Email sent, information shared, job done – or is it? Hayley Maisey gives pause for thought

‘Send email comms re: new leadership training’ – yep, tick that box. OK, let’s back up and unpack the email just sent. No doubt it contains information on the leadership training being rolled out, a link for online access, a date/time/place for the in-person sessions, and so on. Does it explain why the training is happening, what participants will learn from attending and how they’ll benefit? Is the email personalised? Do you know what you want the recipient to do from reading the email? Has the email been sent to one list of contacts, all receiving the same information? 

Your people will feel heard and acknowledged, and be more receptive to the training they need to undertake

Reading this, you may think: that’s a lot of faff for one email. Nevertheless, considering these factors before hitting send is how you can get the best out of your email comms and the best out of the people you’re emailing.  

Adopting a marketer’s approach  

Marketers use email marketing as a strategy to communicate directly and drive action. The activity is usually supported by other marketing strategies such as social media marketing, content marketing and so on. Everything would integrate as part of a campaign.  

However, email marketing alone can pack a punch if you personalise its content, leverage strong calls to action and segment your audience effectively. Let’s take the proverbial leadership training taking place and explore how to maximise the impact of the email communications around it. 

The purpose of the email comms 

It’s a no-brainer to include information about the leadership training in your comms (the ‘what’ and the ‘when’). Consider the ‘why’ too. 

Perhaps team dynamics require a boost, so the managers and leaders you’re emailing need the training to communicate better, motivate and engage with their teams. Maybe organisational change is taking place, so the training supports the upcoming shift with practical techniques to lead effectively during times of uncertainty. Include the rationale behind it. The depth answers the inevitable: “OK, why?” that those reading the email will ask. 

WIIFM 

Another question recipients will have is: “What’s in it for me?” If you ask someone to do something, it’ll be their immediate thought: “What do I get out of it?” What are the benefits to the person undertaking the training? How will it help their development? How will it help them in their day-to-day activities? How will it help them do their job better?  

While you’ll have organisational objectives for the training, the email is about the person, not the organisation. So, focus on them. 

Make it personal 

Keeping the person-first approach in mind, personalisation in email marketing makes your comms less formal. Personalise it as much as possible, whether sending an Outlook mail-merged email, an email marketing platform or one generated directly from your LMS using a customised template. 

Always add <first_name> in the salutation. From here, you could create a merge field for <department> to reference it in the body copy, for example. Whatever merge fields are appropriate to include means the person will feel it is for them – that it’s not a blanket one-size-fits-all approach. 

STP – Segmentation, Targeting and Positioning 

Philip Kotler designed the STP marketing model in 1969. It helps you segment your recipients and align your messaging to a targeted audience to position your communications with relevance. Kotler’s model is typically used to find the best audience and to whittle it down to a target group of customers. However, the approach can be used with email marketing to target all audiences effectively.  

So, how can you segment your data? How can you divide your audience into relevant groups to position your messaging as effectively as possible?  

You could consider length of service – those new to the company versus those who have been employed for two years, more than five years, and so on.  How you shape your messaging can differ based on factors such as their knowledge of the company or employment journey. You position your comms with their connection to the business. 

You could consider their department – creating separate emails (or merge fields) that factor in the WIIFM based on each department. You position your comms in a functional way to help overcome challenges based on what the department is responsible for. Every department’s challenge may be the same, ie lack of team motivation. However, each department’s lack of motivation will affect their day-to-day output differently.  

You could consider location – if the training is in-person, you can segment your recipients by country or region so the information you provide is more relevant to them. You omit all the other details of other locations that aren’t needed. In turn, this ensures your email is highly personalised and positioned.  

Call to action 

What do you want your email recipient to do: be aware the training is happening? Register their attendance? Read pre-training materials? 

Ideally, you want to give them one call to action. Asking too much of them will mean you don’t get the one important thing you want done.  

One email or more? 

Marketers love a customer journey, whether via a website, or a blog post series – and there’s a reason for this. 

‘One and done’ isn’t an option. Marketing is all about the long haul and the campaign-based approach. So, factoring in the ‘why’ behind your email, the WIIFM and your call to action(s), you may want to consider more than one message. 

You don’t want to bowl people over with too much information; you want them on board so they understand the purpose behind the training, what’s in it for them and what they need to do next – and this can happen over a period of time. 

You can keep this relatively straightforward with a step-by-step series of emails, or you can adopt an approach that funnels their behaviour based on their actions; if they opened the email and didn’t complete the call to action or, say, they didn’t open it at all. You’ll need a dedicated email marketing platform to provide you with this data – I’ll blog about this another time to explain more. 

For now, consider customising your email communications to address each employee’s needs and ensure you frame your messaging to every recipient person on a one-to-one basis. By understanding the challenges within different departments and across roles, you can deliver targeted messages that resonate more deeply. Your people will feel heard and acknowledged, and be more receptive to the training they need to undertake – they’ll understand what’s in it for them.   

---