Tamsin speaking at the Entrepreneur Co
ENTREPRENEUR COUNTRY WORKSHOP SPECIAL
In light of our recent workshop with Constant Contact on how small businesses can win in a socially connected world, we have asked two speakers at the event, Tamsin Fox-Davies and Karen Haller, to give you some of their key tips and takeaways mentioned on the day in the form of blogs. Here, Tamsin discusses five common British email mistakes NOT to make
As British business owners, we often struggle to put ourselves and our businesses ‘out there’.
It’s true that manners are important, but the classic British reserve can get in the way of marketing our businesses in the most effective way, and email marketing is no exception.
Here are the top 5 mistakes I see British businesses make with their email newsletters (and what you can do about each of them):
1. Not asking for the sign-up
In order to get sign-ups for your mailing list, you have to ask people to join it, and a ‘join my mailing list’ box or button is not going to cut it.
What you need to do is to ask people to join your list wherever and whenever you connect with them, offline (e.g. meetings, phone calls) and online (e.g. every page of your website, on your social profiles).
That doesn’t mean you need to be pushy. Simply tell them what is in your newsletter that they would find valuable and ask them if they’d like to receive it. They can always say ‘no’ and that’s okay too.
2. Forgetting to include a call to action
The whole point of marketing is to elicit a physical and measurable response from your audience, i.e. you need to get people to DO something as a result of your email. However, people won’t take the action that you want them to take unless you ask them to do it.
The key is to spell out clearly what you want them to do. This applies whether you are asking them to buy from you
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right now, or you want them to do something else (like read an article, attend an event, or call you to set up a meeting).
One of the best ways to achieve a good call to action (CTA) in an email newsletter is to write your CTA BEFORE the rest of your newsletter content. So, you start with your CTA and then write a tip or an article that encourages people to act on your CTA.
3. Using passive
language
Look at the words you use in your newsletter. A common practice, particularly in the UK, is to use very passive language. Examples of passive language are: ‘we would like to…’, or ‘our aim is to…’.
There’s nothing wrong with passive language in itself, but be careful how you use it.
I don’t really care what you ‘would like to’ do. What I want to know is what you actually achieve for your customers – whether that’s making them happy, feeding them with great food, or increasing their bottom-line.
Use more of this type of ‘active’ language – it’s an easy fix, and will have an impact on how you are perceived by your customer.
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