Email Isn’t Dead: Stand Out In 2020

Digital Marketing changes every day. Some say Email Marketing is useless; some say the same about influencers, TikTok, Facebook, the list goes on. The truth is, everything is working for someone; you have to adapt.

The following is a brief guide for the novice to get started with the essential tools and mindset for an Email Marketer in 2020 — a sort of jumping-off point.

I keep my inbox at zero, making it easy to see what’s coming and going from my mailbox.

I never feel like I‘m missing out when I send an email to the archives. I get a certain satisfaction when clicking the unsubscribe button.

It’s not because I want marketers to fail; I just don’t want a bunch of junk in the way of my productivity.

During the day, I probably get 20 or more promotional emails. I delete 99% of them without ever seeing what’s inside. If you’re sending an email to me, I’m going to bet you intend that your email is in the 1%.

As an email marketer, focus your campaigns on creating a subject line that first converts me into an email opener.

Once you have my attention, you’re halfway there.

Let’s take a look at the promotions in my inbox.

The only email here I want to open is from Magisto. When I clicked on it, I had no memory of what they sold. The promise of having something tangible after only a few clicks, created value for me that I couldn’t turn down.

Once you’ve got the subject line down, you can move onto the content inside.

A call to action that is personal, irresistible, and creates clear value.

When I opened the email for Magisto, I was met with a personalized greeting, simple instructions, what the process would look like, and a clear call to action.

Let’s look at an example from the same pool. This email is from an eye care doctor, and I don’t even wear glasses.

There is a clear call to action, but there’s way too much information, no personalization, nothing to grab my eye (ironically), and they wasted resources on me as a customer that doesn’t need the product.

Create an email that you would click.

The best way to learn about email marketing is to take a look at your inbox. Everything email marketers have learned is right in front of you.

If you’ve clicked on an email, copy and adapt what you liked to your campaigns.

I just got an email after signing up for a Medium membership. Here is an email I would and did but almost didn’t click.

There’s a grey blob representing this Ev Williams, that turned me off, but I’m interested in the product, and the simple line was enough to get me to open.

If I was Ev (which, come on, I know the CEO does not send this, but it adds a nice touch) and I had sent this email to myself, I would notice a grey blob is representing me.

Sometimes it’s small things, but I’m a lot more likely to trust a human face over a grey blob.

Other than that this email captures everything I’ve talked about and given me some ideas for my future campaigns:

• A short subject line that makes me wonder
• Clear text, yea it says a lot. It’s appropriate for the customer, after all, users on Medium read.
• The ‘Email 2 out of 4’ call to action says, “Stick with us, you’re halfway through this process, and we are aware your time is important.” I look forward to seeing Email 3.

Compare yourself to your competition.

If you’re not a little bit curious about what your rivals are doing, now is the time to look around.

Start by adding yourself to your competitor’s subscriber list, start paying attention.

Take a week or two to gather data about the strategy you see unfolding in your inbox.

Write down what you get, how often you get it, the subject line, what the deals are, who it’s from, where it landed in your inbox, what time was it sent?

Chances are your competitors did some research. Stand on the shoulders of email marketers before you and add strategies you like to your campaigns.

Look at your work on all devices.

Send the email to yourself first so you can see what it looks like amongst the sea of promotions. Start comparing.

Can you even find it? Would you click on it? What emails did pop out to you? Why?

Ask yourself these questions every time. Watch what, when, and how your competitors are doing every day, things change quickly in digital marketing.

It’s not as time-consuming as it sounds. I’ve sent myself emails and found out the mobile version looked great, while the desktop version header was blurry and cut off. Not what I wanted.

Don’t waste your energy, take a few minutes to package something that will work across a variety of platforms.

Choose the right tool for you.

You can check out Robert Brandl’s in-depth look at some of the most useful Email Marketing platforms here. He is the founder and CEO of Tooltester and offers detailed guides on Tech Tools.

If you don’t want decision fatigue and want to get started, here’s the tool kit I recommend:

• Mailchimp: Free plan up to 2k contacts but expensive after, a little more in-depth than some. Excellent clean interface and tons of templates.
• If you want to create graphics without hiring someone: Canva. I honestly do not think it could get more straightforward.
• Short video clips that stand out: Adobe Spark
• Keep track of yourself using Notion.so
• Keep track of your team with Monday.com.

Practice + Reports

Let’s fast forward to a few weeks after reading this post.

You’ve asked yourself what it would take to convert you into an email opener, learned a few tools to get the job done, and learned a lesson or two from your competition.

People are opening your emails!

That’s great, but if you want them to be going to your landing pages and subscribing, it’s 2020, and you have to be interesting.

You can’t stop hammering in the value and call to action; people will forget if you don’t remind them.

Come back to this after you’ve started running a few emails and check out this Mailchimp article on adding Google Analytics. Or maybe the reports on Mailchimp are all you need. Either way, start listening to them.

Happy emailing!