Tips for a Successful Email Marketing Strategy and Campaign
In the world of social media platforms and too many apps to count, email is one of the few reliable ways to reach almost any consumer. Email has become a pivotal part of everyday life. Whether you’re sending out e-invites for a party, setting up a zoom meeting with a client, or sharing photos with friends and family, email tends to be the universal form of communication nowadays.
Understanding how to use emails effectively in your marketing strategy can be tricky. With the first email being sent in the 1970s, the technology is almost 50 years old. Since then, companies have had plenty of time to make the digital transformation of their marketing strategies, and it all started with email.
The problem with email marketing is that when done incorrectly, it can feel like spam. There is a fine line between emailing your customers or leads too much where they unsubscribe and emailing them too little where you go unnoticed. Here are some easy ways to improve your email marketing strategy and campaigns.
Is Email Marketing Even Worth It?
When it comes to comparing marketing strategies, email marketing is one of the most cost-effective ways to reach a large audience. Unlike direct mailers, billboards, or tv ads, emails are able to reach a large, highly targeted audience for a very affordable price.
Although email marketing might feel like yesterday’s strategy, it is still highly effective. As of 2021, researchers have concluded that for every $1 spent on email marketing, there is an average return of $36. An email’s ability to target your audience depending on demographics, geography, or consumer behavior is a highly effective strategy towards reaching your most likely customers.
For the low price of admission, email marketing should be used for any business. Whether you’re a local pizza shop, a B2B salesperson, or writing a food blog, email marketing is a cheap and easy way to expand your reach to new customers.
Building an Email List
While the figure of $36 of ROI is promising, that is still an average. The best ROIs in the email marketing industry is produced when email marketers have the best list to work from.
What makes a good email list can depend on your industry. However, the main idea is that you want good, qualified leads, and not just a long list of emails to reach out to. Remember, you are still paying per email, so reaching out to 1,000 likely customers is better than reaching out to 20,000 random customers.
There are different ways to build an email list. First off, you should have an email signup or subscribe portion on your website. Working with SEO experts in London, you can learn the most effective ways to add these features to your website. You can also participate in other email gathering activities like promoting email signups through a social media campaign.
Aside from organically building your email list, you can also buy your email lists. While this might sound like an effective strategy, it often can be a waste of money. Prepaid email lists tend to be filled with unqualified emails that are generally unresponsive or not truly in your target market. If you go this route, just be careful.
How to Build the Perfect Email
When building the emails you will use for your email marketing campaign, there is a lot of room for customization and creativity. To stay ahead of the competition, many brands are using things like embedded shopping links and videos in their emails to stand out in customers’ inboxes.
When it comes to emails, design is everything. Whether it’s the graphics you use or the formatting of your text, the email itself should jump out at you and entice the reader to engage.
Creating effective emails for your marketing campaigns can take time. Sometimes designs or strategies that work with certain audiences or industries may not resonate with your customer base.
One of the major benefits of email marketing is that it is easy to test and analyze which emails are giving you the biggest return on your investment. Using an A/B testing strategy, you can compare two different emails over time to see which lead to the most engagement, what time of day worked best for sending out your email, and countless other variables that can help optimize your strategy.
Creating Your Email Marketing Campaign
Whether you’re working with an SEO agency or testing out email marketing for the first time, there are some key practices to implement when creating your email marketing campaign.
Know Your Audience
Before you get started, you should know exactly who your target market is. If you’re a pizza shop trying to improve your local SEO, your email list should only include people within delivery distance from your store. If you’re a B2B insurance salesperson, your email list should be other businesses within your sales region.
Understand Where Your Customers Came From
Once you have your email list, you can understand how each email got onto your list. Depending on how you got each email, you might interact with them differently. For instance, customers that signed up through your website might be more interested and respond to longer emails than customers who gave you their email through other means.
Make Your Email Actionable
Now that you have your list, you should clearly define the objective of your campaign. Is the goal to drive more deliveries or is it to get more subscriptions. Regardless of your objective, the email should be focused solely on this goal. Time and words spent on anything else may distract the reader and hinder your chances of making the sale.
Set a Schedule
Depending on your audience, the frequency and times that you send out emails can vary. Typically, the best time to send an email is between 10:00 am and 3:00 pm since people are already at work and started with their day. You can use the A/B testing scheme to optimize your schedule over time.
Get Started Today
Creating an email marketing campaign is an exciting and often rewarding experience for any business. Since email marketing is so affordable and gives any business access to a large audience, it is an effective strategy that everyone should use.
If you’re not sure where to start, working with the best SEO London agency can get you on the right track. When you work with experts in the field, you will jump ahead of the competition in no time.