Marketing
6 Proven Ways to Integrate Email Marketing With Your Content Strategy
Sep
Let’s face it, even though it’s been around for over 50 years now, the humble email isn’t going anywhere. And while social media is gaining popularity, surprisingly, so is email.
There were 3.93 billion email users in 2019, and this number can grow to 4.3 billion by 2023.
Why might this be the case? For one, email offers benefits that other mediums simply don’t. You have a central repository of all messages where you can focus on each of them unimpeded.
Next, you don’t have to bother with advertisements and spammy messages competing for your attention. Almost every email provider has very advanced filters to make sure only important messages reach you.
Email’s continued popularity has marketing implications, too. Unlike social media, you have your audience’s undivided attention in their inbox.
But, it takes a deft hand to fit email into a content marketing strategy. Here are six ways to do so.
Use Your Landing Page Header to Come Up With the Subject Line
100% of your subscribers will read the subject line. Only a fraction of those makes it past. So, it makes sense to spend time on it.
The email that’s part of content marketing will try and move people from their inbox to your landing page.
A common mistake marketers make here is that they write the email from scratch. You already have the content ready, why not just repurpose it creatively instead?
So, here’s a pro-tip. Take the main title header from your landing page, and put a clever spin on it. If your landing page title is a statement, you can turn it into a question with a bit of personalization.
For example, the title of Loganix’s landing page is “Premium SEO Copywriting Services for SEOs and Agencies.”
Let’s say Loganix wants to write an email to drive traffic to this page. Here’s something that can work here —
Subject: <subscriber_name>, our premium copywriting services helped <client_name> make $X,XXX last month
The email here can be a short case study of the mentioned client with a CTA to the landing page.
Keep Your Emails as Short as Possible
There’s a BIG difference between an email for content marketing and an article for content marketing.
With articles, we typically aim for large, in-depth posts that cover as much subject matter as possible. Not only do longer articles perform better in SERPs, but users love them, too.
With emails, however, you need to keep it as short as possible. Remember, people, try and get through their inbox as quickly as possible. Long ramblings are ignored and deleted.
The suggested email newsletter length is around 20 lines of text. But, feel free to shorten it if need be.
As part of a content marketing plan, an email’s job is to drive the value proposition as quickly as possible. So, think of your emails as a “curiosity-builder”.
The email content’s job is to advertise the Call to Action (CTA). The CTA’s job is to get as many people to click over to your landing page as possible.
Spend Some Time on the CTA
Your CTA is the second most important part of your email after the title.
Regardless of whether you’re sending a thank-you email, introducing a new offer, or reminding the user, your emails should always have a CTA.
Unfortunately, a simple “Click Here” usually isn’t enough to spur activity. Like the title, you should spend some time on this.
Don’t just restrict yourself to the text. The button or the graphic around the text is just as important.
Use Reviews in Your Emails
The problem with writing anything for your product/service is that no one’s going to believe it. Of course, you’re going to say your stuff is the best thing since sliced bread.
This is why reviews and testimonials are so important. Other people’s views are inherently objective, hence more trustworthy.
Reviews and testimonials are also woefully underutilized in email marketing. Perhaps because it’s not so easy to fit them in. But that’s not as hard a problem as it may seem.
Take the reviews on this page on language tutoring services for example:
This page shows you all the tutors you can choose from, and each tutor has their own review to help students decide whom they want to learn from. Reviews from each tutor will fit easily inside an email promoting their tutoring services.
Alternatively, we can also go with singular reviews added in quotes as part of a larger content piece.
Experiment with Different Landing Page Content Types
Landing pages have a pretty set pattern that has worked well so far. But, don’t let that limit you. Truth is, there’s no one size fits all and you can strike gold with a bit of digging.
Some ideas to try out are landing page videos, long-form articles, and content libraries:
Add a Video to the Start of the Landing Page
Did you know that using videos in a landing page is known to increase conversions by up to 86%?
Videos make landing page material because they are inherently more engaging than text. Plus, a large “Play Me” button on the screen just begs to be, well, played.
They also deliver more information and can strike the viewer on an emotional level which text or pictures simply can’t. For example, seeing a smiling face helps convey emotion like happiness easier over reading text that has the word “happy” in it.
Videos also help simplify complex ideas. If you have a product or service that’s complicated to use, you might want to consider investing in landing page videos that help first-time visitors understand what you are selling.
Link to a Long-Form Article
Long-form content is still the best way to get complex ideas across. Think in-depth, thoroughly researched, instructional articles.
Such content is ideal for SaaS businesses or those that are in information-heavy industries. Check out this review article from ManlyWellness:
The table of content that the article opens with gives a visitor a strong incentive to click over to a relevant section.
The article is also very in-depth and covers all aspects of the product.
This format isn’t restricted to reviews either.
Let’s say you run a SaaS company offering a productivity enhancement tool. You can write a long-form piece on how to work from home and review the best tools for the job.
Link to a Content Library
You can also ditch a landing page altogether and link your email CTA to your site’s content library.
You’re probably asking — what good will that do? But, there are some scenarios where a content library can be a better option than a landing page.
For instance, you may want to rapidly test multiple creatives and headlines. Having a content library such as can help you do so very quickly.
Check out how Sleep Junkie populates their library:
It’s important to plan your content strategy ahead and publish regularly so that when your newsletter rolls out, you have fresh content to deliver.
Keep a Consistent Brand Voice
Your online voice is part of your brand’s personality and it’s part of what your audience knows you from. Suffice to say, keeping it singular is important.
If you haven’t already, start by defining your brand voice. Ask yourself who are you talking to? Is your audience predominantly millennials, working moms, or professionals? How does your audience like to speak?
You want to rhyme your brand’s voice with your audience’s own as it helps your product/service appear as a natural fit into their lives.
While getting a strategy ready is easy, it’s sticking to it that’s the hard part.
The problem with writing in a different voice is that it sort of challenges our own, personal ways. So, your writers will find it difficult to write in your brand’s voice, at least for the first few weeks or months.
Consider using a tool like Writer and Wordable to help your writers keep your voice intact while writing faster and better. And to achieve better ranks on search engines with your web content you can utilize different SEO WordPress plugins.
Here’s a good example of what a consistent brand voice looks like:
Notice how Gilisports has the same content published across all the mediums. This is crucial to ensuring a consistent experience across all the channels.
You can observe the same with SeekaHost: The brand is grown through guides and informative content via many blogs and guest articles as well as social media posts and ads always containing the logo. Read more about building a brand here:
Conclusion
Emails are and will be an integral part of a marketer’s kitty for the foreseeable future. While we have given some tried and tested strategies above, it’s best to experiment with ideas yourself.
Use the ideas as a starting point to discover what works and what doesn’t. Soon enough, you will have found a winning strategy.
Have you tried an email marketing strategy that has worked well? If so, feel free to share it in the comments below.
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