by Dorottya Dvorak 
Working as an email marketer can be challenging these days, and you might find yourself frequently pondering the same questions. How can we increase the engagement of our prospects? What is the secret of sending successful emails? I find that these questions can be answered the best with the 5W’s of Communication model.
This scientific analysis could empower you to send successful emails by answering a few simple questions:
1. Why
Why do you need to send this email?
Whether you are sending a simple one-off list email, or building a nurture program, this is the first thing you should think about. What is the desired outcome of your email? It could be anything from nurturing leads, expanding accounts or even showcasing your teams knowledge, just to mention a few.
Yes, very often marketers can be executioners of pre-planned campaigns, but even then it is essential to realise what you will do with engaged prospects after the email is sent. That is your goal and why it is important prospects receive this email from you.
2. Who
Who should receive your email?
If you know what to expect from your prospects, it will be easier to identify who should receive the email. And that is where segmentation comes in.
Think about a scenario: you’re running a webinar introducing a new solution in a specific product line. With a series of emails, you would like to get your existing customers interested and keen to discuss next steps with your sales team. Emailing your entire database might be the easiest solution, but it won’t be the most effective. You could build a dynamic list instead with the following logic:
- CRM status is ‘Contact’
- Previous purchase / Product interest in that specific product line
- Activity in the past 6 / 12 months
This way you might send your invite to fewer people, but your message will be more personalised and optimised to your ideal target audience.
3. When
When should prospects receive it?
Now that you know who you will target and why, you can decide when to send the email. Is there any particular time that works best for your audience? In terms of best times to send emails, there are many recommendations from research, but that is not all you should consider.
- Do you have a specific timeline for your campaign?
- Are there any other emails sent to the same audience during that timeframe?
- What time does your sales / accounts team prefer for client communications?
Having internal discussions can help you evaluate the most effective timings for your audience. Furthermore, by building frequency & recency rules you can control your email strategy easily.
4. Where
Where will your prospects read your email?
Depending on when your emails are sent, your prospects can access them from different locations – physical or virtual.
Let’s say your team decided that they will send the email in the evening. When you look at the Pardot email send report the next day, you might notice that 40% of your prospects actually opened the email on mobile. That is something you might expect from reading up on mobile email stats, but one thing’s for sure – you need to make sure your email is optimised for mobile.
Your first and most important step should be to build responsive email templates in Pardot, so that your email looks great in all providers. In case you need help, contact our team and we can build it together.
5. What
What should you include in the email?
You have your goal, target audience, send timeline and email template, so finally you can get started with the content.
When you compile your email copy there is a lot to think about, but I think the most important is to know who you are talking to. With great features in Pardot you can personalise your prospects’ experience even further, so consider using HML conditions or Dynamic Content.
I always recommend to my customers to be specific with their email content, as generally people spend about 10 seconds reading an email. That means you have very little time to grab their attention and focus it to your desired outcome. Although it might seem like a rather impossible task, it is not, you just need to imagine what your prospects need to hear.
+1 How
How will you send that email?
Your segmentation and email is ready, and you’re excited to see how it will perform. Before you click on Send, think about how you will send the email. Should it be a one-off list email triggered manually, or an automated nurture? It all depends on everything you read in this article and a bit more.
List email sends are perfect for one-time emails, when your team expects a quick turnaround. Automated nurture, on the other hand, is something you should plan out ahead of time, as it will run automatically without your control.
Either way, if you consider the 5+1 steps in this post, you can send successful emails easily in no time. We have seen many great success stories of email strategy in Pardot, get in touch, together we can find the one that will work for you.