Your email campaigns should match your brand’s look and feel. If you’re using a template, you might want to customize it to include your company’s colors and logo in the header. If your emails are consistent with the rest of your company’s content, then readers will feel more familiar from the start. [Forbes]

Everyone knows that a story always sticks in our minds. No matter how long ago we might have heard a children’s story, we still remember it today. That’s because stories are simply communicated. They have a natural rhythm to them and they’re more personal to us than simply stated principles or facts. Perhaps this is the reason why storytelling has become a must-have in modern marketing. Any brand that doesn’t have a story, not only becomes irrelevant – they become forgettable. Enter brand journalism. According to BrandJournalists.com, brand journalism “involves telling journalism-style stories about a company that make readers want to know more, stories that don’t read like marketing or advertising copy. It means having conversations with your customer – not preaching at them or bombarding them with bullet points, but giving them real and interesting stories they can relate to.” [Benchmark Email]

A regular newsletter is a commitment. If you go several months without sending anything, then your subscribers will forget about you, and they’ll be more likely to delete the next email, or worse, mark it as spam. Make time to plan, write, design, and send your newsletters regularly. [Forbes]

For the sake of example, let’s say you own a dog grooming business which includes a blog centered around grooming, feeding, and more dog care advice. 2,000 people have signed up to receive your weekly email newsletter. So what can you do to make sure this semi-new audience stays loyal and interested in your content? Construct a follow-up series. A follow-up series is a string of emails, created in advance, set to automatically go out at a specific time. Your “welcome” email may have been first in the series. A coupon for 15% off of any grooming service may come a week later. Using the stockpile of content we talked about in Part 1, set up a few weeks worth of email newsletters to show your customers what you’re all about and to provide them with information and deals that’ll keep them wanting more. These automated emails will give you peace of mind as you’ll feel more organized and relaxed knowing that your customers are, in a sense, taken care of. You can focus on other aspects of your business knowing that each new person who signs up for your emails is being sent excellent content that you created just for them. With a steady stream of emails filled with pertinent information, they’ll see your business for what it is: professional, reliable, and dedicated to its customers. At this point, your audience will begin to trust you more. [HuffPo]

Messaging allows for consistency and it helps you keep focused when exploring various approaches to email marketing content. Think of messaging as the thread and each campaign as the bead; the two should meet at every point, allowing for a connected string of email communication.