Email marketing is the unsung hero of the digital marketing world.
It’s one of the most effective ways to reach your target audience, and it can be used for everything from building brand awareness to driving sales, increasing website traffic and more.
If you want to take your business to the next level, email marketing is a must-have tool in your arsenal. You’d be surprised that it can be quite affordable, easy to use, and incredibly powerful.
In this article, we’ll take a look at how email marketing works and discuss some tips on how to get the most out of your email marketing campaigns.
Email Marketing Defined
Email marketing is a form of direct marketing that uses email to communicate with potential and current customers. Email marketing can be used to:
- Promote special sales and new products
- Keep in touch with your customer base
- Build stronger customer loyalty
- Encourage your customers to return to your business time and time again
But in order to achieve your desired goals for email marketing, it’s important to strategize and execute them properly. Otherwise, your marketing emails could end up in the spam folder of your target consumers, resulting in a lower click through rate. And this is just one of the easiest ways of falling short.
So exactly how does email marketing work?
Taking what we’ve mentioned above on the ways that email marketing can be used for, email marketing works by sending out commercial, engaging, informative and useful messages, typically to a segmented group of repeat customers or potential buyers, using an email marketing automation platform (or email service providers). What’s great about email marketing is that you can get creative with the types of messages that can be sent, whether that’s promoting your products or services or giving a quick update to keep the connection or relationship with your customer going.
But there are volumes of inputs that go beyond such a process. In the next sections of this blog post, we’ll be breaking down some email marketing tips, as well as providing a checklist for when you get started on your email marketing campaign.
Email Marketing Tips
Thoroughly Segment Your Email List
One of the most important things you should do for your email campaign is to segment your email list. Segmenting your list allows you to target specific groups of people with content that is relevant to them. This helps you to improve your open rates and click through rates, as people are more likely to be interested in the content you are sending them.
But how do you segment your email list?
There are a number of different ways you can segment your list, and although the best way to do it will depend on your business and its audience, we’ve broken down some general approaches that you may want to try.
Demographics
One way to segment your email list is by demographics such as location, age, gender, or income level. This allows you to send targeted emails that are relevant to your different groups of subscribers.
Interests
Another way to segment your email list is by interests. This could include people who have signed up for your newsletter, those who have made a purchase from your store, or those who have visited your website multiple times.
Engagement
You can also segment your email list by engagement. To go about this, consider people who open and click through your emails, as well as those who have enquired about specific products or services.
Behaviour
Apart from interests and engagement, another way to segment your email list is by behaviour. The people who have abandoned their shopping cart can be sent an email reminder to purchase an alternative item or the product they abandoned. You can also include those who haven’t made a purchase in a while or those who have been inactive for a period of time.
Preferences
Finally, you can segment your email list by preferences. This includes people who prefer certain types of content, such as videos or articles, or those who prefer to receive emails at certain times of the day.
Segmenting your email list is indeed necessary as it is a great way to improve your email marketing. By dividing your list into smaller groups, you can target each group with more relevant content and in return, your readers will appreciate and enjoy what you offer.
If you are not sure how to segment your email list, or which segments would be most beneficial for your business, consider working with us today! We’ll be able to help you create targeted segments and develop an email marketing strategy that is tailored to your specific needs.
Personalise Your Emails
Email personalisation is one effective way to increase open rates, click through rates and even conversion rates. When you, for example, address someone by name in an email, it makes the recipient feel special and important. It also shows that you’ve taken the time to personalise the email specifically for them.
Personalising your emails will make them stand out in the recipient’s inbox and will show that you’re willing to go the extra mile to make your recipients feel that they are valued consumers of your brand. In fact, this simple effort can drive more traffic to your website and even help generate sales. As more subscribers will remember your business as an establishment that actually sees its customers and their needs.
So whether you’re releasing promotional emails as a means to garner more purchases for the season or sending a simple welcome email to new subscribers, your emails should be personalised. With an abundance of email service providers to choose from, you’d be surprised at the templates they offer that you can use for customising the perfect email.
If you don’t exactly know how to add a personalised touch to your emails, not to worry, we’ll be diving into the ways you can personalise your marketing emails.
Use the Recipient’s Name in the Subject Line
You can opt to include the recipient’s name in the subject line. This is a simple way to make an email feel more personal as you are addressing them prior to presenting your message.
Add the Recipient’s Name in the Opening Sentence
Next, try using the recipient’s name in the opening sentence of your email if this is applicable since this depends on the nature of your company and how formal things are. This is a great way to show that they are not just another customer on your roster, but instead, they are valued individuals that your business recognises. If your business requires a more serious tone, you can address your customers as Ms., Sir, etc. Either way, we believe that this is a more personal way to start an email and will show that you have a close relationship with the person.
Send Relevant Content
When it comes to sending relevant content to your segments, you don’t need to simply stick to promoting discounts or special offers. The relevant content you send to your segments should be more valuable than that. From providing resources related to what your recipients signed up for to product offers that are complementary to their frequent purchases.
Write Engaging Headlines for Each Segment
You should never underestimate the power of a good headline – it could be the difference between a successful email campaign and one that falls flat.
And so, capturing the attention of your subscribers from the start is vital. One of the best ways to do that is by writing catchy headlines. By doing so, you’ll not only intrigue your audience but also pique their interest in what you have to say.
In order to write headlines that’ll engage customers, there are a few things you should keep in mind. First, make sure your headline is clear and to the point. You want your audience to know exactly what they’re going to get by reading your email.
Second, use strong verbs that pack a punch. Words like “boost,” “improve,” and “save” are sure to grab your readers’ attention.
Finally, try to be as creative as possible. Think outside the box and come up with headlines that’ll make your audience want to learn more.
Just make sure that your headlines are still related to what you offer when you email clients.
Test Different Subject Lines
Subject lines are extremely important because they are the first thing that your customers see when they receive your email. If your subject line is not effective, your email will most likely be deleted without being opened.
That’s why it’s so important to test different subject lines and find the ones that work best for your business. Try out a few different options and see which ones get the best response from your customers.
You can also use A/B testing to see which subject lines are more effective. This is a great way to fine-tune your email marketing strategy and make sure that you’re getting the most out of your campaigns.
Use Images and Videos
Images and videos can be a powerful way to get your message across, especially in email marketing. Videos can be highly insightful especially if your products or services require an in-depth explanation.
With images, you can really set the theme for your email and make it visually appealing. In addition to using videos, you can add a personal touch to your email and give your subscribers a little introduction to who you are and what you do.
Do note, however, that it isn’t ideal to add too much media to your emails as they can directly go to the spam folder of your recipients.
Here are some tips for using images and videos in your marketing emails:
- Use images that are relevant to your message and/or product
- Be sure to include a call-to-action with your images
- Make sure your videos are short and to the point
- Provide value in your videos, such as tips, tutorials, or behind-the-scenes footage
- Only use high-quality images and videos
Keep Your Emails Short and Sweet
We understand that the point of sending emails is to share the latest products, information or services that your company offers. However, if your emails are too long or contain too many details, people may not read them all the way through. To make sure your emails are effective, keep them short and sweet. Stick to the most important points and save the rest for your website or blog post.
Following these tips will help you create effective email marketing campaigns that will engage your customers and help you boost sales.
Use CTA (Call-to-action) Buttons
When creating email marketing content, it’s important to use CTA buttons to prompt your readers to take action. CTAs can be used to drive traffic to your website, sign up for an event, or buy your product or service.
To create an effective CTA button, make sure it stands out from the surrounding text and is easy to understand. Use actionable language like “Click here,” “Download now,” or “Buy now.” And, make sure the button is linked to the appropriate landing page.
If you’re using CTA buttons in your email marketing, consider testing different styles and colours to see what works best with your audience. And, always track your CTAs to see how they’re performing. By understanding what’s working, you can continue to create high-performing email marketing content that drives results.
Add an Unsubscribe Link
It’s important to include an unsubscribe link for all of your marketing emails. This allows people to easily opt-out of your mailing list if they no longer want to receive your emails.
Including an unsubscribe link is required by law in some countries, and it’s also good practice from a marketing standpoint. Moreover, it helps keep your mailing list clean from inactive subscribers.
If someone unsubscribes from your email list, don’t take it personally or panic right away, as it doesn’t always reflect on your business negatively. People’s interests change over time, and there’s no reason why they should continue receiving emails from you if they’re no longer interested in what you have to say. Just be thankful that they gave you the opportunity to market to them in the first place, and move on.
Send Useful Incentives
Believe it or not, incentivising your subscribers can be an email marketing strategy to help make sure your emails are opened.
To do this, simply craft an email that offers a discount, a gift card or a coupon code for your subscribers. You can even go as far as offering free shipping on their next purchase.
Combining this email marketing strategy with creating subject lines that are interesting and attention-grabbing can help encourage subscribers to open your email. Just make sure to be clear about what’s in the email, and check if your subject line is relevant to the content.
Finally, don’t forget to send your emails at a time when people are likely to check them! This could be first thing in the morning, during their lunch break, or in the evening.
Consider Your Timing
No matter how many emails you’ve sent, if you send them at the wrong time, your subscribers may not be able to read them or worse, your emails may get lost in a crowded inbox.
To avoid this, we’ve listed some tips for timing your emails:
- Send them during the morning or afternoon, when people are more likely to check their inboxes.
- Avoid sending them late at night or on weekends, when people are less likely to be checking their email.
- If you’re targeting a specific time zone, make sure to send your emails during that time zone’s business hours.
- Try sending them on weekdays, as people are more likely to be working and checking their email during the week.
- If you’re sending a time-sensitive email, make sure to send it early in the day so people have time to act on it.
Promote Your Newsletters
To have more people subscribe to your newsletters you need to promote them on your other marketing channels, as your customers may never know that you have a newsletter.
You can promote your newsletters in a number of ways, including on your website via pop-ups, and on social media. You can also offer an incentive for customers to sign up for your newsletter, such as a discount on their next purchase.
By promoting your newsletter, you’ll ensure that more of your customers will know about it and that they’ll be able to take advantage of the great deals and information that your emails may contain.
Analyse and Monitor Your Email Marketing Campaigns
Email marketing campaigns can be analysed in a number of ways in order to improve their effectiveness. One way to analyse them is to look at the open and click through rates. This can help you to determine whether or not your recipients are interested in the content of your emails. You can also look at the bounce rate, which tells you how many people did not receive your email.
When you monitor campaign performance, you are able to determine your next course of action.
Now that we’ve discussed a few of our email marketing tips, we’ll move on to what you need to consider when setting up your email marketing campaigns.
Setting up an Email Marketing Campaign: A Quick Checklist
If this is the first time you’re doing email marketing or are in the middle of setting up your own campaign, there are a few things to remember and take note of. This section of the article will break down several strategies and leverage the tips we’ve mentioned above to help you get a better grasp of what the process looks like.
Ensure Your Email Address Exists!
First and foremost, you’ll need an email address.
When you’re sending email marketing messages, it’s important to use a designated email address that exists specifically for marketing messages. This way, you can be sure that your messages will be delivered to the intended recipients and that they won’t be mistaken for spam.
Ensure Your List of Email Addresses Is up to Date and Accurate
Email addresses are a critical part of any effective email marketing campaign. If your email list is outdated or inaccurate, you could be missing out on opportunities to reach your target audience as well as reduce your chances of actually meeting your goals like increasing website traffic or driving more repeat purchases. Which isn’t an ideal set-up for any business. So here are a few tips for ensuring that your email list is up to date and accurate:
- Immediately add any changes to your recipient’s contact information
- Use a double opt in process to ensure accuracy
- Regularly clean your list to remove inactive subscribers
- Use a tool like BriteVerify to verify your email list
Following these tips will help you create a more effective marketing campaign and avoid some common pitfalls that the majority of companies have experienced before.
Segment Your List So That You Can Send Targeted Messages
Diving deeper into segmenting your list, as established previously, your email marketing efforts can be successful when you segment your list into specific groups. Since this will allow you to send targeted messages that are relevant to each group.
We cannot emphasise enough how important segmentation is, therefore we’ve provided a few examples below to guide you:
- A segmented list of customers according to location, such as people who live in the United States or the United Kingdom. With this, the timing of the emails you send to the U.S. will be different from the ones you send to the U.K.
- Segment your customers by their age group, such as people aged 18 to 35 or over 55, and create appropriate email campaigns targeted to each of them separately.
- You could also target customers based on their purchase histories, such as people who have made a purchase in the past month or those who have made several purchases of a specific product.
Fortunately, there are many email marketing platforms (also referred to as an email service provider) that you can choose from to help input and organise your segmented email list which is as follows:
Personalise Your Messages as Much as Possible
Even though email marketing can be a very powerful tool, it’s important to remember that the people you’re communicating with are in fact, people. Not just faceless email addresses. And so, personalising your messages when using automated email marketing platforms will help you to connect with your audience on a more human level and will likely result in better response rates.
There are many ways to personalise email messages in order to connect with your audience on a more human level. Some of the most effective methods include:
- Using the recipient’s name in the subject line and/or in the body of the message especially for every welcome email you send
- Addressing common interests or hobbies that you know the recipient has
- Providing discounts on the items that your existing customers love and keep purchasing
- Mentioning specific pain points or problems that your product or service can help to solve for that particular list of recipients
- Including a personal story or experience that is relevant to the recipient
- Asking questions in your email messages and encouraging recipients to reply
- Using humour and/or emojis in your email messages
- Sending greeting cards on special occasions
- Sending a follow-up message to every new subscriber who is just starting their journey with you
- Conducting surveys or polls and sharing the results with your email list and asking for their feedback
You may notice that not all of these suggestions will fit your business. But over time, you’ll be able to build on your own strategies and efforts that are in line with email marketing best practices, as well as develop what works for your company and which tactics are in line with your goals.
Keep Your Messages Short and Straight to the Point
With well-written and concise messages, email marketing can be an incredibly effective way to reach out to customers and prospects.
Try to keep your messages short and to the point, and make sure that the most important information is easy to find. You may also want to consider using lists to organise your information, as this can make it easier for recipients to scan and find what they’re looking for.
In addition, be sure to proofread your messages carefully before sending them out. Nothing will turn off a potential customer or client faster than a misspelt word or grammatical error. Take the time to edit and revise your messages, and you’ll be sure to make a good impression.
Include a Call to Action in Every Message
If you’ve done digital marketing research in the past, you’ll notice that both a content marketing strategy and social media marketing campaigns, always include calls to action.
Therefore, when you’re sending out an email marketing message, it’s important to make sure that you include a clear call to action. This is what encourages your email subscribers to take the next step, whether it’s making a purchase, signing up for a contest, or simply clicking through to read more about your product or service.
There are a few different ways you can go about doing this, but one of the most effective ways is to simply include a link that says “Click here to learn more”. This makes it easy for subscribers to follow through with what you want them to do, without them feeling like they’re being forced to do it.
Finally, you can also use calls to action in your email subject line. This is a great way to get engaged subscribers to open your emails since they’ll know right away that there’s something in it for them.
Be Thorough With Setting Up Your Workflows and Triggers
Email marketing workflows are automated sequences of emails that are sent to a subscriber based on a set of rules or triggers. Triggers are an essential part of creating automated workflows since triggers can be set to fire off based on a variety of actions, such as when a subscriber joins your list or clicks a link in one of your emails.
Your workflows can be as simple or complex as you want them to be, and they can be used to achieve a variety of goals, such as increasing subscriber engagement, boosting sales, or driving traffic to your website.
By using workflows and triggers, you can create a highly customised email marketing experience for your subscribers. You can essentially craft powerful automated marketing campaigns that send the right message to the right person at the right time.
Test, Test, Test!
Testing is important for all forms of marketing, but it’s especially important for email marketing. When you’re testing an email campaign, you want to see the data and statistics on your efforts – from the subject line to the call to action and everything else. You also want to test different versions of your campaign to see which one performs better.
The only way to know for sure what works best is to keep testing. You can send out test messages to yourself and to a few friends or colleagues, but essentially, you’ll need to try different variations of your email and see which ones get the most response. And don’t forget, as you test you need to add the necessary changes to your email marketing campaigns accordingly. This way, you can make sure that your email marketing is effective and that your messages are getting through to your customers.
Below we’ve come up with a few notes on which areas to test in your email marketing campaigns, apart from testing your subject lines:
Test the content
When you’re testing the content of your email, it’s important to consider both the visual elements and the written elements. Make sure that your message is clear and easy to read, and that the visuals are effective and appealing to each of your segments.
Test the Call to Action
Your call to action is what you want your recipients to do after reading your email, so it’s important to test different versions to see which one gets the most response. Try different wording, placement, or even adding emojis to see what works best.
Test Different Versions
Once you’ve tested the subject line, content, and call to action, it’s time to pick the best ones and combine them to create a variety of different emails and send them off for testing and data gathering. Surely, you’ll be able to identify and pick which ones perform the best.
Additional Tips
Landing Page Relevancy
It’s important for your email marketing campaigns to drive traffic to relevant landing pages. If you send people to a page that doesn’t match their interests or what your email talks about, they’re likely to exit and unsubscribe from your list. To keep them on your list, make sure your links lead to pages that are relevant to what you mentioned in your message. If your email message was discussing a particular blog post on your website, your readers should be directed there with the link you provide.
Optimise for Mobile Devices
We can all agree that when creating email marketing content, it is important to consider how it will be viewed on mobile devices. In order to ensure that your content is optimised for mobile and that your readers have a good experience with your emails, consider using a responsive design, or even creating a separate version of your email specifically for mobile devices.
Finally, as redundant as this may be, make sure that your subject line and calls to action are clear and concise, as email subscribers who use mobile phones are more likely to skim emails.
By following these tips, you can be sure that your email marketing content will be optimised for mobile devices, making it more likely to be read and acted upon.
Use Lead Magnets to Grow Your List
A lead magnet is a giveaway or something of value that you offer to potential leads in order to collect their contact information. It could be a free ebook, a coupon code, a discount, or something else of value. You may have already encountered a lead magnet before, in the form of a pop-up on a website, where it asks for your email address in exchange for digital content. The key is to make it irresistible so that people are willing to hand over their contact information in exchange for it.
Make Sure You Garner the Right Leads
Segmenting your email lists is one thing, but gathering the right leads can make all the difference. To do this, you can use Tomba to verify certain email addresses as well as find emails linked to particular companies or URLs.
Choose the Right Email Marketing Tools or Platforms
Email marketing automation tools and platforms are essential for any business looking to improve its email marketing results. The right platform and tools will help you to create better-structured emails, efficiently segment audiences, and improve your overall results. Choosing the wrong email marketing tools and platforms, on the other hand, can lead to frustration and a complete waste of time and resources.
When choosing email marketing automation tools and platforms, there are a few key factors to consider. The first is the tool’s ability to help you create better content. Does it offer templates or sample emails that you can use as a starting point? Does it provide tips and advice on how to improve your email marketing content?
The second factor to consider is the platform’s ability to segment your list so that you can send different messages to different groups of people.
The third factor to consider is the tool’s and platform’s ability to improve your overall results. Does it offer reporting and analytics that can help you to track your progress and identify areas for improvement? Does it provide options and wiggle room for A/B testing so that you can test different versions of your emails to see which ones perform best?
Choosing the right email marketing automation tool and platform can be the difference between success and failure. Be sure to consider all of the factors listed above before making your final decision.
Conclusion
From choosing the best email service provider for your business to crafting an engaging email subject line and developing strategies to retain existing subscribers, it can be difficult to create and execute successful email marketing campaigns.
If you need help with your email marketing, we can help you!
Book a FREE session with us today to learn more about our services. We’ll be happy to answer your questions and get you started on the path to email marketing success!
