Tag Archives: Email marketing

Black and white photo of a pair of shoes deciding which direction to take, as a visual analogy for Caroline Gibson's blog on choosing a digital marketing channel

Which Digital Marketing Channel Is Right For You?

There are so many digital marketing channels that can help your brand, product or service stand up and stand out above everyone else; some free and some you have to pay for. So, which one, or ones, do you choose?

B & W photo of shoes as visual analogy on choosing a digital marketing channel for Caroline Gibson's blog

My simple digital marketing channel guide tells you what you need to know at a glance, and where to delve deeper.

What Is Search Engine Optimisation?
SEO helps your website zoom up Google rankings organically and appear more frequently in searches.

How do you go about it?

  1. Sign up for Google Search Console. It’s a free service that helps you monitor, maintain, and troubleshoot your site’s presence in Google Search results.
  2. Ensure your content is fresh, unique and contains relevant keywords without looking like a shopping list of them. Chose keywords and key phrases that your customers might use to find you e.g ‘freelance copywriter’ or ‘Where can I find a creative copywriter in London?’
  3. Don’t forget to write and optimise your meta titles, meta descriptors, alt tags and H1 headers.

Learn more about Google Search Console

What Is Search Engine Marketing?
SEM is about paying for ads online that show up on Google and relevant websites. They’re also known as PPC ads (pay per click) because you only pay when someone clicks on your ad to visit your site or call your business.

How do you go about it?

  1. Create a Google Ads account, then create a campaign and decide on your goal and budget.
  2. Choose keywords (use Google’s keyword tool to help you), especially long phrases as these are more specific and targeted to your customers.
  3. Make sure you understand keyword matching options and eek out any negative keywords to avoid irrelevant searches triggering your ad.

Learn more about Google ads

What Is Display Marketing?
Ads, such as banner ads on websites or videos that promote a brand, product or service and link to a website for more information. You can even be targeted by creating a campaign that uses your data segments to show ads to customers who’ve been on your website or app.

How do you go about it?

  1. Create a Google Ads account, then create a campaign
  2. Select ‘Display Network only’ as the campaign type.
  3. Choose which types of Google Display Network targeting you want for your campaign. For example, based on interests and demographics.

Learn more about display campaigns

What Is Social Media Marketing?
Social media marketing lets you attract and engage customers on socials such as Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn, TikTok and YouTube, and also build a following.

How do you go about it?

  1. Identify your target audience based on factors such as demographics, interests and profession. For example, an accountancy firm is better off using LinkedIn, while a jewellery designer would be choose a highly visual route such as Instagram or Pinterest.
  2. Plan a schedule for your posts.
  3. Create engaging content through photos, videos, blogs with links to your site and hashtags where relevant.

Learn more about social media marketing

What Is Email Marketing?
Communicating with existing clients or customers (hot leads) and with new ones (cold leads) through emails or email funnels.

How do you go about it?

  1. Choose your email marketing platform. For example, Mailchimp, HubSpot or a paid-for one such as Drip.
  2. Create your own list of contacts or buy a list. You ned to give people the option to opt out of receiving emails.
  3. Create attention-grabbing and engaging emails that people will want to open and read.

Learn more about writing emails here

What Is Content Marketing?
Creating relevant and useful content such as through blogs, how tos, videos or posts to attract and engage customers, instead of pitching your product or service, and promote brand awareness.

How do you go about it?

  1. Identify your audience based around interests, demographics, profession, etc.
  2. Identify information that will be helpful or of interest: Google Trends shows what people are currently looking for, while  Google Question Hub collects unanswered questions directly from users to identify content gaps online
  3. Choose the right channel on which to share relevant articles, videos, infographics or podcasts to reach and engage your audience.

Learn more about content marketing

Choosing the right digital marketing channel can depend on a number of things. Do you want to boost traffic to your website or increase online sales or build a following and loyalty or improve brand awareness and reach?

These digital marketing channels vary in some way but they have one thing in common for success … good copy.

 

Written by Caroline Gibson, a freelance copywriter who can help you navigate your chosen digital marketing channel (and with good copy).

E: caroline@carolinegibson.co.uk  T: +44 (0) 7957 567766

P.S. Follow on Twitter

Photo of light sign written as Hello

How To Write Emails That Get Noticed, Opened, Read & Clicked

Photo of light sign written as Hello

Wondering how to write emails that don’t get ignored?

Did you know – a massive 124.5bn business emails are sent and received every day and yet 4 out of 5 marketing emails aren’t opened?! Maybe it’s because 60% of marketeers believe their email skills to be below ‘advanced’ and even, woefully, ‘good’?

It’s a shame because, when done well, email is a fantastic medium for marketing. It’s convenient, quick, direct, non-confrontational, multi-platform (especially good for mobile), and can take advantage of many evolving tools (videos, GIFFs, emojis).

So, how can you use emails successfully to inform and persuade. And encourage a response?

Fundamentals first:

  • What’s the purpose of the email (what do you want someone to know)?
  • Who is the message relevant to?
  • What do you want someone to do as a result of reading it?

Sorted that? OK, here’s how to write emails the right way, step by step …

1. How to write a good email subject line

Keep it short
66% of emails are read on mobile phones – this screenshot is from mine. Look how the first example is so much cleaner and engaging than the other two. That’s because it uses a preheader. But more on that later.

Screen shot of emails on my mobile to show importance of short copy in my blog on How to write emails

A typical inbox reveals about 60 characters of an email’s subject line yet a mobile phone only shows 25 to 30 characters.

Get right to the point in about 6 to 8 words. What will grab the reader’s attention? What’s important and relevant to them? The subject line doesn’t need to explain everything; it just needs to gain enough interest for a click.

Use action words
Action words like ‘make’, ‘discover’ work brilliantly in email subject lines and calls to action.  Starting with a verb gives the reader a whopping big idea as to exactly what they need to do.

Example of using action words in my blog on How to write emails

Ask a question
‘What would you do if you were burgled tonight?’ ‘What’s the best way to make your money work harder?’ ‘What’s next for AI?’

We’re all nosey at heart. Questions draw us in and capture attention. It’s why Facebook asks ‘What’s on your mind?’

Offer an answer
‘How to look 10 years younger’, ‘How to win more customers’, ‘How to beat the tax man’. ‘How to write emails that get noticed, opened, read and clicked.’ Etc etc.

‘How-to’ subject lines offer insight into the specific benefit readers will find when they open your email. And if your ‘how-to’ is valuable to the audience, open rates can soar.

Use a teaser
Give readers a sneak peek to draw them in to find out more. What opportunities are there for you to create excitement?

Screen shot of Canva ad as example of creating excitement in Caroline Gibson’s short blog on How to write emails

Add an incentive or deadline
Who doesn’t like to take advantage of a great offer, especially if you know the clock is ticking?Sometimes it’s more important to give rather than take.

Screen shot of Finery email as example of an email incentive in Caroline Gibson’s blog on How to write emails

2. How to write pre-headers (and do you need them?)

A pre-header (also known as a ‘Johnson Box’) is the short wording after the subject line in your inbox. Pre-headers tip you off on what the message contains before you open it. They deliver a 7% higher open rate, on average.

Remember the TodayTix example?  This is how it followed through.

Example of a good pre-header as best practice for anyone wondering how to write emails

But do you need a preheader at all? Not if your email already cuts to the chase and the first text that appears does a good job of summarising what follows.

3. How to write good email body copy

Use ‘you’
Always think about who you’re talking to (some copywriters find it useful to pretend they’re writing to someone they actually know) and make your copy talk on a human, one-to-one basis, like this Starbucks example.

Starbucks email showing importance of using 'you' in copy in How to write emails in a personal and friendly way

You may find it worthwhile checking out my blog on ‘What Is Tone Of Voice In Copy And Why Does It Matter?‘

Write with a knife
Edit and edit again. Try to cut your copy by 50% – just hack away at the extra bits until the key details are clear. (You can see how to do this in my next blog: ‘5 Tips For Writing Shorter Copy‘.)

Add testimonials
And why sing your own praises when someone else can do it for you?  Reviews and testimonials go a long way, so add them. They also break up what’s otherwise a load of words.

Ad showing customer testimonials

4. How to write your CTA

The call to action (CTA) is one of the most crucial pieces of email copywriting because this is the moment that you reader decides whether or not they’re going to click for more info (or whatever the desired action is).

People don’t buy things, they buy experiences.

So keep your CTA simple, use an action word and try to avoid the same old, same old phrases such as ‘Shop now’ or ‘Read more’. Here’s a good piece of fresh thinking:

 

Ad as an example of a quirky call to action

 

And finally …

The biggest reason for someone to open an email is because of the subject line … it’s because of the emails you’ve sent before. The way you’ve written emails in the past impacts on what happens in the future, which is why you need to write emails the right way right from the start.

Written by Caroline Gibson, freelance copywriter, who can also help you discover how to write emails with a difference by running an email workshop for your business. Get in touch for details.

E: caroline@carolinegibson.co.uk  T: +44 (0) 7957 567766

P.S. Follow on Twitter