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Do your email campaigns feel dry and impersonal? Don’t just wind them up and let them go. Update the copy with fresh insights from social media.
When creating email campaigns, marketers face a tough challenge: how to write content that will sound authentic and personable to hundreds, perhaps thousands of people, over a period of time.
If you’ve written emails, you may have found that your creativity was suppressed by the knowledge that each email would be loaded into marketing automation software and then repeatedly “blasted” to numerous, invisible recipients.
To get out of a robotic rut and write email copy that’s both authentic and personable, turn to social media for inspiration.
In my first blog post on this topic, I showed how writing for social media enriches email writing:
- Use a real sender – Thanks to social media sites like Twitter and LinkedIn, your email recipients may already know your senders.
- Write thought-provoking subject lines – Writing tweets and status updates has helped many marketing writers subject lines that are more engaging.
- Avoid emails that are too long – Visualize how you would tweet a complex idea, or maybe pin it on Pinterest.
- Use the right amount of formality in your tone – Mimic the writing style of the best social media influencers in your industry.
Here are three additional ways a social media mindset can help you keep your email copy from sounding robotic:
5) Show your expertise – with social flair
An effective lead nurture email reflects your company’s expertise and understanding of your customers. If you’re stumped trying to figure out how to make an email sound both expert and personable, try writing it as a blog post first, then convert the post to an email. (For whatever reason, I find many blog posts combine authority with approachability.)
Video is another medium to use when brainstorming email copy. Try writing a super-quick YouTube video script on the same topic as your email. You may discover great ideas for compelling email copy that, like blog posts, sound both expert and personable.
6) Use social media for topic ideas
Marketing automation software allows marketers to create “nurture streams.” Each nurture stream consists of a series of emails released over a period of time. Each email series can then be followed by additional series, as needed. As a result, an email writer may face the challenge of creating copy for 10 to 20 emails … or more.
Coming up with that many topics to write about can be challenging. To speed up the process, hang out in the social media channels where your email recipients like to chat. Ask yourself:
What do they like to talk about? What do they worry about? What sets their blood to boiling? What are their jokes, jargon and joys?
Look for topics that connect seamlessly with the social media conversations your email targets are already having. The result could be a lot of innovative ideas for nurture streams.
7) Use social criteria to help segment your database
Segmenting your database is a classic marketing tactic, since effective email marketing generally requires that you tailor your messages to the needs of smaller groups.
If you’re comfortable with social media, but find “database segmentation” to be a rather ponderous task, use your imagination:
- If your CRM were a series of Google+ circles, what would those circles be? These circles may be “segments.”
- If your marketing automation tool records which content your prospects consume in your social channels, what can you learn from their preferences? Social media might provide insights into common interests, problems or usage scenarios that help inform your segmentation criteria.
If you’d like to read more about turning automated emails into personable, authentic interactions, here are a few blog posts I recommend.
- Marketing Interactions/ Ardath Albee – Robotic Email Campaigns Miss the Point, The Job of a Lead-Nurturing Email
- DestinationCRM.com – 10 Secrets to Segmentation Success
This monthly Marketing Automation and Social Media column is contributed by Deborah Gibbs. Passionate about product marketing, lead generation and marketing automation, Deborah has over 10 years, experience in communications and program management. Her marketing experience includes a wide range of industries, including high tech, automotive and medical devices. She is Pragmatic Marketing certified and, for fun, enjoys jazz, Portuguese and anything Brazilian.
TOPIC: Social Media Writing Helps Automated Emails
