To be a good email marketer, the priority is to make sure your messages are relevant to your subscribers.
If you want your list to dwindle and get poorer quickly, send irrelevant messages. No doubt that's what you'll get. In fact, a study conducted by the renowned market research firm Forrester Research concluded that irrelevance is the main reason people unsubscribe from a mailing list.
Nearly three-quarters of respondents indicated that they unsubscribe when they receive irrelevant messages. They simply ignore such communications. And there is an even worse scenario: receiving many irrelevant messages. They will definitely unsubscribe from those mailings that they find so annoying.
What is relevance?
Regardless of the nature of your business, relevance is the key to email marketing success. When you're crafting marketing campaigns, think first of all about what motivated your subscribers to sign up, then ask yourself some important questions:
- How does the message I am creating relate to my subscribers?
- What value does this message deliver to my subscribers?
- Does the message help my subscribers solve a problem, or am I just trying to sell them something?
If it turns out from this exercise that the message you are creating does not offer real value to your subscribers, chances are that the message will seem irrelevant to them.
For those who intend to grow their subscriber list or just keep it at current levels, it is essential that every message you send them is as relevant as possible.
Why is relevance so important?
As stated earlier, irrelevance is the number one reason why people abandon mailing lists they have subscribed to. If you fail to engage your subscribers, you can't expect them to read your messages, let alone respond to them.
Sending relevant marketing messages to your subscriber base improves response rates, increases sales, keeps your subscribers coming back for more and, most importantly, raises your ROI.
There is one question that audiences ask themselves, which you cannot afford to ignore: "What's in this message for me?"
A few tips for the construction of relevant messages:
- Focus on solving a problem for subscribers:True, you have a product to sell, but keep your audience's attention on how that product can solve a problem for them.
- The message should be easy to understand: Simplicity is essential, especially in a short format such as an email message.
- Personalize your messages: Do it according to what you know about your subscribers. The more you leverage what you know about them, the more relevant your messages will be to them.
- Segment your lists as much as possible. One message does not fit all. Segmenting your subscriber list according to their stated preferences (explicit information) and previous behavior (implicit information) facilitates the selection of content for future messages and contributes to relevant campaigns.
Think like a customer. If you were subscribed to a store's mailing, what would you want to know, and what would you find interesting?
Putting yourself in your customers' shoes can help you tailor your messages to what really matters to them.
