The First Rule of Email Automation is....you don't talk about Tiger King
Cultural references can make you look cool.
Or, they can make you look as dated as a wallpaper border.
When you are building an automated email sequence, including of the moment cultural mentions can be more slippery than the hallway floor in Risky Business.
I get it. Dropping something we all love right now into a message can seem like the easiest way to inject personality into your automated email sequences.
But don’t do it.
In case you’re reading this in 2032, this is Joe Exotic - a.k.a. the Tiger King - cultural phenom of the early months of the 2020 COVID 19 pandemic. See also: Carole Baskin.
Good email automation is designed to be evergreen
Meaning it’s an asset you build for your business to take repetitive emails off your plate. You want these automated emails to be fun, engaging, and customer-focused…but you also want them to have a decent run time before they need a major overhaul.
You can see how dropping a too relevant right now cultural touchpoint into a sequence might actually shorten its shelf life.
But there are other things you’ll want to leave out as well:
references to specific dates unless they have real significance (like a company founding date)
mentions of the weather
chit chat about holidays
banging on about big news stories
dropping data points that might be discredited or subject to change with or without notice
Don’t you…forget about me
While an autoresponder series is designed to have some run time, nothing in life - except your Ronco Showtime Rotisserie & BBQ - is “set it and forget it”. While you may not have to change the copy in your emails, you will want to set a task to review your autoresponder series any time you update a “triggering event” like your order process, product line, or contact details.
Since your automated emails are the ones that are most likely to be opened by your prospects and customers, you don’t want to create any barriers or friction in building the relationship or making the sale.
And there is nothing that frustrates people more than broken links or wonky processes.
Don’t forget to check your autoresponders any time you change an aspect of your process. Your links want you to know you didn’t break them.
In addition to the periodic process check, you also want to see how your autoresponder is faring out in the inbox by keeping an eye on analytics that help track and measure aspects of a campaign’s success. If you see a point in a sequence where open or click rates drop dramatically? It could indicate either a subject line isn’t landing or an email isn’t serving your customer’s needs. Take a look at it and see where you might be able to polish it up to improve its performance. It’s easy to refresh a single email in a sequence if you know where you might need a tune-up.
So…where can I use all these cultural references to make me look cool?
Anything hip, happening, and hot now like a Krispy Kreme donut is best used in a broadcast or one off email you send to your list. In fact, using things that are going on right now are basically the proof of life that you’re alive, a real human, and aware of the world around you…not strictly an automated reply robot.
Because while autoresponders have a huge place in your business, they serve a totally different purpose than daily emails do.
Go all Tuesday, Tiger King, and week before Thanksgiving in your daily email to your people. They’ll love you for it.
photo credit: pscf11 @ flickr
Wrap It Up (I’ll Take It)
When you build an autoresponder series, remember, it’s a long term business asset you deploy so you can better leverage your time and give your prospects and customers the information they need to connect, convert, and create loyalty to your business or product.
The information contained in each email is valuable and relevant for them and works for the way you do business for a good long time.
Leave your passion for today’s pop culture for your not Memorex moments (that’s live for everyone born after the era of cassette tapes).
Screengrab of Ferris Bueller from screenrant.com (where they got it? I don’t know but as a proud Gen X-er, I say “thanks for the memories John Hughes”.)
You’re still here? It’s over. Go home.
Or get on my schedule if you want to talk about building a great autoresponder sequence for your business. That’s fine too.
Because life moves pretty fast. If you don’t have the right autoresponder series in place, you could miss it.