You’ve Got Mail! How to Apply Digital Marketing Techniques To Achieve Better Responses In Your Inbox
From our experience across public relations, event management, operations, and digital marketing, getting the responses you desire is as easy as a three-prong approach. We’re breaking down the structure of email etiquette that you can use across industries, roles, and goals to achieve greater response rates.
Channeling Ethos
In digital marketing, ethos allows a brand to connect with their consumer through its guiding values. You can apply these same marketing tactics to your email strategy, whether you’re reaching an entire email list or one individual.
To apply ethos to your digital communication, you first need to hone in on yourself. This might seem self-explanatory (you spend all day with yourself, you know what you’re about!) but keeping a close eye on your own values and goals ensures you communicate those values effectively to your audience.
ACM Tip: Brainstorm a page of buzzwords, brand statements, and copy- all about you. Edit and add to this document and use it to frame your email strategy.
The key to applying ethos is to keep things tight- that means understanding how to convey your message in a neat, concise way. Clarity combined with core values will help your audience understand, digest, and connect with your message.
Why this works:
When your counterpart knows what you’re about, they’re more likely to see opportunities to work together. If you’re reaching out about a potential position, this can mean understanding the value you provide to their team. For brand partnerships, they get an idea of how the project can generate mutual ROI. For digital marketing, you’re incentivizing potential customers to relate to and therefore invest in your brand.
Understanding Need
Once you’ve established your ethos and connected your story to your recipient’s, you can look for the “need” involved. Every piece of digital correspondence should have an element of ROI or a task to accomplish. By understanding what your audience needs, you can better tailor your message to provide the solution. This is an especially crucial part of pitching, whether you’re connecting with journalists, potential clients, employers, or customers.
ACM Tip: Check out our IGTV series on Pitching, Partnerships and Purpose for some expert tips on channeling need into your pitches!
Why This Works:
Everybody wants to work with someone who “gets it”. It’s up to you to tailor your strengths into this mold, and to help your recipient understand that not only are you on their side, but you just might be their secret weapon!
Targeting Deliverables
Deliverables: actionable results that help measure your progress and achievement. It might sound scary to start making promises from the get-go, but understanding how you can deliver real data and results is the number one way to set yourself apart as a reliable source, employee and contractor.
Be sure to ask about timelines, goals, ROI, and teamwork to understand the full scope of the project and how your role fits into the bigger picture. Use this information throughout your process to check in on your progress. If you have a skill that could benefit your team, like applying SEO strategy to your social and PR efforts, make a suggestion to head up that effort!
Why This Works:
By providing a service, solution, or missing piece to your recipient’s puzzle, you’re nurturing a more fruitful relationship with them. Even if this pitch isn’t a good fit, you’re sending a message as a solution-oriented person- someone they’ll want on their team in the long term! As an employee, including deliverables in your emails, will create clear communication between you and your coworkers and ensure transparency every step of the way.
ACM Tip: Always leave a paper trail! Even if something was stated on a call, be sure to follow up via email with call notes and touch on any promises or asks that came up so you can reference this timeline later.
The art of getting responses isn’t an exact one. However, you can apply digital marketing strategies to your email communication to see even better response rates. Above all else, understanding the goals of your recipient and how you can accomplish them will level up your digital communication- and you might just see a whole lot more “yes” in your inbox very soon!