Whether you are in the goods or service industry, your business goals involve winning customers. Each time your customer or prospect engages with your brand they are forming a judgment about your brand consciously or subconsciously.
You can increase revenue by 23% if you present a consistent brand image across all platforms. While working on consistency, make etiquette a part of your strategy across all platforms including email.
Starting from choosing the right email signature generator to your response time can all make the world of a difference in engaging your clients. In order to make your life easier, here are 8 email etiquette strategies that will encourage your clients.
Be responsive
Responsive email etiquette is all about integrating good email practices. For starters, the most important thing about a responsive email is the subject line. It is the first thing your readers and target audience sees.
Make sure the subject line is something that intrigues your readers, provides a good glimpse of your email content, and does not waste your readers’ time. Responsive email etiquette is all about giving the readers what they want and more and not about tricking them into something they are not interested in.
Once you create an email marketing campaign with this in mind then you will likely get responsive clientele and it will encourage them to engage with your content.
Keep it brief and valuable
As email is increasingly becoming a preferred tool for marketing communications, the influx of emails people receive daily is also on the rise. You could employ the best email marketing strategies in the world but if you cannot provide a value proposition for your clients then they will not subscribe to your content.
Remind yourself what the purpose of your email marketing campaign is and build your content accordingly. In addition, make sure the content is brief, simple, and to the point. This way you will ensure your target audience is directed towards your goals without overwhelming them.
Use a professional email signature
Just like the first thing in your email, which is your subject line, is important, the last thing in your email is equally important. You want to leave your readers with a lasting impression and a professional email signature is a great way to do that.
Use an email signature to strengthen your email marketing message, with clear links to websites and social media platforms. The purpose of an email signature goes beyond a proper salutation. While you should start and end your email with proper salutations, an email signature is the right way to wrap up your email content.
Once you have planted curiosity about your company through your email, email signatures allow your readers to dwell on your email content and explore your company goals through other platforms.
Use exclamation points sparingly
Email etiquette is all about avoiding all things informal. You should stick with professional language and professional punctuations. If you use exclamation points, do it sparingly and only to indicate excitement.
An overdose of exclamation points can make you appear immature and unprofessional both of which are the opposite of what you want to achieve. You want to project yourself as a credible and professional voice. In line with this effort the same applies to CAPS as well.
Unless you want your readers to think you are screaming, it is best to avoid CAPS in email marketing.
Avoid jargon and jokes
The biggest challenge with written content is that the tone can be misleading. Imagine you are trying to be polite or employ a friendly joke but you end up coming across as unprofessional and comical. Jargons and jokes have the ability to do this to your email marketing campaign and take away from your overall credibility.
Jokes and jargons take away from professional decorum and can be misleading to your readers. When you send out emails as part of an email marketing campaign it is best to maintain a professional etiquette with language because each word you send represents your company’s thoughts.
A company email expressing jokes and jargon can alter the company’s credibility.
Respect privacy
Respecting your client and their privacy is a key element in email marketing etiquette. Keep your clients’ business information confidential. If an individual chooses to share their email address with you, then you must respect that they shared their information with you and not the entire world.
So, when you send out business emails, do not make contact details of recipients visible to other recipients. This makes your prospects’ and clients’ to people beyond your company, this could result in unsolicited emails from people or brands they are not interested in and it unintentionally shows that your company is reckless with client information.
All of this is likely not your intent. So make sure you respect your prospects and clients privacy and build a relationship of trust.
Check email before send
There is nothing more embarrassing and misleading than an email with typos and grammatical errors. Proofread every message and do not rely on autocorrect. Sometimes the typo might not change the words or message of your content but when you don’t proofread you have to rely on the readers deciphering what you are trying to say.
This is not something you want and this is not something that adds to your credibility. Always read through what you write to avoid any miscommunication and to ensure your business is not projected in a way you don’t want.
Once you have spent so much time building an email marketing campaign and creating a list of leads, you must invest time in proofreading to project yourself in a credible light.
Respond quickly
Once you get an email from a client or prospect, respond and respond quickly. Over 50% of people expect you to respond to an email within 12 to 24 hours. But with smartphone access and connectivity, people actually respond to emails sooner than that. This is important in customer service because you want to make sure your clients are heard.
If it is something that only requires a quick response then go ahead and respond quickly. If it is something that requires a little more time then acknowledge receipt of the email and give them an expected timeline for response. This will set expectations straight and create an environment of trust and respect between the brand and the client.
These email etiquette strategies will encourage your clients to engage with your content and keep them hooked to your business!
