Web Marketing all-in-one for Dummies®

Chapter 5. Making Your E-Mail Content Valuable

In This Chapter

• Determining the value of your e-mail content

• Including valuable offers in your e-mails

• Coming up with a strong call to action

• Making your e-mails inherently valuable

• Giving your e-mails relevance over time

When people subscribe to your e-mail list, they share personal information with the expectation of receiving something valuable. Consumers aren't likely to value multiple e-mails that highlight only the distinguishing characteristics of your business. Repetitive e-mail content results in subscriber boredom. And boring your audience leads to low open rates, lost clicks, and unsubscribe requests.

Keeping your e-mail content valuable over time helps ensure that your list subscribers keep their attention and their subscription active while you attempt to capture purchases from them throughout the course of each buying cycle. The two basic types of value when it comes to e-mail content are

• An offer that is valuable when acted upon

• An inherent value: that is, content that's valuable in and of itself

Valuable content won't automatically make your audience rush to your business to part with their money. Your e-mail also needs to have a strong call to action to give your content a purpose and prompt your audience to help you meet your objectives.

This chapter covers some fundamental guidelines for including value in your e-mail strategy to deliver important information about your business while giving your audience continued reasons to ...