What are broadcast emails and how to use them to build awareness, promote announcements, or generate new, fresh traffic?
Broadcast emails should be a significant part of every successful marketing strategy. One of the reasons why these scheduled email campaigns work so effectively lies in the fact that they are sent to a larger group of people.
They are usually designed to let people know about new announcements, promotions, etc. In most of the cases, you will want to inform these contacts about new:
- Business opportunities
- New products
- Expansion of services
- New promotions and announcements
For instance, if you’re a flight company and have great flight deals, you can send an adequate email about it. Each week you can send promotional emails, testing different variables, and see how the audience responds to each one.
You can send the message right away, after you create it, or schedule it. Unlike the regular emails, which could be quite spammy, broadcast emails are sent to contact groups who have opted-in to receive them in the future.
Types of email broadcasts
Generally, email marketing relies on some type of user segmentation and personalization as the idea is to make it all sound as relevant to the people as possible. Otherwise, unsegmented lists could have much higher unsubscribe rates, when compared to the customized ones. According to statistics, about 70% of consumers have a pretty unhealthy experience with impersonal messages, as 44% of users claim that their loyalty begins with some personalization.
When it comes to the email broadcasts, allow us to introduce you to the four main types, designed to fit the needs of both B2B and B2C businesses:
- Newsletters
- Important Updates
- Digests
- Sales and promotions
Let’s see what each brings to the table.
Newsletters
We’re sure you have seen those before as they’re practically the most common, familiar type. In terms of their function, newsletters are perfect for companies focusing on their relationship with the customers. Newsletters are merely an excellent option to say what you’ve been up to and what people can expect from you soon.
Important updates
This one is quite similar to the newsletters in terms of announcements; however, when you’ve got a pricing update, change of terms of service, policy details, and any other form of a technical upgrade, we recommend that you send an email about it. It’s an important update, and your audience certainly needs to know more about it. This is especially true for companies that need to establish better trust with the users. But most importantly, if the change could drastically impact them, they would want to know about it. Count on it! Speaking of privacy policies and terms of service, they are literally the strongest trust signals. Use them to alert the people and not lose the sense of trustworthiness.
Digests
As the name suggests, digests are short and sweet broadcast emails that are pretty easy and quick to read. This is a “snackable” content, and a useful tool to build yourself as a thoughtful, knowledgeable leader. Digests are a group or a collection of resources centered around one particular idea. It’s often described as a type of a borrowed newsletter with a similar format, but quite a different content structure.
Aggregators and news curators generally use digest broadcasts. Each day or week, they send something to their readers as the central topic may revolve around different things, such as:
- News from around the world
- Marketing
- Music/Movie Reviews
- Technology updates
Digests often include:
- Blogs
- News articles
- Videos
- Surveys and studies
- Images
Sales and promotions
It’s time to surprise your readers and subscribers with massive, mouth-watering discounts and general promotions. This type of broadcast email often includes huge or exclusive sales, offers, discounts, and the list goes on and on. They apply for everybody on the list; however, if you’ve got a segmented audience due to a product category, it’s better to consider a “narrow-cast” email. Also, personalized mailings generate +29% higher open rates and about 41% better click rate, so it’s definitely worth experimenting with some level of customization.
When creating broadcast emails, it’s important to track the performance every now and then. Optimization is necessary to make sure that the emails are relevant to everyone on the list.
Most importantly, before you hit the send button, go over the emails a few times to see if everything looks good. Also, ask yourself if the email brings value to everybody on the list. That way, you can lower the unsubs rates and spam complaints.
5 Broadcast Email Templates You Can Use Today
Informative template (example: Yellowstone)
What makes this template an effective one is its informative elements. With this template, you can let your audience know what’s going on, introduce them to new topics, blogs, images, Q&A sections, new programs, warnings, etc. The content could be focusing on things that are happening right now. It can even include job openings or promotional material.
Curate Relevant Information
Xfinity’s newsletters can quickly grab everyone’s attention. They’re usually shorter. However, the concept is pretty much the same. This email, in particular, lets you know about what’s new this month (obviously, it’s an old example).
All in all, Xfinity’s emails are extra useful because:
- the niche is super interesting
- top picks for shows, movies for kids as well
- alert to pause wifi to get the kids out
- tips on how to get the most of the platform
- good use of images and titles
Multiple Subscription Options – Search Engine Journal
Whatever the business, you need to provide valuable, interesting, and relevant emails, and Search Engine Journal does it well.
Their emails are marketing-centered and always bring some value to the table. The emphasis is on SEO, but you can read a lot of marketing-related topics that may improve your skills and business. Apart from the valuable content, try to optimize the newsletter for images, compelling titles, subject lines, etc. All of this leads to a much higher open rate and click-through rate.
Important Email Template (Yelp)
Well, it’s certainly not the most exciting email, but that’s perfectly okay! The idea here is not to be eye-popping and extravagant. It’s actually the other way around. You want a simple message, addressing an update, for example.
Since people don’t really read but scan texts, accentuate the most critical sections of the email to make them stand out right away. In this case with Yelp, it would be terms of use and privacy policy. Such emails may not be the best attention-grabber, but it makes your company appear more trustworthy.
Transparent Policy Update (Vimeo)
Another good broadcast email template comes from Venmo. These guys know how to present a product or an update, or even new terms of service. Again, it’s definitely not a colorful message, but it introduces people to the new phases of something and how they might or might not affect the users. Similarly to Yelp, Venmo addresses the updates in their terms of use and whether it will change the UX.
Conclusion
What are broadcast emails and when to use them?
Broadcasts are a great way to send a message to a larger group of people, as they can be segmented as well. With broadcast emails, you can do way more than just announce something. They are especially great for:
- mass text messaging
- new, important updates
- digests
- sales and promotions
Whatever type you choose, always try to add some value to your offers, promotions, etc. It will undoubtedly improve CTR and open rates.
