How to Create Emotional Connections With Your Email Marketing Contacts

When you want to connect with your email contacts, you need to write the content for your email campaign in a way that taps into their core emotions. Most people have come to understand very quickly which emails are spam and should be ignored, and the same is largely true for sales emails as well.

Bombarding your customers left, right, and center with offers and marketing messages isn’t usually the best way to go about things. Even if you see a small surge in your click-through rate, this will likely not translate into long-term sales that grow sustainably over time.

To give yourself every chance of better connecting with your customers, take a look at these nine tried and true content creation tips:

1. Offer an experience

These days it’s not enough to send an email and ask someone to sign up for a service or buy a product. You need to offer something more than your competition.

People crave experiences because they can share them with friends. Retelling the story offers something deeper than material things because you can explain exactly how events unfolded and bring the story to life. Think about how you can offer an escape from the status quo so can put your brand front and center.

This could include something like signing up for exclusive members-only content, or sharing a video tour of your headquarters. The second idea could be especially useful for businesses that manufacture a product for consumers — it gives you a chance to let your customers see what lies behind the curtain.

2. Connect outside of email

We’re all social creatures, so indulge that side of your customers and expand your email funnel by connecting with them on social media.

Not only is this a great way to push your brand further and faster into the hearts and minds of customers, but it also allows you to casually interact with them as often as you want. Keep your social content low-key but engaging and you’ll build a following in no time.

Just to make on thing clear here. I’m not talking about ditching email marketing. Rather about using it as a vehicle to grow your social media following so that you can continue connecting with contacts in other areas of their digital lives. This will open up a whole host of other marketing opportunities.

3. Listen

An email survey is a great way to gauge the opinions of your users. The secret is to keep it quick and easy to complete so that contacts can fill it out in under 2 minutes. Stick to a dozen questions or less, and where possible, use a categorical (multiple choice) format. That way you’ll find it a lot easier to track and analyze the results.

It’s also a good idea to offer an incentive so that you increase the response rate. Free entry into a prize drawing or discounts on their next purchase can both be very effective for this.

4. Adapt content to your readers’ preferences

This point follows on nicely from the one above — listen, listen, listen; then act!

Also, take into account the seasonal events and latest trends sweeping your industry. We all love a festive email when December rolls around, so make sure that you don’t miss these kinds of chances to connect with your customers.

5. Write your emails in a personal way

Receiving an email from a friend is always nice because it piques your interest and provides a more emotional connection.

Friends don’t write in formal sales language. They talk to us in a casual and friendly tone. If you mimic this relaxed style in your marketing emails, you can increase your ability to form an emotional connection with your customers, which boosts engagement with your emails.

It’s all about adapting your style to the audience sitting in front of you. What works at a board meeting won’t be of interest to someone reading your email in front of the TV, for example.

If you’re struggling to come up with a causal and engaging writing style, there are a few different tools and online services that can point you in the right direction:

• Your Dictionary: Offers online tutorials and a powerful interactive thesaurus that will help add new depth to your writing.
• Hot Essay Service: Connects you with a team of seasoned professional writers that will craft your new style of writing. You can have them start from scratch, or polish up some existing copy.
• Inc: Offers advice for entrepreneurs and small businesses who are looking to stand out from the crowd.
• Grab My Essay: Ideal for fast turnarounds when you want to launch your campaign before the competition. The professional touch will allow you to tailor your campaign to what your customers want.
• Survey Monkey: Gives you access to downloadable templates so that you can quickly and easily create customer satisfaction surveys.
• Supreme Dissertations: This professional writing team specializes in long form text. They can also assist with fine tuning any existing text.
• Rewarded Essays: By searching for a professional writer with the desired skills you can have someone put the finishing touches to your campaign’s copy.

6. Avoid the jargon and buzzwords

Nobody likes jargon (except maybe the people who already know what it means). Even if it’s more convenient to use this type of language internally, your customers couldn’t care less about it most of the time.

Keep the jargon to an absolute minimum and focus instead on getting your message out using simple, everyday language. If you’re struggling, try asking a question designed to provoke a response, like “Do you wish you could pay less for your TV package?” This gives you the perfect opening to paint a picture of your lower cost service without having to say much at all up front. You can let your customers’ brain fill in the blanks.

7. Be genuine

Deep down everyone knows that you’re sending your email to try and grow your business, so don’t be disingenuous and try and hide it.

Instead, try to show your passion for what you do by focusing on the benefit that you provide for your customers. This will allow you to introduce your products and services in a way that will keep people intrigued. This is ideal for leaving the sales talk behind and getting down to the core topics and problems you want to address with your customers.

8. Be relatable

No matter how big your business becomes, you need to be relatable. People don’t want to feel like they’re being spammed by a faceless multinational corporation. Most prefer to receive messages from people they can understand and people who can empathize with them on a human level.

Talk in a way that is normal and straightforward. Don’t be afraid to use your own first name to give your email message a “face.”

Focus on positive messaging like why your product is the best, not on negatives like why your competitors are no good. Highlight any community or charity initiatives that you’re a part of so you can establish a connection that way too.

Brand building is all about making your business pop into the minds of your customers when they think of things they enjoy. When you get thirsty on a hot summer’s day you picture Coca-Cola. When you want to stay out of the shade you think about a Yankees cap. If you want your brand to grow in the same way, focus on linking your products and services to everyday events your customers encounter.

9. Segment your email list

The final piece of advice I have for you today is to segment your email contact list. By breaking your large contact database into smaller groups with similar interests or characteristics, you’ll be able to target key demographics with more tailored content.

This is a great way to show your customers that you care because you’ll be much more able to speak to their needs and offer them something of genuine value.