If Social Media is the cocktail party then email marketing is the “meet up for coffee”.
After reading the quote you must be thinking that what amazing power an email marketing campaign can hold?
Let me tell you that an Email Marketing Campaign consists of planned content distributed via email to accomplish a specific goal for the organization. It is important that an email campaign's recipients have opted in to receive this content and that each piece offers something valuable.
Here are some examples of different purposes your email campaign may set out to achieve:
But why do you need a email campaign at all?
Awareness - Not everyone who opts into your email list is ready for a purchasing decision. You can use email marketing to stay top of mind while providing the educational content that is most relevant to them.
Traffic generation - Email can be an effective promotion channel for the high-value content you create on your website.
Lead nurturing - As you stay top of mind, you may also consider ways to identify the leads you have with the highest purchase intent and provide conversion-focused content that leads them toward a sale.
Revenue generation - You can create email marketing campaigns for your existing customers to promote selling. You can also create campaigns to capture a sales conversion from leads who are close to a purchasing decision.
Ready to take a deeper dive? Effective email marketing campaigns need to be cleverly written to attract attention in busy inboxes. To help get you on the right path for campaigns that boost lead nurturing and returns, here are 5 tips for successful email marketing campaigns:
1. Understand who you're emailing
Have you ever heard the saying from Meredith Hill, "When you speak to everyone, you speak to no one"? What Hill is getting at here is that if you're watering down your message to apply to your entire audience, you're leaving an opportunity on the table -- the opportunity for creating high-value, specific, relevant content that speaks directly to the recipient.
With this in mind, the key to a great email marketing campaign is identifying your audience and using email segmentation to ensure you're delivering to the right people at the right time. If you can accomplish this and build it into your strategy, you can get more creative and specific with your messaging.
2. Spend time on the subject lines:
No one gets to the body content of your email unless they first click the subject line. That's why it's so important to consider your subject lines carefully: They're like gatekeepers for the rest of your information.
Make sure you don't use sales keywords in your email subject lines. Otherwise, you are destined to reach the wasteland called the spam folder. Be specific with why exactly will the email benefit the reader or at least create a hook that intrigues them to open it.
3. Include personalization elements and excellent imagery:
Marketing emails need to be personalized to the reader and filled with interesting graphics.
Few people want to read emails that are addressed "Dear Sir/Madam" -- as opposed to their first or last name -- and even fewer people want to read an email that simply gives them a wall of text. Visuals help your recipients quickly understand the point of the email.
4. Mobile first:
91% of the people use their smartphone to check their email. If your email isn’t optimized for mobile devices, it’s not going to perform well. Today’s savvy email marketers are thinking mobile-first. The software can help you control the layout of your email, making sure your text and images fit within the space of the user’s screen.
5. Always use social shares:
Send content that people want to share, and make it easy for them to do so. By including social share buttons on your emails, you are encouraging your readers to continue the conversation with their friends and peers. Whether it is a content piece or an event invite, you will have more opportunities to spread your word if you include an easy way for your readers to spread your message.
BONUS TIP :
# Don’t overdo it.
While certain companies will use a daily email approach, it’s not advisable for everyone to do it. Often, subscribers will get frustrated by daily emails. Scarcity has something to do with this–while you may think that frequent emails show you are engaged with your subscribers, your subscribers probably don’t want to hear from you that much. Sorry, they’re just not that into you.
The thing is, there’s no hard and fast rule for how often you should email your subscribers. The frequency of emails that subscribers will accept varies depending on the industry and particular brand. You will have to monitor your metrics over a couple of months to see what your subscribers’ behavior is.
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