The Email Content That Makes Happy Customers

Tim Watson

July 26, 2019

Make your customers happy and deliver value in your Email Marketing. Makes sense, right? Customer-centric emails that make them happy recipients of your marketing, it’s a win-win. Only one problem. What is value to consumers? The Email Addiction Report, carried out by Zettasphere and Email Monday, provides some answers. The report is based on findings from a consumer survey and is freely available. One question probed the type of content that consumers want, asking ‘what new email innovations would interest you’.

The top three answers are all related to having more value in the information being provided:

Product Ratings: Valuable information that gives buyers the evidence to support products are worth buying.

Products and Offers based on purchase history: Consumers want offers on the things they want to buy. They don’t want offers on irrelevant products. It doesn’t matter how financially enticing an offer is, if the product isn’t wanted, the offer is worth zilch.

Offers depending on location: With half of the emails read on mobile devices email is a 24/7 connected channel. Automated timely emails are effective. Better still, relevant to the context of the consumer.

The more functional items, such as playing video in the email or buying from an email, are not seen as valuable. Consumers aren’t feeling burdened by the need to click a link to play video or buying on a webpage.

And they definitely don’t seem keen on having a computer sort and delete emails in their inbox. Despite the often-reported email overload, the consumer still prefers to be in control. Swiping to delete emails actually isn’t a burden.

Value isn’t Pure Content

A big trend in recent years has been Content Marketing. It’s an important part of marketing activity for many brands. The idea is providing interesting content and consumers will fall in love with you. A major reason for Content Marketing is the Google juice that follows. Content is a major part of an SEO play. But the idea that consumers want only interesting helpful content in emails is wrong. Don’t expect the engaging conversation to magically turn into a conversion.

You still need to sell, to promote, to ask for the purchase. And consumers are wanting and expecting this. A further insight from the Email Addiction Report. Consumers were asked what they expect to receive having signed up for brand emails.

The key point is that consumers signup expecting offers, savings, and new product information. The consumer expects to be sold to, that’s one of the reasons for signing up. Take care to balance pure interest led content with a good old-fashioned promotion. You’ll be disappointing to your customers if you don’t sell to them.

Value is Helpful Content That Helps People Buy

Don’t forget to grab a copy of the Email Addiction Report, stuffed with research. And there’s no barrier page asking for your life history – it’s free to download.