Sending mass emails is a great way of getting your message out to larger groups of people. This can be of help when running a business, but also personally if you often send updates to a group of friends or relatives, or if you are sending information about a charity or association.
Here are some tips for maximising the benefit of mass emails:
Have a practice run first
If you’re not confident in using a new feature, or you’ve not done this sort of thing at all before, learn how to send mass emails before attempting to send your email. Look into the different features; consider what you want to say, and what you want the effect to be – and then ask a couple of friends to be your guinea pigs. Practice sending to them first, and perhaps even send a copy to yourself at a different email address so that you can be sure of what people will see when they receive your final draft.
Put yourself in the reader’s position
So many people send out email about how they’re “so excited” about this or that – usually a new product they want to sell you. That’s great, but who really cares if you are excited? Tell your reader something to make them excited. Tell them how this thing you’re talking about benefits them, or will make them feel good.
Think for a moment about how busy your email inbox is – how many emails do you receive in a day? If you’re anything like me, you receive more emails than you can deal with, and delete more than you read. Think about what would make you open and read an email, and employ that thinking when you’re sending your mass emails.
Keep it short and to the point
Nobody enjoys reading a long wall of text – and I think actually these days a lot of people will struggle to stay engaged with a large body of text. Cut out all but the pertinent details, and break up your text into manageable chunks. This makes a great first impression – the email seems short and easy to follow, and short paragraphs are easy to scan read, for those of us multi tasking, reading emails whilst also doing four other things.
If you have a lot to say, rather than cramming it all into an email that might send a lot of people to the “delete” button, put it into a blog post. Then put the main point into your email, with a link saying “I’d love to tell you more about it, take a look here.” People can then click on the link at their leisure, without feeling overwhelmed with the details as soon as they open the email.
Provide value
Give people a reason to keep reading. Offer them discount or a special offer, or tips and information they won’t find elsewhere. If you’re not sure, take a look atthe emails you’ve received lately and consider what appeals to you (or doesn’t) about them. Some great examples of emails I read every time they drop into my inbox are Dr Rangan Chatterjee’s Friday Five and James Clear’s 3-2-1 email. Both of these have a clear format with bullet points including quotes, links and information.
Think carefully about your subject line
What could be worse than spending ages crafting a really brilliant email… and then finding that nobody has opened it! Don’t just knock out an email with whatever subject line comes to mind; really think about what will entice people to open that email. There are lots of tips and guides out there to help you to come up with a brilliant subject line for your email; make use of them and increase the chances of your email being read!
Remember GDPR!
Since the General Data Protection Regulation came into force in 2018, it is against the law for you to send marketing material to people who have not specifically given their permission for this. There is a rather hefty fine attached, so it’s better to be safe than sorry with this one. The ICO has detailed information on GDPR here, which is well worth a read if you are collecting and storing any data.
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