Writing for an automated campaign and writing for a one-off email is very different. In this post, we’re going to talk about one of my favorite email marketing terms; evergreen content (can’t you just smell the fresh trees? Oh, wait, wrong evergreens 
Evergreen vs. time-sensitive content
Evergreen content is content that is good for any subscriber, regardless of when they sign up to your list. You don’t want to include any time-sensitive content in an email that goes out automatically, because if someone signs up and the date of that time-sensitive content has passed, then the information is useless to them. For example, take a look at this Campaign:
Email #1 – Welcome to our email club!
Email #2 – Any questions, let us know
Email #3 – All products on our site 50% in April!
Email #4 – Let’s get shopping – our full product list
See the dilemma? In Email #3, we sent out a message that talked about a sale happening this month; but what happens when this month ends? Well, if this is set up as our automated campaign, that email will either keep going out whenever anyone signs up (even after April has passed and the sale is over), or we’ll have to go into our Campaign and manually change that. Sure, we could do the latter, but that kind of defeats the purpose of automated emails, doesn’t it?
Start with a welcome email
Here’s a great example of a welcome email from Wistia:
What does the above email do right?
- It’s warm and welcoming
- There’s a link to contact them
- There are also links to their site, blog and even Twitter
In summary – this email welcomes you, offers reassurance by giving you a way to contact them if you need help, and makes it easy to navigate the content that they offer.
So what is evergreen content?
Let’s say we run a business, I don’t know, we’ll call it AWeber. AWeber is a service that provides solutions to email marketing needs. What would a campaign look like, say one that goes out to new AWeber customers, and made up entirely of evergreen content?
Email #1 – Welcome to AWeber!
Email #2 – Here’s the 5 things you need to know about email marketing
Email #3 – Need help? We’re a phone call or click away!
Email #4 – Set up your first Campaign
Here we’re delivering useful content, and it doesn’t matter when someone sign up to our list; the content will still be useful to them.
Learn more about creating evergreen content here.
Have an end goal
Your automated series probably won’t go on forever. With that in mind, you’ll want to include some type of call-to-action during and at the end of your campaign. Consider what your campaign has been about, and what it’s been building up to. Are you trying to build a community? Sell something? That will impact what your call to action will be.
Here’s a great example of a call-to-action email from LeadPages:
What does the above email do right?
- It gets right to the point – not too wordy
- Multiple calls-to-action
- Links to their blog
In summary – This email gets straight to the point, reinforcing the reason to click the call-to-action (love the multiple calls-to-action as well) and invites you to continue the conversation on their blog.
Resources for creating your automated email campaign
- How to get started with email automation
- How to create an awesome welcome campaign
- How to use autoresponders to write an email course
Want to learn more about writing for an automated Campaign?
Be sure to join us this Tuesday, April 26th at 3pm ET for our webinar where we’ll talk more about writing for your automated Campaign!
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