Best of all, it creates an original task list on where I need to focus.

5 Sources to Curate Content:

1. Their lifecycle – birthday, anniversaries, account renewal, changes to account detail. The goal is to recognize a personal event or behavior.

2. Your staff – on a continual basis, schedule time with all client-facing staff, including customer service and call-center departments. Listen and document questions, concerns, pain points and positive feedback that is presented by your customers for each product offered. Record timing as well – when did the question/concern, etc. arise? Was it at the beginning of the relationship with the product or service or after several years because of changes, etc. This will help you pinpoint what and when a gap in content should be addressed.

3. Feedback – send an ongoing customer questionnaire to look for trends in opinion, concerns and intent to move to a new product or the next step in their relationship with you. Ask for a customer testimony to use in future email campaigns or on your website while you’re at it! We use Survey Gizmo if you would like to test out an online service.

5. Industry trends – spy on your competition. What are they writing about?  Do you see this happening with your clients?

Personally, if I write to an individual, the content comes together much easier. It may take time, but building your email marketing program using content curated from such sources as mentioned above will not only increase the value of content leading to greater subscriber engagement but offer deeper insight into their minds for use with other channels.

If you are looking for examples of outstanding content, visit our Emails We Love category on this blog. Every other week, we feature the best content we’ve received in our very own inboxes to inspire others.

Let us know, what are you doing to curate content?

Welcome your subscribers again and again.

As marketers, we strive to meet our goals as well as achieve the highest engagement and conversion rates we can. On average, a welcome campaign produces 10% greater results than another type of email campaign.

Newly opted in subscribers are excited to hear from us and it’s our job to provide the information they are seeking. Extending that hospitality across multiple email campaigns bestows good customer experience and opens up two-way communication.

Why not reap the rewards a little longer? Use this infographic as a guide for your onboarding email campaigns to boost engagement even more. Our skilled team is available to answer questions, provide feedback and assist along the way.

In the email marketing world, there is nothing greater than when an email campaign hits the sweet spot. As a consumer of Lilly Pulitzer clothing, I am aware that they hold a massive final sale in July. What I wasn’t aware of is they do the same thing in January! Thanks to a perfectly executed email campaign, now I do. Over three days I received eight unifying emails as part of the same “After Party Sale” campaign which caused me to spend a small fortune. Because Lilly only goes on sale twice a year, when you have two teenage girls that love their Lilly…you stock up!

The first email came in the night before the “After Party Sale” (below left). Somehow I missed it but the second email (below right) with the subject line: Just released sale styles have landed! sure caught my attention.  I did just what the email said to do: “Freak Out!” After a brief wait in the online line for my turn to shop –  I was glued to lillypulitzer.com for the next hour (well maybe a little more), but luckily it was toward the end of the day! I sent my oldest daughter a text to call me immediately when she was free. She was in her study hour and wanted to know what was so urgent; My reply was “the Lilly sale is going on now!”  She had the same response I did and headed to the Lilly website, sending me her favorite choices. Needless to say, her friends just rolled their eyes at her when she told them what was going on. By now, my shopping cart was full of beautiful dresses for upcoming formals, spring break and graduation and I had to make a decision fast on what I was going to purchase. I had already lost out on two perfect dresses as they were selling fast!  Now do you understand the havoc?  Back to email marketing.

After feeling success with combing the Lilly website, I made my purchase. My girls were excited and so was I because this time, I was able to purchase a few items for myself. The excitement was contagious, and during a project call, I informed Christina Noll of the sale and she also jumped right on the website and was able to purchase a few items as well. I went to tweet my findings and discovered others were in a frenzy just like myself. An entire community of Lilly aficionados were on a mission to get these great deals! This led to me following @LillyPulitzer now on Twitter and Facebook, so I could be even more a part of this community.  I even found a resale community on Facebook to sell our gently used items now.

But here’s where the story gets juicier. That evening just before nine, I received the email below (on the left) with the subject line: What?! New styles added to SALE, which caused me to go back and make another purchase! Twelve hours later another email came with the subject line: Just dropped: new to SALE with even more sale items added to the website. Then the countdown began two hours later with: Don’t miss out! Sale ends soon.

Lilly had done it right. Each of the emails had animation, rotating photos of the new items that had been added (shown below) to peak my interest even more. The voice and tone used in the copy matched just what I was saying to myself in my head. My attention span was in their hands for two days now. I had emailed, tweeted and posted the sale to my friends and colleagues. I had spread the word and so had others. The campaign was a huge success.

The next morning Lilly sent one last email just in case I wasn’t done shopping. This was sent just before 11 am with the subject line: Don’t miss out! Sale ends soon…And finally the following evening, I received this animated Thank You email with photos of other shoppers showing their excitement.  This had the best subject line yet to sum up the experience: What. A. Wild. Ride.

When my purchases did arrive in the Lilly signature pink palm packages, I opened to find a note saying “You Have the Best Taste. You Ordered….”

I received my final email asking to review one of my purchases. This is a campaign that is all too often missed by companies, but probably one of the most important and easy ways to obtain feedback directly from your customer. Well done Lilly Pulitzer! I’ll see you in July.

In Anne Lamott’s bestselling book Bird by Bird, Some Instructions on Writing and Life she recounts a story of how her brother, aged ten at the time, struggled to complete a report on birds he had put off until the last minute. Her father consoled him by explaining that the task would only get done by taking it, “Bird by bird.”

Sometimes, when we look at our list of emails that need to go out, it can feel overwhelming. But we, too, need to remember to take it “Bird by bird,” or one step at a time. When you design your email intentionally, without rushing, you produce a better email–one that is ultimately engaging to your audience and renders correctly for viewing on all types of devices.

One way to facilitate the process is by creating a template, such as the one used by Hyde Park Jewelers in the three examples below. This template started from a custom HTML email campaign that tracked good results, and the digital marketing team liked the layout. Jason Meeker, Strategic Partner for RootedELM, took his custom design and converted it into a Campaign Monitor template. Jason continues to work with the Hyde Park Jeweler’s internal designer each week on coding and design recommendations. Since then, Hyde Park Jewelers has been able to save time on design and editing because their designer uses the layout specs to create the design assets and messaging.

Once your template is in place, take each email you create and put it through the checklist:

• • Determine the CTA: why are you sending the email and what action do you want your viewer to take?

• • Customize your template: each email should be unique with a variation of assets and content.

• • Test for rendering: just because your email looks good on your screen doesn’t mean it will look good in your customer’s inbox.

• • Test links: double check they work the way they should and link to the right URL.

• • Conduct an A/B split test: subject line, time of day or asset placement  – which version received the most engagement? Send to your remaining audience.

• • Monitor results: is the template still producing the results you need? Tweak before your next scheduled send.