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Email Crisis Communications: How to Adjust Your Marketing Amid the Coronavirus Pandemic

Beefree team
Beefree team
Mar 19, 2020
Email Crisis Communications: How to Adjust Your Marketing Amid the Coronavirus Pandemic
Email Crisis Communications: How to Adjust Your Marketing Amid the Coronavirus Pandemic

Last week, the COVID-19 virus was declared a pandemic and a national emergency in the U.S. This announcement has impacted individuals and companies alike in myriad ways. Many email marketers have had to do an abrupt about-face, unexpectedly switching from spring sale emails to email crisis communications. People are worried. They aren’t interested in lighthearted sales. And it’s important for brands to be cognizant of what’s going on in the world so you can address how your customers are feeling.Struggling to get started with email marketing in a crisis? The following tips will help you connect with your customers throughout the COVID-19 pandemic or during any future state of emergency. And here are 3 free templates for your own email crisis communication.

Express empathy

The most important thing to do is connect with your customers. Acknowledge that this is a stressful time, and we’re all scared. A little empathy can go a long way. In your email, aim to strike a tone of solidarity. Don’t be afraid to get personal and share your own story.That’s what the CEO of Kate Farms did. Kate Farms is a company that makes tube feeding formulas. Many of this brand’s customers are likely immunocompromised or at-risk. CEO Brett sent a personal note to simply let Kate Farms customers know that the company is there for them. Doing this is a great way to humanize your brand.Subject line: A message from Brett, our CEO

email crisis communications

Be optimistic

It’s important to empathize with your customers’ fears — but don’t increase their panic. Email crisis communications should use a calm tone of voice and provide hope. One example we love is from Lunya. This brand acknowledged the pandemic but then moved on, explaining that it wants to use this time to truly connect with customers (that is, from a safe distance).Subject line: We’re in this together

email marketing in a crisis

Provide an update

Email crisis communication should provide your customers with useful information about what your company is doing. Business as usual? Different hours? Closing down temporarily? Offering a practical update will give your customers a sense of stability. Continue sending these emails throughout the crisis to keep your customers in the know regarding when you’ll be back open for good (and how they can access your product or service in the meantime). Petco shared this information through a video update from its CEO.Subject line: COVID-19, a video update from Petco CEO Ron Coughlin 

email crisis communications example

Share safety precautions

If your business will continue operating, share how you’re keeping your customers and employees safe. Steak ‘n Shake emailed its customers with a bulleted list of specific actions and health precautions the company is taking. A similar message can assure your customers that their safety is your top priority.Subject line: We’re committed to your safety.

crisis email marketing

Educate and inform

Take every opportunity to encourage responsible behavior. You may want to offer educational materials to help people learn more about what they should be doing to stay safe during this time. Direct people to reputable sources, like the World Health Organization (WHO), where they can learn more about the virus and the best precautions to take. Delta cited the CDC and WHO in a recent email to Delta flyers.Subject line: Our commitment remains: Your update from Ed Bastian

Delta Coronavirus Crisis Communication Email

Don’t capitalize on tragedy

What you don’t say in your email crisis communications is just as important as what you do. This is not the time to focus on making a profit. Instead, look out for your customers — no strings attached. Nataly from Happier sent out a newsletter sharing a free webinar on a relevant topic, plus other free resources to boot.Subject line: A helpful resource during this tough time 

email crisis communications

Use simple subject lines

When we scroll through our inbox, we’re seeing similar subject lines over and over: “A message from our CEO,” “an update for our customers about covid-19,” or a simple “we’re committed to your safety.” This is not the time to embellish your subject lines with cute emojis or funny puns. Your email crisis communication subject lines should be clear and simple. Make it very clear to your customers what’s inside the email and that you have their backs.

Take peoples’ minds off the stress

Finally, don’t be afraid to put out some lighthearted content such as a quiz, an ebook or a video. Many people feel stressed, worried and afraid right now. Those who are at home self-quarantining or social distancing might also be plain bored — and parents whose kids are out of school are probably in search of activities. Give people something they can use to help pass the time and take their mind off the scary things going on in the world. This colorful email from Tattly Temporary Tattoos shared a list of fun activities for subscribers to enjoy.Subject line: 14 FUN activities to keep yourself busy

email marketing in a crisis

Wrap-up: Email crisis communications

You may feel unprepared for email marketing in a crisis. We want to help you help your customers by spreading helpful information, so we have three crisis email templates designed by Andrea Dall’Ara. All three of these templates are completely free. You can customize the templates in our free email builder and download them as a zip file and use them anywhere, or save them to a free BEE Pro account to reuse them again later--no credit card needed. For more resources, you may also want to check out Email Monday's collection of articles on the topic.Use the Emergency Announcement email template to keep customers informed:

Use this template in Beefree!

Use this template in Beefree!

Give people a way to take action with this Support Fundraising email template, encouraging your customers to stay home and prevent COVID-19 spread.

Use this template in Beefree!

Use this template in Beefree!

Finally, our Stop the Spread email template is perfect for an educational email telling people how to stay safe.

Use this template in Beefree!

Use this template in Beefree!

Use your time at home while social distancing or self-quarantining to send emails that connect with your subscribers and that make an impact. We hope you stay healthy and well during this stressful time!

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What Are Email Security Gateways? A Guide to Secure Communications

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Email is king when it comes to talking directly to your customers. Sure, we might send texts or share voice notes, but we all still check our emails. It’s how we keep in touch with work and the businesses we connect with. 

As an email marketer, this puts you in prime position to get your business’s brand right into the hands of your customers. The problem, however, is that you must first get past the metaphorical guard dog known as the secure email gateway (SEG). 

SEGs use sophisticated methods to identify and block spam and phishing emails from ever entering a person’s inbox. While your email newsletters should go through, that doesn’t necessarily mean they will. That’s why businesses need to know what a secure email gateway is and how it works. Know this key info, and you’ll be able to improve the chances of your emails reaching their destination. 

What are email security gateways? 

Protecting yourself from cyber threats is the basis of all cybersecurity risk assessment services. One of the biggest gaps in any security armor is phishing emails. If they get through and someone clicks a link they shouldn’t have, it’s almost impossible to stop the damage. 

The victim could be anyone. The link could lead to a ransomware virus that holds your data captive or be the start of a data breach. It could even lead to a traditional scam that has you input your credit card details so a thief can steal them. 

For all these reasons and more, email providers consistently invest in security features to help protect their customers. One such feature is an email security gateway. 

A secure email gateway uses AI and machine learning to screen incoming emails, identify spam, and stop it from entering. If there’s any doubt, the system quarantines the email in your spam box for review. 

Why are secure email gateways important?

While we are getting better at filtering out spam emails, an estimated 45.6% of emails sent in 2023 were still spam. This poses a massive security risk for consumers, businesses, and governments alike. 

According to IBM, businesses are hit the hardest, with the global average cost of each successful phishing attack increasing to $4.88M USD. The attacks don’t just hit businesses, either, with attacks targeting individuals and even charities.

Just as phishing and spam emails have become more sophisticated, so have the tools designed to protect against them. All providers, including big names like Gmail, use SEGs to secure communications and other features, such as Gmail’s unsubscribe feature

What do SEGs flag as spam? 

SEGs continually update their parameters. This means that what they check for is constantly in flux. What SEGs look for today, for example, could include: 

  • Strange or suspicious subject lines
  • Highly urgent capitalization or excessive exclamation points
  • Strange URLs
  • Poor grammar and/or spelling
  • Generic greetings that don’t address the recipient 
  • Suspicious email addresses
  • The volume of emails sent at once
  • Attachment types 
  • Image-heavy content 

SEGs are far more advanced than just ticking boxes, but that doesn’t mean your emails can’t get blocked or sent to spam. After all, you might put together a great email campaign, but if your email is too image-heavy, it might get quarantined or sent to spam. 

The good news is that once you know what the SEGs look for, you can work to design better emails. Beefree can help you get started, with a range of templates for responsive email designs.

How to create newsletters with secure email gateways in mind 

The good news is that you can implement and send out most, if not all, of your newsletter ideas without issue. So long as the emails are well-made and are sent at a reasonable frequency, you’ll be golden. 

Start by first improving your security methods

In general, you should always look at ramping up the security measures in your business. You can use one of the top types of risk assessment matrix to understand your business's threats and how to resolve them. Then, since you already have that information, you can use it to create better newsletters and emails. 

Make sure the personalization feature works

One of the biggest red flags for an SEG is a generic greeting. Adding Dear Sir/Madam at the start isn’t going to fly in today’s world. Even if your email gets through, it’s unlikely the recipient will open it. 

That’s why you need personalization. Linking your email marketing tools to your customer relationship management system means you can offer easy personalization, like addressing your customers by name, or even offering personalized recommendations based on their order history. 

Avoid image-only emails 

Image-only emails are tempting for an email marketer. They’re striking, they look good, and you can fine-tune what they look like in Photoshop or another image editor. 

They can also be a red flag for SEGs.

Thankfully, the solution is simple: enrich your emails. The best part about this approach is that it also improves the accessibility. Improving email accessibility will help ensure that all your customers can engage with your emails on their terms. Those emails will also load faster, look great on all devices, and be more engaging. 

Align your emails with the landing pages 

SEGs look out for suspicious links. A link might be suspicious if there’s a misspelling or if the link doesn’t sound like the content in the email. So, how do you ensure that SEGs don’t see any of your links as suspicious? 

You make them predictable. 

An easy way to do this is to create a landing page from an email. On top of aligning the landing page with the content of the newsletter, you’ll want to: 

  • Make a custom URL for every link that matches the content of the page 
  • Ensure there’s no misspelling
  • Don’t use urgent language around your link

Use 2FA to boost security

Do you need 2FA to get past SEGs? No, but it’s a great way to help protect you and your customers. 

You can protect sensitive data by adding user identity verification. For example, a customer may get an order confirmation email but wants to cancel or change the delivery details. Including a two-factor authentication step ensures only the customer can request changes. 

Building in extra security features puts your customers at ease. It also protects your endpoints and, in turn, your business. So, no, you don’t need 2FA to get past SEGs, but it’s worth looking into for you and your customers’ protection. 

Avoid urgency 

Urgency can be a flag for SEGs. So: 

  • DON’T WRITE IN ALL CAPS
  • Minimize the use of exclamation points

Think of the copy in your newsletter as a chance to win over your audience, not scare them into clicking the link. Doing this will improve your relationship with your customers since they’ve come to you on their terms. It’s also essential to get emails past the SEG.

Key takeaways 

Secure email gateways are a primary defense against spam and phishing attacks, but they can pose a problem for email marketers. By working to understand the security risks associated with email scams, you can then understand what your email needs to make it into inboxes. 

From there, you’ll want to make your emails more personable, accessible, and secure. Once you’ve found that sweet spot, your newsletters will be more likely to get past the secure email gateway and into your audience’s inboxes. 

Getting Started with Beefree: A Guide to Streamlined Email and Landing Page Creation

Whether you're designing a newsletter, promoting an event, or driving a marketing campaign, ensuring that your emails and landing pages are visually appealing, engaging, and efficient to produce is no small task. That’s where Beefree comes in.
Beefree team
Beefree team
26 Feb
2025

Creating professional emails and landing pages can be challenging for businesses of all sizes. Whether you're designing a newsletter, promoting an event, or driving a marketing campaign, ensuring that your emails and landing pages are visually appealing, engaging, and efficient to produce is no small task. That’s where Beefree comes in.

Beefree is a robust tool for designing emails and landing pages with ease, offering templates, automation features, and seamless integrations. Regardless of your industry or goal, Beefree empowers you to craft high-quality communication and marketing materials quickly and effectively. By providing an intuitive and user-friendly experience, it helps businesses transform their creative ideas into polished campaigns without requiring extensive technical expertise.

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Why use Beefree for professional email campaigns?

Before we jump into the nitty-gritty of using Beefree, let's quickly go over why this tool is worth your time. There are a lot of email marketing tools out there, but Beefree stands out from the crowd for a reason. Let’s break down the unique benefits that make it an invaluable asset for anyone serious about email marketing:

Design made easy:

According to HubSpot, well-designed emails can drive open rates as high as 30%. Maybe you’re following up with leads from a recent webinar or you want to reach potential clients after a product launch. But you're finding yourself stuck because crafting professional emails and landing pages that capture attention is no easy feat.

With Beefree’s intuitive design tools and a library of over 1,700 templates tailored for various industries and purposes, you can achieve professional results without the guesswork. The wide variety of pre-designed options ensures that you can find a solution that aligns perfectly consistent with your brand.

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Time-saving features:

Speed is key, especially if you’re running time-sensitive campaigns. Beefree simplifies the design process with reusable content blocks, real-time collaboration tools, and the ability to transform emails into landing pages with a single click. These features enable you to produce high-quality materials in less time, allowing you to focus on strategy and content rather than struggling with technicalities.

According to a Beefree report, 82% of users report faster email creation. The ability to save and sync reusable content blocks means you can replicate what’s working without reinventing the wheel each time. Once you find a winning format, you can use it again and again with minor tweaks to fit the audience or campaign.

Maybe you’re following up with leads from a recent webinar or you want to reach potential clients after a product launch. With Beefree’s templates, you can get those messages out quickly and make sure your brand stays top-of-mind for your audience.
Using email cadence software like QuickMail ensures that outreach campaigns maintain a structured and effective flow, preventing overwhelming inboxes while keeping engagement high.

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Increased engagement:

A significant 64% of Beefree users report an 11% or more increase in click-through rates after using the platform. By enhancing the visual appeal and personalization of your emails, Beefree helps you achieve better engagement with your audience. The ability to test and iterate your designs ensures continuous improvement in performance.

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Getting started with Beefree templates

Alright, now that you know why Beefree is so powerful, let’s talk about how you can get started with their massive library of templates. This section will walk you through choosing and customizing a template that works for you.

1. Choose your template

The first thing you want to do is pick a template. Beefree’s catalog has templates for just about every sector—whether you're in retail, healthcare, SaaS, you name it. With a variety of options, you can find something that suits your goals perfectly, whether for a simple newsletter or detailed marketing report templates. Say you're promoting a webinar—just pick a template that’s built to highlight your CTAs, and you're off to the races.

The best part? You’re not starting from scratch. You save hours by picking a pre-designed template, and then it’s just a matter of customizing it to fit your brand. Beefree's templates are super flexible—add or remove elements, change colors, switch up the fonts, rearrange layouts—make each email uniquely yours without the hassle. This flexibility is especially beneficial for maintaining a low code architecture in website design.

2. Personalize

Consistency is key to building trust, and when your emails have a cohesive look, it helps recipients recognize your brand. It is also important to follow a brand style guide for your email campaigns so that the audiences can associate elements like your logo, colors, and fonts easily with your brand.

When using a template, customization is key to making your emails and landing pages feel unique and relevant. With Beefree’s drag-and-drop editor, you can easily tweak templates to align with your branding. Adjust colors, fonts, and layouts, or add personalized content such as recipient names and company details. The flexibility ensures that your final output is as distinctive as your brand’s voice.

Plus, with so many people opening emails or landing pages on mobile devices, Beefree’s mobile design builder guarantees that they look great no matter what device they’re on. When your emails look good, people trust your brand more, and that makes them more likely to click through and take action.

Personalization isn’t just a nice touch; it’s essential for engagement. According to Campaign Monitor, personalized subject lines can increase open rates by 26%. By tailoring your designs to speak directly to your audience, you can create a more impactful experience. Furthermore, the platform’s collaborative features allow team members to provide input and make edits in real-time, enhancing efficiency and creativity.

1. Export

So, you’ve picked and customized your template—now it’s time to send those emails.

One of the coolest things about Beefree is that it plays nice with just about every major email platform out there—Mailchimp, HubSpot, Outlook, Quickmail—you name it. This means you can create a killer email in Beefree, connect it to your favorite email platform, and schedule it all from one place. For more advanced needs, many businesses choose a CRM with email integration, to seamlessly combine customer management and automated outreach.

Start designing for free

Beefree simplifies the process of creating visually appealing, professional emails and landing pages, saving you time and boosting engagement. Whether you’re looking to streamline your workflow or enhance your marketing efforts, Beefree offers the tools and flexibility to meet your needs.

The best part? You’ll save time and see increased engagement, connecting with your audience in a meaningful way. In a world where everyone’s fighting for inbox space, Beefree helps you stay ahead of the game by simplifying the process while delivering professional results. So, why wait? Dive into Beefree today and see how it can transform your email campaigns.

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