When you deliver exactly what subscribers are expecting, you keep them comfortable, giving them a positive experience with your brand. Therefore, it’s important to make sure their expectations match what you plan to deliver.
You can start setting the right expectations for your campaign from the get-go, during the sign up process.
But have you ever considered ways to keep adjusting expectations throughout the rest of your campaign? It’s something we’ve only seen a handful of marketers do. We’ve been pleasantly surprised to see marketers provide this in three different ways.
The Straight-Out Statement
The simplest and most common way to set expectations in your emails is to just state what’s coming next. For example, take a look at this note Steve from soap-making-resource.com included in one of his intermittent broadcasts:
In follow up messages, you can even let readers know what day they’ll get their next email from you with the use of global fields.
And if you’re afraid your announcement will get lost in your message body, use a postscript – it’ll be one of the most read parts of your email.
The Investment Summary
We all know that our “free” newsletters aren’t really free for readers – they cost time and attention.
If you send long emails, you can acknowledge the investment subscribers are making, plus give them a heads up as to how long it will take by including a time-to-read estimate, like Project Agency does here.
A time estimate can improve your subscribers’ experience with your brand in a few ways:
- First, it’s courteous. Readers will appreciate the heads up, and they’ll credit your brand with thoughtfulness.
- Second, it puts a number on the minutes they’d have to spend – most likely, a small number. In the grand scheme of things, 2 minutes is very small – with that adjustment of perspective, your email may be more likely to get read.
- Finally, your subscribers will be able to make an informed decision to skip the emails they don’t have time for, thereby improving their overall experience with your brand.
One thing you have to watch out for here, though: people read at different speeds.
To get a general idea of how long each email takes to read, time how long it takes for several people read it and take an average – don’t just rely on your own estimate.
The Publishing Calendar
If you follow a regular email routine, you may want to represent your schedule in your emails for subscribers’ reference.
Daily Worth sends five days a week, and their emails indicate what kind of content they’ll send each day. This gives readers the context around the day’s message and prepares them for what’s coming next.
The Herald of Change
Occasionally, you may need to revamp your emails. Maybe your from name needs fixing or your design is too 1999. If you go ahead with significant changes unannounced, you may lose some subscribers who don’t recognize the new you.
So, depending on how drastically they change your readers’ experience, you may want to announce upcoming changes in your emails, whether it’s a new type of content you’ll include, how frequently you’ll send, your template design or your from name.
The Invitation For Your Ideas
Taking care to make sure you’re setting subscribers up with the right expectations can save them some inconvenient surprises down the road, and keep them happy with your emails.
Do you know of any other ways to keep providing the correct expectations after the sign up process is over?
