Step by Step Guide to a Successful Email Teaser Campaign

Imagine a situation where your email subscribers are so excited about your upcoming product that they ‘line up’ in anticipation to grab it.

That’s every online marketer’s dream come true!

The truth is, it’s one thing to build a good, solid list. But, creating buzz for your product to the extent that people are raving to buy it is something else altogether.

Although it is quite underutilized, an email teaser campaign is an incredibly powerful tool for warming up your subscribers for a successful product launch. Instead of surprising your list with a product for sale, you will receive a better response if you build anticipation and prepare them for the big, grand opening.

Here are the basic guiding principles for setting up an effective email teaser campaign:

Map out your story

The best teaser campaigns, whether done one TV, social media or email have an underlying story; the story creates suspense and eagerness for your product.

Power tip: It’s important to first determine whether your product/service can be gradually unveiled in a series of emails. Some products such as a website, a product with different features or perhaps a book could work great with an email teaser campaign.

Generally, a compelling story is made up of four parts:

The first email: This is also known as the teaser email. It is like the cover of the book, only half revealed. This initial email can make use of compelling graphics or just a few lines of content to pique your subscribers’ interest. Including the launch date, for example, is a good way to elicit anticipation for what is to come.

The introductory email:  This second email is designed to get the subscribers to decide whether they are interested in the campaign and to continue receiving the subsequent emails. Use appropriate content formats including images and texts to highlight the best features of your product. Most importantly, show your subscribers the value they will receive from the product.

The near-peak email: This middle part of the email series has the goal of maintaining interest and increasing the level of excitement. A good way to do this is sending out visually compelling messages focusing on one feature of the product at time. You do not have to highlight all the features- just a few will be enough to boost the excitement.

The launch– This is the email that unveils your products. At this point, your audience should have been engrossed with the story and are happy to finally see the product. This final email should also be visually compelling and dramatic without losing the goal of the campaign—to encourage subscribers to undertake a conversion event.

Other essential tips to incorporate in your email campaign are:

Create subject lines that elicit eagerness and suspense– Your subject lines will impact on the open rates. Precise, descriptive subject lines will get more subscribers to follow the campaign from start to finish. Avoid spammy subject lines that include words such as ‘free’ ‘discount’, ‘sale’ etc.

Do not lose out on your mobile audience: Design is certainly very important for a successful teaser campaign. Ensure that your emails are in a format that is easily accessible via mobile devices. Over 50% of your audience is likely viewing email on their smartphones. HTML, Plain Text and HTML without image are user-friendly format for mobile.

Include a call to action: Your campaign is incomplete without a call to action that will trigger a specific conversion. Ideally, your call to action should be included in your first series of emails especially if you want subscribers to commit early before the product launch. It is acceptable to have more than one call to action but each should support the campaign’s goals.

Email Teaser Campaigns

Your story is certainly the most important part of the teaser campaign. Without a compelling story, you will not have succeeded in creating excitement and building expectation for your product. A clear understanding of your goals will help you to create relevant and engaging content for your campaign as well as craft actionable calls to action that will boost conversions.