Are you tired of sending bland emails that end up in the trash? It’s time to spice up your email marketing strategy and cook up a storm in your subscribers’ inboxes! Whether is your monthly newsletter or re-engagement email, you can use it for various purposes such as:
- Increasing client loyalty
- Gathering crucial feedback
- Announcing new features
- Fostering trust by interacting
- Reducing churn
- Getting to know the clients better
What is email marketing?
Using personalized messages, email marketing is a form of direct advertising that aims to inform and convince people on a mailing list to take a particular action, such as buying a product, scheduling a demonstration, enrolling in a trial, or attending an event.
As a business, you cannot ignore or overlook the significance of email communication. According to the most recent data, there are over 4 billion email users in the world, which is more than half of the total global population. Email marketing has been steadily growing in popularity, and in 2022 it was estimated that businesses could achieve an average return on investment (ROI) of $36 for every $1 spent on email marketing campaigns. This marketing channel also provides detailed tracking and measurement capabilities. Small and large businesses can interact with leads and existing consumers through email marketing at a reasonable cost.
Here are 10 tips to create a successful email marketing campaign
1. Define your target audience
Send targeted emails to different segments of your list to increase relevance and engagement. Customers today expect tailored offers that address their unique concerns. Since many customers are time-constrained, they don’t want to interact with impersonal emails that won’t help them make wise purchasing decisions.
Understanding your target audience will help you create efficient communication tactics. Additionally, you can use different techniques like creating hyper lead magnets to get more e-mail subscribers and leveraging landing page designs to increase conversion, which you can later categorize according to how well you know your client base.
2. Stay in touch
Maintain a communication frequency and stick to it. According to Maria Waida, Owner of SaaSy Copywriting: “Consistency outweighs brilliance every time. Ultimately, a touchpoint for brand recognition is your email marketing campaign. Even if the interaction is the goal, your audience is more likely to remember and react to a name they see once a month than they are to one they see once in a blue moon!”
3. Set SMART goals
Be prepared to experiment with various tactics and set reasonable expectations for your strategies before you begin. For your marketing campaign, set SMART goals: specific, measurable, attainable, realistic, and time-bound. Setting achievable goals gives you drive, concentration, and clarity.
Make engagement a priority. Most marketers approach email marketing with the immediate objective of increasing sales. But in reality, you should be doing the opposite. Keep your attention on developing relationships with your readers. The State of Content Marketing: 2023 Global Report gives key insights into how marketers are approaching communication with their audience in 2023.
People sign up for your email list not to purchase things from you but to learn more about your company. Remember that interaction is essential to getting long-term success from your email efforts.
4. Personalize your emails
According to HubSpot’s State of Marketing report, 78 %of marketers have seen a recent increase in email engagement with personalized emails. Establish a stronger connection with your email subscribers by adding a little personality to your email marketing methods. Talk to them and not at them. You can start by creating a customized design, messaging, and offer for each group on your list. What else?
- Segment your email lists: Divide your email lists and send targeted emails.
- Send behavior triggers: Send emails based on a customer’s action, and you can keep track of the customer journey.
- Add “recommendations”: Ask customers the right questions and add recommendations for purchases if you’re an e-commerce brand
- Use eye-catching imagery: Often an image can convey your message more effectively than a heap of text. Have the right balance of text and visuals.
- Make it mobile-friendly: More and more people are checking their e-mails on their phones, so make sure your e-mails look good on mobile devices.
5. Have clear and relevant CTAs
Your CTAs should tell your readers what action you want them to take after reading it. Any CTA has two main parts: the language and the design.
- Think about using verbs that tease your audience rather than going for a “click here” or “purchase now.” Instead, put CTAs like “Get 50% off today”, or “Show me how”, which are more descriptive and enticing.
- Write your CTAs in an active voice and urge people to take action immediately.
- Do not confuse your audience with too many options and always focus on one standard CTA.
- Make your CTAs visible. In addition to making CTAs large enough, you should leave enough of whitespace surrounding them.
- Reports claim that including only one call-to-action in your e-mail increases clicks by 371%. One CTA can help you hone your message, but it may also filter out many subscribers who aren’t interested in that specific message.
You must strike a balance and create a strategy that appeals to your audience. How? Through testing!
6. A/B Test your subject lines
When it comes to subject lines, A/B testing is essential. To figure out what works best, you should test out numerous subject line variations on your users. Your marketing team might wish to test the following elements in email messages as part of an A/B test:
- Subject line
- Call to action
- Template design and images
- Personalization
- Email Copy
According to a recent study, subject lines that were A/B tested coupled with the email body and template increased CTR by 127%. But, what makes a good subject line for an email? There are a few strategies that ensure better open rates. Here are some you can try out:
- Adding a touch of personalization with targeted automation
- Keep it crisp but descriptive such as, “We Thought You Might Like…”
- Asking a question that attracts readers, such as “Did You Forget Something?”
- Using emojis to add some visual pizazz to your emails
- Using a shorter email copy with beautiful edge-to-edge imagery
Your email’s open rates can be significantly affected by A/B testing your email marketing efforts and subject lines, but it can also have a cascading effect on other marketing KPIs that will eventually affect your bottom line.
7. Pay attention to the preheader
Your subject line is the first thing your subscribers will see, so make it count. One of the simplest ways to raise engagement is to use the preheader space more strategically. But the most frequent error that marketers commit is ignoring this area.
They create preview texts but seldom use them to enhance or supplement the subject lines. Furthermore, they don’t give it the same consideration that they do for their subject lines. So, get adept at optimizing both your subject lines and preheader text.
Pro-tip: Maulik Patel, Founder & Director of Clickmatix says: “Leveraging preheaders is one of the most helpful tactics. Not only it lets you prolong the length of your subject line, but it also allows your subscribers to follow your message even if the line gets cut off.”
8. Automate your emails and follow-ups
It’s challenging to determine how many individuals respond to your marketing emails and then take appropriate action. The best way to manage all responses is to automate your email marketing replies. It’s difficult to quantify the responses and decide on a course of action so configure triggers when a user acts to increase the success of your email marketing campaigns.
Gregory Zakowicz, Senior Email Marketing Expert at Omnisend says: “My best tip for email marketers is to use automation. Even though automated emails account for less than 3% of all sends, they account for 32% of all email marketing orders. Automation is key for businesses looking to boost sales. However, choosing the right automation is vital as well!”
9. Keep your emails out of spam folders
Your carefully written emails won’t ever be read if they are spammed. But how can you keep your mail out of the spam bin? Here are a few tricks.
- Get permission for sending emails
- Avoid spam triggers like no unsubscribe links, adding attachments, using too many images & so on.
- Ask your recipients to whitelist your address
- Use spam checkers
- Avoid writing spammy email subject lines
- Email your subscribers regularly
Hence, to avoid breaking laws, ensure your recipients have consented to receive your emails. Make sure every email has a clear link that allows recipients to unsubscribe from the mailing list and all subject lines must appropriately sum up the email content.
10. Report and optimize
To maximize digital marketing success, it is paramount to utilize data analytics to inform decisions and improve email campaigns. Taking action in accordance with this data is key to achieving successful outcomes. Getting a holistic picture from a channel as powerful as email marketing will help you deliver incredible ROI on every $ spent. Some key email marketing metrics you should keep an eye out for are:
- Open rates
- Click-through rates
- Unsubscriber rates
- Bounce Rate
Taking the time to analyze these results will help you observe your audience’s reactions to your campaigns. This evaluation of your campaign results will enhance your business outcomes help you optimize your next campaign and move the needle where it matters. Focus on all touchpoints along the way to get the best bang for our email marketing buck and make your email marketing reports shine.
With Swydo you can collect valuable insights from various email marketing platforms, such as Mailchimp and Klaviyo making it easy to report campaign results and customize them to suit your branding. Swydo integrates with Google Analytics, giving you a comprehensive view of your email campaigns, including website traffic and conversion data and your overall email marketing metrics that drive business.
Jigar Agrawal is Digital Marketing Manager at eSparkBiz. He is passionate about everything related to Digital Marketing.