While many have gone the extra mile to create an ideal email marketing campaign, others see it as a chore. Why? Because developing a strategy for email marketing takes time and requires research.
Email marketing is a proven approach to building and maintaining relationships with customers. Studies show that even if you send a promotional email every month, you’ll retain 49% of your subscribers for five years (vs. 30% for those who send out monthly emails regularly).
The advantages of email marketing
Email marketing offers several advantages.
To start, you have complete control over the content of your emails. You can choose to send information that’s relevant to your target audience, or you can pitch products that they might like.
You can also personalize your emails and make them more relevant to each recipient. For example, you can add a company logo or a personalized message for each person on your list.
You can measure the success of your email marketing strategy by looking at the open, click-through, and conversion rates of your emails. Like any other marketing channel, you can measure the efficiency of your campaigns and analyze the results to determine the precise content that resonates with your audience.
Let’s take a closer look at email marketing to gain a clearer understanding of how to approach this powerful tool in your marketing stack.
Types of emails
There are three types of emails you’ll typically want to send as part of your strategy.
Promotional
These are the emails you’ll want to send to gain subscribers and turn them into customers. Typically, promotional emails will include a combination of the following:
- Product information – such as pricing and features
- Useful links to other content
- A special discount or offer for subscribing (e.g. ‘Subscribe to our mailing list and receive a free upgrade to XXX product’)
- An opt-in form to sign up for more information (i.e. ‘Click here to subscribe to our newsletter and receive special offers’ )
The idea is to encourage subscribers to click-through to your website and make a purchase. To get the most out of your promotion, use tools like Unbounce to create personalized email campaigns based on your target audience – and integrate your email marketing with your other marketing platforms like Facebook and Google Ads.
Educational
People often neglect the power of email in favor of social media. However, educating your audience with beneficial information via email can prove to be more successful than you’d think. For example, studies show that people who read an article and then receive an email with a related video learn more than those who only receive the information in the traditional form.
The best part of an education-focused email is that you can tailor the content to suit your target audience. If someone is interested in graphic design, you can provide them with a detailed description of how to use Photoshop to create a specific styled product mock-up. Or if someone is looking for fitness tips, you can educate them on how to properly workout with different exercises and diets.
Sales
Once you have a good amount of subscribers, you can start to drive sales via email. Send out a series of emails with special offers and discounts for products that interest your audience. The idea behind this type of email is to get subscribers to click-through to your site and make a purchase. However, you have to be careful not to go overboard with discounts and offers since this could cause your subscriber to dismiss your emails as spam.
How to develop an effective email strategy
To get the most out of your email marketing strategy, you need to follow a certain set of steps.
First, sit down and make a list of the products and services you offer. If you’re struggling to come up with ideas, you can use online tools like BuzzSumo to discover key words and phrases people are using to find your products. If you’re looking to grow your email list, you can use tools like MailChimp to create automated email campaigns based on existing contacts or opt-in forms.
Once you have your product listing, you can move onto the next step – which is to research the advantages and disadvantages of email marketing. Are there any industry-specific regulations you have to follow? Is there any particular language you need to use when pitching? What are the best platforms for sending out your messages?
To help you figure out the best approach to email marketing, here are some of the top email marketing tips you need to follow:
Personalized emails
People have different behaviors and responses to marketing emails. Some prefer to read lengthy emails with a lot of text and few attachments. While others want to skim the subjects of the emails and hit “reply all” without reading the contents.
If you are sending out mass emails, it’s a good idea to examine the demographics and psychographics of your audience to determine the most effective messaging strategy. For example, if you notice women make up a majority of your list, you can tailor your messaging to appeal more to them (e.g. “Hey there, gorgeous! Don’t forget – we have a special offer for you…”). Or if you know your audience is made up of digital nomads who like to stay in touch with the latest trends, you can keep them engaged with content like blog posts or social media updates.
Subject line
Just like with social media, the subject line of your email is crucial to your message’s success. To have your email opened and clicked-through by the recipient, you need to incorporate a few key phrases into your subject line. But the tricky part is not coming up with the keyword phrases you’ll need, it’s finding enough viable ideas that people will actually click-through to your email.
You can use tools like Google Keyword Planner to find the keywords and phrases people are using to find your products. Or, you can enter your email address into KeywordTool.io and it will return a list of “long-tail” keywords that are specific to your email.
Your subject line should not be too long. Ideally, you want something short and snappy that will make your email stand out.
Content
The content of your email is just as important as the subject line. This is where you’ll want to describe the benefits of your product or service to potential customers. Studies show that people have a short attention span and will quickly scroll past any content that isn’t vital to their goal – so make sure your email’s content is easy to consume.
You can use an email marketing tool like MailChimp to create and send basic newsletters. Or, if you want to get a bit more creative, you can create automated emails using platforms like HubSpot to schedule and send out emails at regular intervals. Don’t get fancy and use a newsletter subscription form – you’ll end up with a large amount of unsubscribed emails that you’ll need to go through manually to get rid of them.
Call to action
At the end of your email (after your signature), you need to provide the reader with a clear call-to-action that will guide them to take action. What do you want your subscribers to do?
The CTA can vary from sending out a simple newsletter sign-up form, to distributing a flyer, to promoting a specific product or service, or creating an account. Your call-to-action should coincide with your email’s content – if you’ve laid out the benefits of your product or service in the content, then your CTA should follow suit. If you’ve got multiple call-to-actions in your email, you can create a landing page with a single CTA that will guide them to take action – though having more than one CTA can be beneficial as well.
Format
Your email’s format doesn’t matter as much as you think it does. For the most part, consumers can ignore the aesthetics of an email and focus on the messages within. This being said, you can choose to use specific formatting such as aligning text to create a modern or informal atmosphere – or you can choose to use bold or italic typeface to emphasize words or phrases within your email.
If you want to create a classic look, you can use a service like AWeber to integrate your email distribution with a newsletter sign-up form on your website. Then, you can use a free tool like MailChimp to create your newsletter and send out regularly.