I’m a content strategist who works primarily with public institutions. And if there’s one thing I love telling clients more than anything else, it’s this: “You don’t need a Twitter account, and you don’t need a blog.”
Sometimes I witness visible sighs of relief after I say this. More often than not, however, clients don’t believe me. But everyone says Facebook and Twitter and Instagram are so important! We need a social media presence! We must have a blog! How else will people know what’s going on?
I want to disabuse our clients of these fears. Your audience is, sadly, not invested in your blog, and they almost never check — much less even see — your social media updates.
Admittedly, I work primarily with people who aren’t trying to sell products. For most commercial brands, I’ll acknowledge that it makes sense to have a few legitimate accounts on various social platforms. But for nonprofits, universities, government agencies, and other noncommercial organizations, social media and blogging are generally a big waste of time.
Here’s the thing: Social media is a scourge. Research has shown, over and over again, that social media makes people desperately unhappy and has a net negative effect on our overall well-being (with especially profound mental health consequences for the young). Sadly, we’ve just begun to realize this, after spending years sinking hours of our own precious time into toxic platforms that left us cranky, jealous, misinformed, and depressed. We thought we’d be happier and more connected. Instead, we’re more isolated and lonelier than ever. It turns out that social media is not only bad for us, but it’s also a bad way to share information.
And then there are the content marketing blogs. Corporate blogging was cool in the early 2000s, but it’s solidly passé in 2019. On the whole, brands who keep blogs about themselves operate out of a place of extreme delusion. No one has the time or desire to read your company’s blog about how great the company is. It’s just not interesting (and it might even be a little sad). Much of this kind of content marketing these days has devolved into a weak method for contact and lead acquisition — not a platform for the genuine exchange of information or ideas.
Even if you still believe in the value of brands having social media and blogs, we must all acknowledge that our attention spans on screens have shrunk to mere seconds.
There is, however, one long-standing thing that people keep paying attention to: their inboxes.
“You’ve got mail” is just as tantalizing an expression today as it was to Meg Ryan and Tom Hanks in 1998. Lowly, old-fashioned email is still one of the best methods we have to share information and reach people. We may be awash in apps and all manner of communication devices, but we still love our email. For 58% of people, checking email is the first digital act of the day, according to a study from Marketo.
And in terms of reach, social media and blogging barely hold a candle to almighty email. Email reaches 79% of the people you send it to, whereas your organic Facebook posts are seen only by 1% to 6% of your followers, according to a Return Path report.
It behooves all of us to take the art of email a bit more seriously — and to take a simultaneous step back from this so-called need to maintain a social media “presence” and a blog.
The anti-social media
The privacy and one-to-one nature of email, mimicking the appeal of the long-lost letter, is perhaps what has kept us in thrall to its charms for so long. For better or worse, we get a little dopamine hit when a new message lands in our inboxes. Even if it’s a policy reminder from HR or a pushy promo from the Gap, our brains light up: It’s for me! Someone is interested in me!
Contrast this with social media and many blogs, which spew into the void, hoping to elicit a reaction from the masses. Post an anonymous comment; share with your followers; I don’t really care who you are or what you have to say, I’m just crossing my fingers that I baited you successfully enough to get you to read this. Social media fuels some of our worst human impulses, be it tribalism or trickery.
Email, in contrast, is personal. It can also be abused (e.g., spam, vaguely threatening chain letters from your great-aunt, appeals from a marooned Nigerian prince who just needs a little information from you to make a wire transfer, etc.), but even then, it’s tailored. It presumes to know what we want. In our high-stress internet environment of memes, fake news, vloggers, and manipulative ads, it is comforting to simply receive a personal message.
As a content strategist, I believe that all of our clients can find tremendous value in investing in smart, considerate, respectful emails. At the same time, as organizations refocus on the potential of a great email program, I want to see most of our clients deemphasize social media and blogging. I think these two strategic shifts go hand in hand.
Your audience does want to hear from you. And in an increasingly fragmented, suspicious world, I’ll wager that they want to hear from you in a more personal, direct, and authentic way. For the vast majority of brands, email is going to be that way. It’s not going to be your neglected Twitter account, your desperate appeals on Facebook, or your confusing presence on Pinterest.
How to send better email
Before you send another email on behalf of your organization, spend a lot of time thinking about two things: people and purpose.
Who is your audience? How much do you really know about them (versus how much you’re assuming you know based on thin user personas some marketing consultant gave you)? As much as it’s within your power, spend some time talking to real people. Ask them what they most want from you. Can email deliver that? If so, start pursuing a content strategy that is laser-focused on audience needs, whether it’s delivering simple reminders, sharing a few interesting stories, or asking for their help.
Secondly, we could all be more mindful of the purposes and intentions behind the email we’re sending. Before scheduling a new campaign, we should ask: Why are we sending this email? What do we hope to gain? Is email the best way to accomplish this goal? If we don’t have clear, concrete answers to these questions, we shouldn’t be sending another email.
Email is for information-sharing. It’s not for engagement (which I find to be a fuzzy, often useless metric, typically trotted out by people who want to convince you that Twitter is doing something valuable for your brand). You may not ever get any responses to your organization’s email. And that’s OK. Email is a method of communication that, when it comes from organizations, is often modeled through one-way transmission of useful information.
If we focus on people and on our purposes, we could all bear witness to a great increase in human-centered, respectful email. Here’s what I mean when I refer to respectful email for brands.
4 features of respectful email for brands
What does respectful email look like?
1. Content subscribers want
This is an easy thing to preach and a difficult thing to do.
Deciphering what content your audience really wants is often a frustrating, never-ending quest. And that’s also OK; you’re on a long journey as a content strategist and designer to serve clients. You may never come up with Perfect Email Content for All Time. This is why it’s important to remember that it takes time and testing to ascertain.
Begin with your knowledge of your people and your purpose, and create a new strategy for a desirable email. Cut the clutter. Create constraints for yourself. Reduce the cognitive biases that cloud your company’s content. Meditate on the emails that you yourself most enjoy receiving and reading. And then craft your plan toward a more respectful, human-centered email.
With this in mind, I also like to remind our clients that a small subscriber list is often a better list. So often we’re focused on getting as many subscribers as possible. But this focus typically diminishes the quality and performance of the emails we’re sending.
If we’re trying to communicate to a faceless, unknowable crowd, we’re going to make some bad assumptions and likely see our open and click-through rates drop. Instead, if we can curate a smaller list of people who really do want to hear from us, we can serve their needs in more discrete, specific ways (and watch email performance skyrocket). In sum, don’t get depressed when you see some unsubscribes or when growth is slow; rather, see it as an opportunity to serve the list you have and get to know them even better.
2. Designed to be digested
No matter how long or short it is, email is intended to be read. So whether you invest in a high-gloss HTML template or in a plain-text missive, make sure that your email is accessible and pleasing.
Respectful emails are clean, readable, and delightful. As with most things on screens, less is often more. Ponder ways to introduce humor or surprise into your email, whether it’s in a curiosity-inducing subject line, a surprising GIF, or a calming call to action. Write and design your emails for clarity; recipients should have no question in their minds what you expect from them. Is it simply to open and read the message? Great; then don’t ask them to do something else too, like give money or RSVP to an event. Do you want them to respond? Make it as easy as possible for them to reply.
Importantly, ensure that you don’t work in a vacuum when you’re building your email: Content strategists and graphic designers should always work in tandem, playing off each other’s strengths to construct a beautiful, memorable email that serves your audience’s needs.
3. Free of gimmicks
No one likes a pushy email. I feel like I shouldn’t have to say this, but avoid manipulative, shaming, desperate language at all costs. So many brands and companies use this grasping, overeager tone when communicating with their audience. It’s not effective, and it’s definitely not respectful.
Don’t stoop to tricks. Don’t lie about the contents of the email with a misleading or alarmist subject line (Open now before it’s too late!!). Don’t make it hard for people to unsubscribe. Don’t resort to dark patterns (see this Hall of Shame for some chilling and yet sadly commonplace examples, many of which occur in email).
These things may sound small, but they’re all rude, and they all diminish trust in your organization. Be respectful. Send the kind of emails to your audience that you yourself want to receive.
4. Thoroughly tested
With respectful email, try new things and then try them again. And then try more new things. Never stop testing.
Respectful email is constantly iterating and adapting. Don’t get stuck in a content or design rut. Don’t feel like you have to do it this way because this is how you’ve always done it. A/B testing is your friend; use it liberally.
Likewise, ensure that every email is carefully evaluated by your team before you send it. It’s easy to fix a mistake on a webpage, but truly recalling an email is impossible (and it’s a big bummer for your recipients to get another message that just corrects the prior one). Get a copy editor. Test all of the links. Open it in different email services and on different screen sizes. Share your email with someone internally who isn’t connected to your team. How do they perceive the message? What are their first impressions?
In sum, let’s pursue email that we’re proud to send. If we can discipline ourselves to focus on people and on our purposes, we’ll come closer to reaching our audience in a meaningful, authentic way — all by harnessing the humble power of old-fashioned electronic mail.