The sky is the limit when it comes to email marketing. While many marketers are investing in new digital marketing tactics, like chatbots and influencers, email has remained a constant in many companies’ marketing strategy. Email marketing is an incredibly powerful tool, but without the right strategy to back it up, you may find your emails left unopened or even marked as spam. To help navigate the world of email marketing, we’ve compiled a list of 10 out of this world email tips to use when launching your next campaign.
Build Your Subscriber List
No matter how many people are currently subscribed to your emails, you should always strive to grow your list. According to Statista, there are 3.9 billion daily email users. That’s a lot of opportunity for email growth! Building your list can be as simple as putting a sign-up prompt on your website and blog posts, or hosting an online contest to gather email addresses from entrants. Although it’s tempting to purchase email lists as a method of building your subscribers quickly, this is not a sustainable way to grow your business. The contacts on this list will be unfamiliar with your brand and may mark your emails as spam since they never signed up to receive information from your business. As long as you’re growing your list organically, you will have a healthy audience who is ready to interact with your business and engage with your emails.
Set a Goal for Your Campaigns
Whether you want to drive traffic to your website, increase sales on a specific product, or teach your audience something new, all of your email campaigns should have a goal. The goal of your campaign should be the main thing you want emails to achieve and the action you want your audience to take. Setting a goal for your email campaigns ahead of time will prevent you from over-communicating with your subscribers and will help ensure that all of the emails you send have a purpose.
Know Your Audience
Email marketing is all about the individuals receiving your messages. Take some time to get to know your audience. Once you know the target audience of your emails, you can start putting together a strategy on how to reach that audience. Take a look at who your typical customers are and write email copy that would resonate with them. Knowing your audience is the first step in guaranteeing your content is seen as relevant and valuable to your subscribers.
Segment Your List
Segmenting an email list is the method of dividing your email subscribers into smaller groups based on certain criteria. Instead of sending the same email to your entire subscriber list, segmentation allows you to deliver more relevant email marketing to your subscribers based on location, age, interests, and much more. According to Campaign Monitor, marketers who segment their email campaigns see as much as a 760% increase in revenue. By segmenting your audience, you are delivering the most relevant emails to each customer and personalizing their experience with your business.
Make It Personal
Personalization is one of the most important elements of a successful email marketing strategy. Addressing your subscribers by name in the email subject line or body copy can grab your readers’ attention and increase open rates. Another way to add personalization to your emails is by sending from a real email address instead of a generic company email, like a do-not-reply email or marketing@company.com. People receive tons of spam emails a day and are often more likely to open an email when the sender is an actual person. Adding personalization is all about making your emails sound less like large scale emails and more like a 1 on 1 conversation.
Include Calls to Action
The goal of most email campaigns is to get your audience to do something outside of just opening your email. The best way to achieve that goal is by including compelling calls to action within your emails. If your goal is to drive traffic to a specific page on your website, you could include a “read more” button linking to that webpage. Or if you want your subscribers to sign up for a webinar or class, include a “sign up now” button that links directly to the sign up page. Make the button stand out with colors and bold text to make it even easier to click. Without a call to action, you won’t be driving your audience to take any measures that benefits them or your business.
Ensure Your Emails Are Mobile Friendly
With consumers spending more and more time on their phones, it’s more important than ever for marketers to design their emails with mobile users in mind. According to Litmus, mobile opens make up 46% of all email opens. That means that no matter how relevant your email content is, if it is not optimized for mobile devices, your message could be lost on mobile users. Preview your email on both desktop and mobile to ensure that your subscribers can view your messages on any platform.
Make It Easy to Unsubscribe
Making it easy for your audience to unsubscribe from your emails may seem like it’ll hurt your subscriber list, but it’s actually a best practice when it comes to email marketing. If a subscriber no longer wants to receive emails from your business and cannot unsubscribe easily, you may find yourself in legal trouble. According to the CAN-SPAM Act, “your message must include a clear and conspicuous explanation of how the recipient can opt out of getting email from you in the future.” Not only is making it difficult to unsubscribe from your emails against the law, but customers who aren’t easily able to unsubscribe may mark your emails as spam, which would hurt your deliverability in the long run. Including a clear unsubscribe link within your email will save your subscribers from a negative experience with your brand and save you from any legal issues as well.
Keep It Simple
With busy lives and full inboxes, no one has time to sit down and read long winded emails. Simple and concise emails help subscribers scan through their mailbox in a shorter amount of time. Using short paragraphs and bullet points will help your readers take in important information quickly to find the overall message of the email. Plus, too much copy can sometimes trigger a mailbox’s spam filter. It is also best to avoid using too many images in your emails since some email providers block images from appearing in the inbox. Make sure any images used compliment your message instead of replacing your content. Keep your emails simple to avoid the spam box and increase your readability.
Provide Value
A great email marketing strategy ultimately comes down to providing your audience with content they will find valuable. Whether it’s a must-have offer or educational information about your industry, make sure your emails have a purpose. If you’re questioning whether your email would be deemed as valuable – choose not to send. If your subscribers aren’t finding value in your emails, it could make them weary to open your messages in the future. It is always best wait until you have something important to share to ensure you aren’t sending a message just to send it.
With these 10 tips in mind, you will be on your way to a successful email marketing strategy. If you’re still needing a little extra help, our experienced team at Amplified Digital Agency has the tools to sky rocket your email campaigns and reach your marketing goals. Contact us today!