A successful email marketing strategy is one of the most powerful tools you’ll ever wield for your business. Unlike social media platforms where you have to compete with algorithms, flooded newsfeeds, and popularity contests, email marketing is your direct pathway from you to your customer. You have complete control with email marketing. With email marketing, you have the power to reach out directly to your audience whenever you want. You have immediate, downloadable access to every contact, and you can take those contacts wherever you want. [Try our SEO analyzer tool here]
What Are the Benefits to Email Marketing Over Other Marketing Strategies?
Email marketing differs from other types of marketing in a few key ways:
- Email marketing isn’t conducted through any outside company (as marketing on social media is regulated by each individual platform, for instance), which means that there is no limit, schedule, or regulation boxing in your email marketing strategy. The messages and advertisements that your business sends out are completely up to you.
- You can boost your content and/or products. Remind your customers to check out the new blog you just published or the video you just uploaded to your website. You can send out periodic deals letting them know your products or services went on sale.
- There are 3.9 billion email users in the world, which means that there are definitely people out there who want to receive regular emails from your business. You can build relationships and revenue through engaging email content.
- Over 90 percent of us check our email every day, with some of us checking up to 20 times per day, according to Optinmoster! This doesn’t mean that your business should send emails every day—and certainly not multiple emails every day—but it does prove that email marketing is a reliable way to get your message to customers consistently and often.
Crafting a Successful Email Marketing Strategy
So how do you collect these powerful leads? With the onslaught of spam, scams, and perpetual selling, people are much more wary about giving up their email address now than they’ve ever been. When a customer finally trusts you with their email address, you’ll need to wow them because they can just as easily unsubscribe as quickly as they subscribed. Your customers probably already receive an overwhelming amount of marketing emails every day, so it’s important to make yours stand out in their crowded inboxes. Your emails need to provide useful information that excites your customers, so your emails don’t get thrown in the dreaded trash folder. As with all marketing strategies, you first need to know who your customers are and what your company’s goals are with regard to email marketing. If you want your customers to interact with your emails—and you do—then you need to create emails that suit your customers’ wants and needs. Give them relevant information that helps them reach their goals. Start by subscribing to a few of your competitors’ email lists. What are they sending out? Take note of the content, the calls-to-action, and even the subject lines. If their email campaigns are successful with your target audience, it’s a good idea to mimic some of those ideas and spin them into your own unique email style. [Try our SEO analyzer tool here] Place a subscription option in a prominent place on your website. Many companies make the mistake of hiding the option to subscribe near the bottom of the page or in the footer, making it more of an afterthought. Remember that your website visitor’s email address is the one thing you absolutely need most before they leave your site! Don’t let them get away without subscribing first! Place multiple calls-to-action asking your website visitor to subscribe to your email list. Your prompt should look interesting and stand out from other calls-to-action. You can make this a pop-up on certain pages and offer something of value to entice them. Remember that people don’t give their emails up as easily as they used to. Offer a discount code, free guide, or tutorial if they subscribe. Don’t be afraid to ask your followers on social media to subscribe, as well.
What Should You Send Your Audience with Email Marketing
You’ve definitely seen different kinds of email campaigns from different businesses—no doubt, you’re subscribed to at least a few email lists. Some choose to send weekly emails, some choose daily, and some businesses only send emails pertaining to one-day-only sales or new, special content. Which of these campaign types do you think will work best for your business? That can be a difficult question to answer, but here’s some good news: your business can offer a few email campaign styles and allow your customers to decide. Some customers may get annoyed by daily emails and unsubscribe altogether from your list, while others may think weekly emails just aren’t enough. This is why allowing customers to choose can be so important not only in getting people to sign up in the first place but also in keeping them around. Give them the choice and provide relevant information in the way your customers want to consume it. Keep an eye on which campaign types are the most popular and offer those as the ones your customers typically enjoy the most. Choose an email marketing provider that lets you create marketing emails that look professional and exclusive to your business. There are a lot of free options online that will help you upgrade your email marketing campaign to the quality your customers want. When creating your emails, think carefully about each aspect of them—use images and text that stands out among the other emails your customers receive every day, and send your emails at an ideal time. Late morning tends to be a good time to send marketing emails. Give your emails a personal touch by including the first name of the recipient. Customers are much more likely to open a marketing email if they see their name in the subject line. Another way to personalize your campaign is to use an autoresponder, which sends out an email that is triggered by a specific action that your customer completes. If someone buys one of your products, why not tell them about something similar that has also been a hit among your consumers? If they read a blog about one subject, send an email that links back to a related blog on your website. Summary Email marketing may seem daunting at first with so many options to choose from, but there are plenty of ways to make your emails stand out. Use relevant, interesting information that adds true value to your customers, and your readers will look forward to opening your next message. If it adds value to their day, you’ll win every time with email marketing.
