• What do the stats show us about current email marketing engagement?
• Organisations winning at marketing during COVID-19
• Bad copy is everywhere – here’s a random example from a supermarket car park
• On The Marketability Grapevine on Facebook
• Tip of the week: Is your opening copy a bit weak? Try this

What do the stats show us about current email marketing engagement?

While email marketing has continued during the pandemic, we’ve had to rely largely on instinct when compiling content. Recent articles have suggested that some subscribers are responding angrily to sales messages, and emails are being deleted on sight often without a second thought. I know, I’m doing it myself.

Profusion and Pure360 have now teamed up to look at what’s happened to the email stats of over 1million retail companies. Whilst this may be a very different sector to yours, I certainly recognise most of these from my own experience, both as a consumer interacting with retailers and as an email marketer. And if we can relate to how people are responding elsewhere, we can make our own decisions with a bit more confidence. Here are the headlines from the report:

250% increase in account set-ups
40% reduction in sending volume
28% increase in desktop readership, but only 7% in mobile
24% increase in open rates, but a big decline in click rate
6% re-engagement of previously lapsed customers

For the detail behind the headlines, read How COVID-19 has Impacted Email Marketing (Part 1)

And naturally, we’ll continue to review new reports so we can give sound advice in our Email Marketing Workshops.   

 

Organisations winning at marketing during COVID-19

Not only should we avoid overt sales messages at the moment, but we should be wary of the free chapter or download if it can be seen as a ‘cheap tactic’ by recipients on a short fuse.

We are all mourning the loss of our ‘normal’ lifestyles, so companies able to give us a virtual alternative, or a bit of escapism, are winning emotional loyalty. Will this translate into sales when this is all over? Who knows, but engagement and appreciation now must surely be the best chance of sales later.

Here are a couple of recent examples of marketing I’ve personally appreciated:

1. The National Portrait Gallery in London has a virtual exhibition online. Walk around its rooms, home in on a painting you like and read its details. Pleasingly like the real thing.
2. Lonely Planet has an article about 5 City Walking Tours you can Take Right Now on Google Maps. Perfect content for the wistful traveller.

There are of course many more initiatives like these out there – in fact, do email to share your favourites. I’m certainly aware that companies giving me something that cheers me are the ones I most want to give my support to when I’m able.

Planning marketing is a challenge at the best of times. Never has it been more crucial to base what you do around your customers’ mindsets and not your products. Our Impressive Marketing Plans workshop is the place to be for more like this.

 

Bad copy is everywhere – here’s a random example from a supermarket car park

Feed your ticket into the parking machine at our local car park and a holding message reads ‘Please wait, process in progress’.

Somebody wrote this. Hard to imagine, I know, but we can deduce that they took smug pleasure in the sound of those two words in concert. They completely failed to see that most people who actually read it would at best be confused.

This resonated with me because I’ve been doing a lot of copywriting recently and am aware that if two similar sounding words are close together it’s wise to change one of them. A quickly scanning eye simply sees the same word twice. If every word has to justify its place, we need them all to add value.

Copywriting is an undervalued skill, and one that many new to it are just assumed to have. But the more you consider it, the more fascinating and complex it gets. Or is that just me?

We’re still running in-company Copywriting Workshops, adapted to online modules, and they’re proving to be more fun than I thought. They definitely have a value in bringing together colleagues all working remotely to discuss something ‘normal’. If this may be of interest, do drop me an email and I can tell you more.

 

On The Marketability Grapevine on Facebook

• Do you critique copy when you’re out and about? Clearly some of you do, as your comments on my post about ‘Deer-birthing in the royal parks’ last week shows.
• Read something that hit the spot in this eBulletin? Click through and like the item or add a comment on Facebook
• Watch the Wall for postings of new jobs, or feel free to add to them.

Visit The Marketability Grapevine.

 

Tip of the week: Is your opening copy a bit weak? Try this

Knowing that we need to start our copy strong is one thing, doing it quite another. But often those opening lines or paragraphs establish context, and are then followed by factual content about the product. It’s a very natural thing to do, but it’s the enemy of impactful copy.

If you recognise this one, try swapping the two. Leading with the facts grabs the attention of readers for whom they resonate. The context in which those facts sit may then underpin your opening copy giving it further credibility.

Our Copywriting Workshop is the place to be for more like this.