10 Effective Email Marketing Tips
Why is Email Marketing Important?
To say that email marketing is important is an understatement. Not only does this form of marketing provide you the opportunity to cultivate relationships with customers and potential clients, but it also allows you to communicate with them at a time that is convenient for them. After all, they are the ones checking their inbox for emails. Although it seems easy to draft up an email and send it, email marketing comes down to a science full of tactics and strategies. If you utilize the following tips, email can transform into one of your most effective marketing platforms.
Tips to Help Your Emails Succeed:
- Grow Your Subscriber List
Your subscriber list should always be growing. Yes, people will unsubscribe, but that’s not necessarily a bad thing. Think of your email list like a friends list. If your friends don’t care about you and ignore what you have to say, you’re going to stop telling them things. Similarly, if your subscribers don’t open your emails or decide to unsubscribe, they have no interest in what you are trying to tell them, and you don’t want to overcrowd your mailing list with inactive contacts. Although the goal is to have a large quantity of subscribers, it’s only effective if those subscribers are quality subscribers. To continue to grow your subscriber list, ensure you have signup features easily accessible on your website.
- Don’t Over-Promote
While we know the number one goal for nearly every business’s email marketing campaign is to grow their business, excessive promotion is one of the leading reasons for unsubscribes. We realize promoting your service or product is important to you, but every email should not revolve around that one focus. Building and maintaining healthy relationships with your customers should be the foundation of your email marketing strategy. Once you have established these relationships, you will start to see customers become advocates for your business, ultimately resulting in company growth. A simple yet effective way to nurture these relationships is to set up drip campaigns.
- Make Your Emails Personal
Adding a personal touch to your emails can create a sense of familiarity with your customers. You want your audience to be happy to see your name in their inbox and be excited to see what you have to say. For them to want to open your email, your content must be important or helpful in any way. Use creative subject lines and a personal “from” email address to add a special touch.
- Don’t Forget to Segment!
Segmenting your email list is one of the most important things you can do to drive results. Group target audiences that have certain qualities in common. For example, you might group customers that have children together, and then group customers who don’t have any children together. This allows you to create customer journeys and send targeted emails that are unique and personal to each segmented group. The last thing you want is for your subscribers to get emails about topics that are completely irrelevant to them.
- A|B Testing
It’s critical to test every element of your email to see what resonates with your audience and what doesn’t. Test things like subject lines, images, buttons, headlines, etc. Keep in mind, you should only be testing one element at a time! Another important key to is your audience size. If your audience size is too small, your results will be inaccurate.
- Design is Key
A clean and simple makes for an effective email. You want your email to flow easily and look professional. To create a clean look, try using short paragraphs and bullet points. The less information your customer must read to understand the message you want to convey, the better. Remember, don’t overload your email with images. A good portion of emails that include pictures don’t display in mobile email apps. Images should complement your content, not replace it.
- Calls to Action
Before sending an email, think about the purpose of that email. What is it you want your customers to do? What action do you want them to take? You most likely want them to visit your website, go to a certain landing page, or read your blog. These calls to action should stand out and catch your audience’s eye. You should incorporate aesthetically appealing buttons that allow readers to easily take action. Another way to drive your traffic is to link certain words to relevant information within your site<. Make these words or phrases pop out so that those who are reading your email will know to click on them.
- Make it Mobile
Although the design and creation of these emails usually take place on a desktop, sometimes we forget that over half of our audience will view these emails on a mobile device. If your emails aren’t optimized to allow your customers to view them on their smartphones or tablets, you’re going to see a much smaller click-through rate, resulting in fewer conversions and sales.
- Quality Beats Quantity
We know it’s necessary to stay top-of-mind with your consumers, but the last thing you want is to overdo it. This can result in unsubscribes and losing current or potential customers. If recipients are overwhelmed by the number of emails they are receiving, they may unsubscribe or, even worse, flag your email as spam. Test out the number of emails you send and record the response you get. If one email a week is the perfect number, stick with that and don’t overload your audience.
- Test!
Test everything. Test your buttons and links to make sure they send your customers where you want them to go. Double-check your spelling and grammar. Send test emails to different email platforms to make sure they appear correctly. In addition, view them on a desktop and mobile device. Not only should these components be tested, but other headlines, graphics and designs should also be tested to evaluate what has the most impact. Never stop testing!
Email Platforms
Now that you know what to do, you might still need to figure out how to do it, and that’s OK! Try using an email marketing software such as Constant Contact or Mailchimp. Both platforms offer customizable email templates, list segmentation, contact management, A|B testing, reporting, and much more!
Contact Us
As you now know, a successful email marketing campaign involves meticulous planning. In many cases, the assistance of a digital marketing agency is beneficial. Amplimark assists companies in removing the guesswork from email marketing. Our skilled email marketers work within your budget to develop a strategy that will boost client retention, engagement, and return on investment. If you still have questions or would like to learn more about the services we provide, contact us online or give us a call at 515.225.6438 to schedule a free, no-obligation initial consultation!