Help with email headlines – a short guide

We work day to day with clients on email campaigns, personalised cold emails, event invitation blasts and much more. Over the years we’ve become accustom to building effective email headlines that get emails read and replied to, and we’ve noticed that without that experience entire campaigns can be rendered useless. So if you lack experience building effective email headlines that get your campaigns read and replied to then you’ve come to the right place!

The Creative Agency Secrets short guide to email headlines

Email headlines are a lot like blog headlines. We’ve boiled it down to a few select simple rules:

  • Short and simple.
    Getting to the point quicker with fewer words helps grab attention and keeps it. Shorter headlines are also usually more exciting which entices further reading.
  • Promise what the full message contains
    If readers believe the title is misleading to the content, they’re more likely to discard your email after reading it! It’s all about trust, people.
    This also comes along with cohesion and comprehension because if you’re conveying two things at once the reader is less likely to understand what you want them to do and why.
  • Relevant to the target audience.
    This tends to be a given because again, the headline of the email should reflect on the content and your content should be getting sent to the right target audience. But too many times we see email headlines that reflect a part of the content which isn’t interesting or relevant to the target audience. Make sure the your next email headline brings out the part of the content most likely to interest your intended readers.
  • Make readers curious.
    Don’t give them everything, leave them wanting! This should be simple with our first rule of headlines being short but sometimes a “90% of x does y” type of headline isn’t as effective as “So how many of xes do ys, you think? Here’s your answer:”

You may be a cut above the rest now that you know these 4 simple rules, but we’re not done yet. We want to arm you with the best practices, so here’s some fantastic email headline examples (we found many of these on CopyBlogger! They’re a brilliant content marketing resource):

  • “Why you should always [content]”
  • “Your answer to [content]”
  • “10 ways to [content]”
  • “Your competitors do [content], why?”
  • “What everybody ought to know about [content]”
  • You Are Not Alone

Which is your favourite? Let us know how your next campaign goes!

 

Want to learn more about email marketing, or get an experienced marketer to build campaigns for you?

Contact us! We’re your next big marketing success.

Interview: Cecilia Robinson from My Food Bag

Creative Agency Secrets were honoured to meet Cecilia Robinson the dynamic and fast-talking founder of MyFoodBag.  We met in their delightful offices (fit out by Adam Mercer, Architect).

Spaceworks does My Food Bag offices

Amazing balustrade of a tree branch

offices 2

Spaceworks does My Food Bag offices

In an e service – the ability to scale is the most important thing – service based businesses are really hard to scale.

Building that in for My Food Bag is an ecommerce business was key.

The first idea – my concept was in 2010 but we weren’t exploring it at that stage.  I had been at home just before I had my baby and I was really sick of it doing cooking, cleaning – I wrote a business plan 40 minutes later clicked save.

What marketing are you doing now?

Growing brand awareness.  We aligned Nadia’s brand with us – it was about concept education – teach in the market around what the service is – people may not like to be told what and how to eat.  We did that through social, PR and the TV and that continues.  

Re-engagement – we call it on-boarding process – we employed a CMO from Taste Australia – these customers usually stop buying because it doesn’t suit their family lifestyle – we have high retention and low churn – it’s a priority to maintain them.

Measured churn since we started – we are world class in terms of retention – and we benchmark against other key suppliers.

It grows month on month – there are customers who have bought 104 weeks worth with us.

We have focused more on acquisition – life-stages are key.  If they go across  a certain point in our delivery service we know they’ll stay with us.

The recipe folder is a key piece of collateral and it becomes a collection, it’s all about the experience.  We do programmes of freebies or recipes for Mother’s and Father’s Day and Christmas.

Surprises are frequent in your bag – chocolates, children’s yoghurts – Easter will be hot cross buns and a recipe.

We’ve done big giveaways too  e.g. trip to Vanuatu.

Partnerships are possible but with 15,000 subscribers – it becomes a big task to get enough free product often we have to sponsor it ourselves or bigger suppliers give it away free.  We never give small samples – it has to have tangible value.  Paneton gave us croissants for Christmas morning – it has to be sharable… small giveaways wont’ work.

Experience – every single product we’ve done has been an experiment.  $50m run rate business – the CFO is protective of our revenue streams.  We are about to launch childrens lunch boxes but you never know if it will work.  General we’ve done well.

We have given away books and trips.  Social media is a really big avenue for us to talk to customers and they talk back.  Issues are always responded to and we often get told our customer service is good.

We do it all in house, it’s all personal contact.

Bring values – all staff members have 50% discount scheme for all our products.  They have to eat using our products if you don’t know and love it you can’t sell it. It is part of their lifestyle – that is part of the way we are.  The guys cook us lunch every day and today we are doing cake tasting.  We are doing a 2nd year birthday party too soon.  We have to taste 10 different cakes….[no sympathy from me].

Anton is our test chef – we do 14 recipes a week – one recipe takes 10 hours from testing to photography and it is 140 man hours a week.

We run “just on time” – we do recipe planning some time out.  On a Tuesday we may have to make a last minute change if there isn’t broccoli because it isn’t there in the shops. It switches from rocket to spinach.

We educate customers so that if we make changes they have to just live with it – we advise changes  by email because once the recipe cards are printed, we can’t re-print in time.

Utter delight – our customer feedback is amazing. 

I’m in chemotherapy and its a life saver.

We get a lot of heartfelt replies and you’ve saved my marriage because I can cook.    

Key for us to focus on our growth to build a really good brand with Nadia it has been a fantastic journey.

What next?

We are building a mobile recipe site and want to integrate Nadia’s site into the my food bag site.

Six Good Reasons to Hire a Business Coach

Hiring a business coach is not at the top of most company owner’s to do list, but it really should be. This is because the right business coach can make a world of difference to you and your business. A good coach will help you in all sorts of ways. Below I cover just a few of them.

Get you moving

It is human nature to get comfortable and slow down. We have all done it – set up a business, worked like crazy getting it off the ground, and then taken our foot off the pedal. Running a business is hard, so it is all too easy to lose focus and drive.

A good business coach will get you fired up again. They will get you following a plan and monitoring progress, and keep you moving forwards.

Challenge you

There are only so many hours in the day, so once we find something that works and earns us money there is a tendency to stick with that process and just carry on doing it. This can work fine for several years or decades even, but inevitably, things change.

What worked ten years ago is not likely to be as effective today. The market moves on and consumers want something different. If you do not move with the times and search out new opportunities, you will inevitably begin to lose market share.

A good coach challenges you. They help you to recognise that you have gaps in your skill set or that your skills need to be updated. Being challenged is always a good thing. It makes you think and motivates you to take action that you would have not otherwise taken.

Provide support and encouragement

We all need support, and we all need encouragement. A good executive coach will provide both.

They will help you to have a balanced view of your abilities and achievements. Providing you with the support that you need when you feel you are getting nowhere fast. An effective coach will encourage and motivate you to work through tough times and achieve your goals.

Marketing

Regardless of the type of business you run marketing is crucial. It is the only way to grow your business and take it to the next level.

There are several ways to learn how to market yourself, and one of the most effective ways is to do so with the help of an executive coach. The right business coach can help you on many levels including helping you to market yourself and your business more effectively.

Finding a good coach

Whether you need executive coaching in New York, Adelaide or Birmingham you can benefit more from the business relationship by looking for someone that has experience. A coach that is on the same wavelength as you, and has helped other businesses, can help you to progress faster in your career and build your business.

When hiring a business coach take the time to check out their credentials and their previous work. If they have a good track record interview them. This is the surest way to know whether you will get on with each other and form a strong and lasting business relationship.