{"id":3822,"date":"2020-03-16T00:00:00","date_gmt":"2020-03-16T00:00:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.litmus.com\/blog\/6-tips-sending-effective-email-crisis\/"},"modified":"2024-12-20T11:20:50","modified_gmt":"2024-12-20T16:20:50","slug":"6-tips-sending-effective-email-crisis","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.litmus.com\/blog\/6-tips-sending-effective-email-crisis","title":{"rendered":"6 Tips on Sending Effective Email During a Crisis"},"content":{"rendered":"

With the emergence of the coronavirus (COVID-19), brands are being forced to quickly act and adapt to a situation that changes daily. <\/span>Email is the most powerful channel to stay connected to your customers<\/span><\/a>, so brands are turning to their email marketing teams to keep customers and prospects informed\u2014and to build trust in times of uncertainty.<\/span><\/p>\n

Is your inbox already filled with notifications about COVID-19? Ours are, too. With the influx of emails related to the topic, subscribers are growing skeptical of the messages they are receiving, and rightfully so. Unfortunately, we run the risk of alienating our communities by “marketing as usual” during trying times.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

Now more than ever, it is important that your email messages align with best practices and that your messages are error-free.<\/strong><\/p>\n

Whether you need to send messages about impact to events, inventory, services, or to simply say things are operating as usual, here are some hands-on tips you should follow to make sure the emails you send in times of a crisis are error-free and build trust in stressful times\u2014even if your team needs to send them ad-hoc.<\/span><\/p>\n

1. Validate Your Sender Name and Preview Text.<\/h2>\n

While it\u2019s sensible that many of these messages are sent on behalf of a company\u2019s leader, ensure the sending email address is properly authenticated and the sender name (or from name) also shows the association to your company. For example \u201c<\/span>John Jones (CEO, Company Name)<\/strong> <hello@companyname.com>\u201d. <\/span>In addition, you can use the preview text<\/a> to help increase your open rates by leveraging this field to further reassure your audience this is a legitimate message from your organization.<\/span><\/p>\n

Optimize your preview text and avoid the dreaded \u201cif you are having problems with this email\u201d or \u201cclick here to view online\u201d text showing up in the inbox. Instead, use a descriptive preview text that supports your subject line and\u2014as the name suggests\u2014provides a preview of the content your subscribers will find in your email. With our <\/span>Ultimate Guide to Preview Text Support<\/span><\/a> you can get some guidance on how to optimize your preview text.<\/span><\/p>\n

2. Avoid only using an image for your message.<\/h2>\n

Sending an <\/span>email that\u2019s made up entirely of images<\/span><\/a> will prevent screen readers, or subscribers who have images turned off, from viewing your messages. The email user has come to understand that an email with mostly text is warranted for this type of message and many times we have seen plain text messages outperform heavily-formatted emails.<\/span><\/p>\n

3. Avoid unnecessary calls-to-action.<\/h2>\n

If you include unnecessary calls-to-action or secondary messages, you risk diminishing the genuineness of your message<\/span>. Do include<\/span><\/em> a point of reference should they want to read more information or simply navigate to your website.<\/span><\/p>\n

4. Be mindful of your segments.<\/h2>\n

Not everyone in your list may need to receive a notification about what your company is doing about the recent events. There is a lot of noise at the moment, so you want to make sure your message resonates and that it\u2019s not just another message capitalizing on the current situation. For example: if you\u2019re a retailer and some of your local stores are closing as a precautionary measure, make sure you\u2019re segmenting your list by geolocation to ensure you\u2019re only notifying the subscribers who\u2019re impacted by this update.<\/span><\/p>\n

5. Keep a close eye on your deliverability metrics.<\/h2>\n

With the increase in overall volume that is being sent out, we have started to see changes in email filtering as email clients are trying to process the incoming messages. Here are a few tips to help keep your deliverability strong:<\/span>
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