You may have heard that email marketing has incredible potential: high ROI, low cost, wide membership … In short, the dream of any marketer.
But without a well-designed strategy and an extremely creative message, you will hardly reach the nirvana of this universe.
And, well, we already talked about the strategy in this post. So now we’ll help you with the 2nd part of the challenge: good ideas.
But before we move on to the more interesting part, we need to remind ourselves of some details. Follow:
Caring for a Creative Email Marketing Campaign
“Creativity is the soul of the business.” You’ve probably heard that phrase – it also applies to email marketing, but it does require some care. For example:
Study your person well
Not every public will react well to the topics we are going to suggest in this post.
So before you implement them, think about your persona, the type of language they use, and how those ideas communicate with your brand image.
If you still consider putting these ideas into practice, be sure to take the 1st step of any marketing strategy …
Test your hypotheses
If you are not sure about the impact these practices can have on your subscriber base, test them with a small sample of your list .
This is the best way to control risk, gather information, and analyze the success of your hypothesis.
Tips for creating an email marketing creative
Now that you know the main points of attention for this theme, let’s go to the fun part: 13 tips to win the hearts (and clicks!) Of your recipients.
1. Study the subject of your emails
For a good email marketing professional, there is nothing more frustrating than an email with low open rate.
And no wonder: do you create incredible content, plan your editorial calendar and can not convince users to open your message? Speak seriously?
That’s why it’s important to create extremely eye-catching e-mail subjects and study their performance .
More than that, be aware of the email issues you receive.
Subscribe to the newsletter of other sites that may be interesting for you and keep an eye on the issues they use.
Make a collection with the most attractive and use as a bank of ideas. Then, just create your adaptation and test. Maybe you’ll discover a mine of clicks?
2. Use the full potential of preview text
If you use an automation tool, you can probably include a short text right after the email subject.
This space is known as:
- preview text ;
- preheader ;
- or supporting text.
It’s a great way to keep your message suspenseful and at the same time a 2nd chance to convince your readers to open your email.
But attention! Do not forget that the higher the number of characters in your subject, the smaller the preview text space .
So, if your subject is too large, it is no use filling the supporting text, because it will not appear.
3. Create special dates and actions
Easter, Mother’s Day, Black Friday, Christmas, New Year … The list of commemorative dates is immense, and everyone already knows them.
So, think outside the box and innovate. Celebrate bizarre dates or create new dates especially for your audience.
For example, if your persona is a fan of some very popular series, create a specific action to celebrate the day the pilot episode aired. Or rather, celebrate a special date of some of the characters!
JK Rowling and Harry Potter fans are always celebrating the witch’s birthday and other occasions through social networks.
Why not launch this trend via email as well?
4. Use a new sender
Want to give an innovative in the relationship? Change the sender’s name!
You probably have already sent a welcome email showing who your business voice is, as dictated by good email marketing practices. Because of this, your audience already knows what to expect from your messages.
By exchanging the sender, you will feed an extremely powerful feeling: curiosity. With it, the chances of you seeing an increase in your rate of openings is too great.
But be careful! This tip should be used sporadically, on special occasions. If you change sender all the time, spoil the element of surprise and the different becomes normal.
In addition, your subscriber base may be confusing or, even worse, irritated.
So always use common sense and be sure to introduce who the new sender is, of course.
5. Be good-natured
Creativity and good humor are always hand in hand.
When a person is having fun, he associates everyone involved with positive feelings and, in the case of brands, that is wonderful.
Preferably, use a mood related to your area. This reinforces the connections with your market and may even generate some referrals.
Bonus Tip: If you work with marketing, you can be inspired by this post with marketing jokes.
6. Use custom fields
If you already use an automation tool, invest in the use of the customization totems .
They leave your message much more exclusive and increase engagement rates.
But be careful! Just send a personalized email to contacts who have all the filled fields or your super creative idea can turn into a gaffe.
7. Campaign for specific segments
Another creative way to innovate in email marketing and improve your metrics is to work with specific segments.
The possibilities are endless … or almost, because everything depends on the amount of information you have in your database.
It’s no use wanting to send a message according to your subscribers’ favourite football teams if this type of information is not relevant to your business and therefore never been requested in any signup form.
8. Use behaviour triggers
A mention on Twitter, a cart abandonment, a form that was visited but not filled …
Behavioural triggers are a great opportunity to snag clicks.
If you have a good marketing automation tool, it’s easy to track the actions of your leads and send messages on time.
With the knowledge of the context in which that person is, it is possible to build a specific and well-personalized message.
9. Bet on GIFs
Since using video in emails is a bit trickier (and not even accepted by all email providers), GIFs are a great way to boost your message with a little action.
For more formal people, GIFs that show the evolution of a chart can be a great draw for downloading a new report, for example.
But if your audience allows for a bit of humour and fun, GIFs are a guarantee of success! A great idea is to use series gifs and music clips that your persona already knows, which facilitates the connection with the message.
In the end, the main issue with GIFs is: never stop filling out the alt text! This helps the mail server understand your message, and even if someone can not see it, that person will still be able to understand your text.
10. Use emojis and emoticons
If you still do not know the difference between emojis and emoticons, find out here. If you already know, do not waste time and start using them in your messages.
Whether it’s the subject – to stand out in the inbox – or in the body of the email – to emphasize content – the important thing is to be consistent with the subject matter.
11. Do not forget the #hashtags
The darlings of Twitter and Instagram have already hit Facebook and, why not, email marketing. Using hashtag is a great way to work on a multi-channel campaign.
You can launch a campaign, publicize it on social media with a specific hashtag and include it in the email.
You can even go further and put a call to action by inviting your readers to post and search for content with that #, helping to viralize your campaign.
12. Play with the CTAs
Another creative way to get clicks on your message is to play with calls-to-action.
Whether in text, image or button, do not be afraid to dare. Your message has a purpose and you need to be persuasive enough to persuade the reader to keep it.
The internal emails of the Rock Content marketing team are the best examples. As the company has more than 200 employees, whenever they launch some tool or strategic content, the whole company is invited to share.
13 – Stay tuned for the most talked about subjects of the moment
Do you know when you stare at the computer screen and do not know how to start your email? Or worse yet, when you write, write, and produce nothing interesting?
A good way to decimate this creative block and get new ideas is to use Google Trends!
Check out all about the tool in this post!
This incredible tool (and super simple) tells you what are the most sought after topics on Google that day, that is, what themes have a good chance of engaging!
In addition, Google Trends allows you to target your search according to different categories like business, sports, entertainment, health, and more.
And if your email is “for yesterday”, you can also find out what’s “pumping” through Twitter’s Moments and trending topics!
After these searches, just look for connections between the subject you are going to handle in the email and the news you have seen. Okay, say goodbye to creative blocking and low engagement
In short, yes, it is possible to do creative email marketing without hurting your reputation with email servers or harming the results of your strategy.
And now you have enough material to revolutionize your communication.
