Now that you’ve got a growing email list, it comes time to connect with your audience by creating and sending out email marketing communications. This part can be intimidating, especially with an increasing number of subscribers whom you’ve never met – what will they think? You want to connect with your audience and share more about your story, product, and what value you can bring them.
In this course, writer and entrepreneur Natalie Franke walks you through her recommendations to help you better connect with your audience in emails. She co-founded the Rising Tide Society and is the head of the community HoneyBook, taking genuine pride in empowering other entrepreneurs, championing the phrase community over competition.
Here’s Natalie to walk you through her three tips to better connect with your audience:
- START WITH A STORY
Stories are 22x more likely to be remembered than facts alone, and they can increase conversions by over 30%. Additionally, stories release oxytocin in the brain that helps us deeper our connection and bond with one another. Next time you think about storytelling, know that it is a strategic way to better bond and connect with your audience.
Start by telling a story that showcases a transformation like a before and after. Or consider a story that shows your humanity and positions you as the protagonist, and has an element of proper redemption from failure. You can also use stories with a surprise, a moment where you learn something new or came across an added value that you never saw coming.
Use those stories to pass along your learning to your audience to provide value to them directly and open a gateway that allows them to see a little more about you, your brand, what you have to offer from the human lens and the human element. Storytelling ultimately helps people to connect with you more deeply and what you have to offer.
- PERSONALIZE WITH THEIR NAME
Using someone’s name says I see you, and you matter to me. Dale Carnegie said, “Someone’s name is the sweetest sound in any language.” It’s the first word that many of us learn, and we carry it throughout our lives. It’s a symbol of our individuality and our sense of self. Using someone’s name grabs their attention, establishes trust, and builds on feelings of familiarity, loyalty, and affinity.
It’s easy to use someone’s name on Flodesk. When composing a design email, you type the ‘@’ symbol, and the first name is easily populated at the beginning and throughout the body of the email. Don’t force it but use it as much as possible so long as it feels natural. Apply storytelling, or connect with them through informative copy.
Using your audience’s names indicates that you’re speaking directly to them, not just a number in thousands of email subscribers. They’re them, and you’re you. It makes it personal, therefore enabling connection to begin.
- USE CALLS TO ACTION
Calls to action (CTA) help progress the relationship with your subscribers. We don’t want it to live and die in the inbox. Email marketing and connecting with the audience should ultimately lead them out of the inbox and deeper into your brand.
Use CTA to increase sales and generate revenue. You could also use CTA to bring them in more deeply to learn about you and your business, join a webinar, read a recent blog article, or attend a Live on your Instagram. Using CTA are an amazing tool for getting someone from the inbox to a place where they can more deeply connect with you and potentially offline.
More isn’t always better when it comes to CTA. Recommend one, and not more than three. Use brand accent colors—simple, straightforward, with a direct message on engaging with that piece of content in the email.
BONUS TIP with CTA: Consider ways to make them exclusive to your newsletter subscribers. These CTA can be separate from ones that you’re marketing to other channels of your business. Maybe create a sale that is exclusive just to your email list. Use that CTA to offer that additional value. Offer a giveaway or a fun way to provide subscribers with a way to more deeply engage with your brand that isn’t available to just anybody off the streets. Use them to connect and to deepen the relationship a little more. To move somebody out of the inbox and into all of the value that your brand has to offer.
RECAP
To deeply connect with your audience, it doesn’t have to be overwhelming. When in doubt, think of these three tips:
- Start with a story
- Personalize it with their name
- Use clear calls to action to drive them more deeply into your brand
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