Email Marketing: 2 Essential Customer Motivations You Must Understand to Generate Effective Content

Social media and mobile marketing are hot topics. As well they should be. Both of these technologies have transformed the way people communicate, find information, and even live their lives.

And while they can be effective marketing tactics, no doubt, they have an inherent flaw. They are, essentially, transient.

Social media is like a pebble moving down a stream

If you look at the right time, you will see it. If not, it could easily pass by unnoticed.

Many mobile tactics, like mobile ads for example, have to compete not only with whatever else is on the mobile page or in the mobile app, but also with all of the distractions in the physical world. The couple arguing in the park. The cable car scooting down the hill in front of me.

Email, on the other hand, makes people stop and forces them to act. It is more like the bridge across the stream – you can choose to cross it or you can choose to avoid it, but you must act.

This action may simply be deleting something from an inbox without even opening, but it is still an action. You can’t ignore it.

In an age of distraction, perhaps that’s why B2C marketers told MarketingSherpa the estimated ROI from their email marketing programs is 114% (feel free to use that chart if you’re trying to get budget approval, by the way).

But what is email, really?

Email is simply a bucket you must fill

Email, itself, does not have any value. It’s just a container. You must fill it with value. And enough value to keep getting permission from your audience to send them more email.

I’ve found that many marketers struggle with how to create this content. You can learn more about producing engaging email content in this full webinar replay.

While that webinar replay has many helpful tips and technique, today on OfferChat I wanted to focus on the two essential customer motivations you must understand to generate valuable content to fill your email marketing, and really any other content marketing, with.

First, let’s start by asking the fundamental question – what is content marketing?

Content marketing is a reflection of the value of your product or offer

Customers buy from you to get value. It could be the value of protecting their eyes and looking stylish in a pair of sunglasses. Or the value of getting fresh, local, organic food delivered to their door.

Your content marketing is a reflection of that value. It’s a level of value you can deliver to them before they buy anything (or even if they don’t buy at all). You may think of, for example, your content-filled email newsletter as giving these potential customers value for free.

But you’re not. They’re paying with their time and attention and giving you permission to be in their inbox.

You then leverage this attention with the related upsell to your paid product.

Unlike relying solely on paid media, you own the means of communication with your audience (in this example, your email list). And through your investments in content, you’re building trust with your potential customers and showing them the value they can expect if they choose to purchase from you.

You’re essentially reflecting light from your product to hint at the hidden value of your products. After all, customers don’t know the quality of your sunglasses. But if you constantly deliver high-quality email newsletters and other content, they begin to trust you as a high-quality provider.

Your content should revolve around the two main motivations your customers have.

Customers want to overcome pain

They want to protect their house in a tropical storm, protect their face from the sun to avoid lines and wrinkles, keep their house safe from being burglarized.

So if you sell a home alarm system, for example, your real product isn’t a bunch of sensors and wires. It’s safety and security.

All of your content should focus on safety and security. Email newsletter topics could include:

• How to secure your house before a trip
• Interviews with detectives sharing light on how a burglar chooses a house to target
• Tips on starting your own neighborhood watch program

This content reflects light from and back onto your ultimate paid product – the sensors and wires of the product you sell.

Customers want to achieve a goal

They want to check items off their bucket list. . . meet the man or woman of their dreams. . . get in shape and eat healthy.

All of your content should revolve around this goal your customers are trying to achieve. For example, if you run the aforementioned local, organic fruit and vegetable delivery service in Jacksonville, Florida, your email newsletter topics might be:

• What the heck is kohlrabi and what recipes can I use it in?
• The three healthiest fruits and vegetables that can grow in Jacksonville
• Top 10 vegetarian restaurants in Jacksonville

How are you helping your customers?

Do you help your customers overcome a pain point or achieve a goal? Once you’ve figured that out, what are you really selling (hint: it’s not plastic sunglasses or speaker wire)?

Use this knowledge to create email newsletters, and other content marketing, that reflects the value of your paid products to build a marketing asset – your email list, social media accounts, and other earned media platforms you yourself create – and ultimately achieve your marketing goals.