For most people, email campaigns have become synonymous with email marketing nowadays. Although that’s not a wrong perception, it’s not all there is to email campaigns.
You can also use email campaigns to build brand awareness. You can create email campaigns simply to network with industry leaders and influencers.
If you’re a struggling business, you might be wondering what’s in it for you. Or what’s special about creating email campaigns for PR? You can achieve the same with email marketing. Isn’t it?
Well, no. There’s a difference between the effectiveness of email marketing and PR building. In this guide, we’ll highlight this difference and share best practices for email campaigns for public relations.
Let’s get started!
Image by Serhii G. from Pixabay
What is an email campaign?
An email campaign is a series of emails that you send out to those who have subscribed to your newsletter or email list. Since it is a series of emails, it usually has a theme and a goal. All of the emails are interconnected with one another.
The content in emails within the email campaigns can either deliver new, insightful information to the reader. Or it can prompt the reader to take an action.
Email marketing vs. public relations
Email marketing focuses on driving sales. Purchase is the immediate action that you want the recipient to take when you send out a marketing email. On the contrary, when you send out a PR email, you want the recipient to be aware of some information relevant to your brand. You want to build a reputation and have them remember you subconsciously.
Summing up, we can say:
- Email marketing campaign = Drive sales
- Email PR campaigns = Build brand awareness = Drives sales
Again, all struggling businesses may question; why should we take the long route when we can acquire profits with a shorter one.
Your worry is justified. It makes perfect sense.
However, we encourage you to understand the concept on a deeper level. Although email campaigns for public relations primarily intend to build brand reputation and awareness, they are generally more meaningful investments. They lead to long-term, bulk conversions by building trust and authority.
Imagine you’re an Instagram influencer in the fashion industry. A clothing brand regularly sends you emails, beginning from their struggle to open one outlet to expanding their team to recruit the best designers in your area and further extending to the opening of more outlets and consequent discounts. Although the brand is not directly selling its goods to you, it’s converting you indirectly by informing you of its success and luring you towards it.
In this way, the clothing brand did not only convert a high-ticket client like yourself. They also made an intelligent marketing move. If you wear their clothes, they’ll naturally get exposure to your audience.
7 best practices of email campaigns for public relations
We hope email campaigns for public relations make sense to you now. It’s time to explore how you can do it right. Here are some of our best tips:
#1. Place your brand name at least 5 times in the email
Before you implement what you read in the heading, pause. There’s no definite formula for what works and what doesn’t. The idea here is to maximize the use of your brand name, such that the recipient reads it enough times to remember it. But you don’t have to overwhelm them either.
If you’re writing a 250-word email, you should use your company’s name at least five times. Ideally, you should place it once in the following places:
- Subject
- Email address
- In the middle of the email content (If there are three paragraphs, place it in the second one)
- Sign Off
- Images or visual material included
#2. Brand your email
If you have read this far, there’s a high chance you might be wondering; isn’t adding my company name and branding the same thing? Well, no they aren’t.
Branding your email means adding a brand logo, brand colors, visuals, tagline, tone of voice, and every other thing that separates your brand from the others.
Build a vibe and stick to it. Keep it uniform in all your emails and make your audience associate you with it. Let them recognize your vibe.
#3. Keep a good distance from spam-land
There is no way your recipient is going to give you a second look if you land in their spam folder. You might not even ever get that first look.
We’re sure you’re not working this hard to end up being ignored. For that very reason, we recommend reading these top 12 reasons why emails land in spam or junk folders. Avoid as many of these mistakes mentioned as possible for you.
#4. Personalize with signature branding
Signature branding refers to the art of personalizing emails with an informative signature. An email signature is the block of text or content at the end of the email that gives information about you. It gives your contact details as well as your company’s contact details. It increases the chances of winning trust and reliability.
We recommend concluding your PR emails with signature branding. Mention who you are, what you do best, your title, and your email, so they can text back. It’s a good idea to include your professional headshot. It gives your audience an idea about who they are talking to.
#5. Never include attachments
How often do you send an email to a stranger with a PDF attached or a supporting image file? We bet the percentage is zero because that is truly one odd thing to do.
So, we recommend avoiding attachments unless you’ve had a chat with the recipient in person or the recipient has agreed to receive such attachments from you.
#6. Opt for mindful targeting
When sending marketing emails, you would send these to everyone on your email list. However, things work a bit differently for the PR emails.
Carefully think about the information you’re giving in the email. Determine the impact it will have on the recipient. If it is favorable for them, share. If you fear you’ll hit the wrong chord, avoid using it.
#7. Add links to landing pages
The least you can achieve out of a PR email is to acquire a visitation to your platform. You can have the recipient visit your website.
So, we recommend making the best of this possibility. Embed links to your landing pages where they can either get to know you even better or advance their relationship with you (I.e., purchase).
Final thoughts
We hope you learned quite a bit from our post. All of our tips above are applicable and recommended for all industries. If you have any queries or feedback to share with us, please drop it in the comments below or share your thoughts with us by email.
