The Secret to Better Email Marketing

Have you received a mar­ket­ing email late­ly from a busi­ness you’ve pur­chased from? That’s because email cam­paigns are still alive and well. They are high­ly effec­tive at keep­ing a busi­ness at the fore­front of a cus­tomer’s mind by con­sis­tent­ly remind­ing them of the val­ue they pro­vide. Repeat and con­sis­tent busi­ness is the goal of an effec­tive email cam­paign and they know that at some point you may refer them to some­one else or make anoth­er pur­chase. You may delete the email today but when you need the prod­uct or ser­vice again, you’ll click on the link they provide. 

What Is an Email Campaign?

Do you want to know how they do it? First, let’s dis­cuss what an email cam­paign is. In sim­ple terms, an email cam­paign is a com­mer­cial mes­sage sent to a tar­get­ed audi­ence through the use of email and usu­al­ly includes adver­tise­ments, requests, or a sales pitch. The main goal behind email cam­paigns is to con­vert prospec­tive buy­ers into pay­ing cus­tomers. Sub­se­quent fol­low-up mes­sages are meant to encour­age repeat cus­tomers and refer­rals. Cre­at­ing an email cam­paign takes an aver­age of two or more weeks and can be divid­ed into the fol­low­ing segments: 

• Ideas and needs — Estab­lish­ing your goals and needs will help you gen­er­ate appro­pri­ate ideas for a great email campaign. 
• Design — High per­form­ing email cam­paigns are designed to catch the atten­tion of poten­tial and cur­rent cus­tomers. Ele­ments of suc­cess­ful email cam­paigns include easy read­ing struc­ture, rel­e­vant con­tent, align­ment with the design of your web­site, and con­sid­er­a­tion of how the con­tent is received. Mobile opti­miza­tion should be a pri­or­i­ty now that more cus­tomers are get­ting their con­tent from mobile devices. 
• Cod­ing — The tech­ni­cal aspect of email mar­ket­ing is prop­er cod­ing. Ele­ments like font type, image sizes, and pix­els can make or break your email cam­paign. The sim­pler the better. 
• Tem­plate cre­ation - With the help of a design­er, a beau­ti­ful and orga­nized design can catch your customer’s eye. 
• Seg­men­ta­tion and con­fig­u­ra­tion - An email list of prospec­tive cus­tomers is great. Seg­ment­ing this list into groups by geo­graph­ic loca­tion, inter­ests, and pur­chase his­to­ry can cre­ate a per­son­al­ized touch that your cus­tomers will appre­ci­ate and con­nect with.
• Deploy­ment — Email deliv­ery is when an email is sent. Email deliv­er­abil­i­ty is when it lands in the poten­tial customer’s inbox. Land­ing in the poten­tial customer’s spam fold­er is a con­cern of any email cam­paign. By ana­lyz­ing key met­rics, you can deter­mine what per­cent­age of emails are deliv­ered and how many make it to the inbox. 

This process can be stream­lined with the use of email cam­paign tem­plates. Now, the need for cus­tomiza­tion or new cod­ing can be avoid­ed and a quick­er turn­around for a com­plet­ed email tem­plate is more like­ly. New images and a copy can be added to email cam­paign tem­plates to make them look fresh and unique. 

Create Email Campaign with an Email List

To start an email cam­paign, you’ll need an email list. The high­est ROI is gen­er­at­ed with an engaged group of email sub­scribers look­ing for­ward to your emails. This may take some work at the begin­ning, but it will ensure a suc­cess­ful and tar­get­ed email cam­paign. Here are some options to cre­ate an email list: 

• Web­site - Cre­at­ing a signup sheet from your web­site is a con­ve­nient way to col­lect a list of inter­est­ed prospects. Cre­at­ing a pop up on your web­site that includes a sign-up oppor­tu­ni­ty to a newslet­ter will help you col­lect the data you need from poten­tial customers. 
• Signup sheet — Signup sheets are a quick and con­ve­nient way to gath­er con­tact infor­ma­tion from indi­vid­u­als inter­est­ed in your busi­ness. These are often used at mar­ket­ing events, trade shows, and oth­er pro­mo­tion­al events that allow you to show­case your business. 
• Social media — Nowa­days, social media has made it increas­ing­ly eas­i­er to gath­er the infor­ma­tion you need from your tar­get audi­ence. You can use your Face­book, Insta­gram, or Linkedin accounts to dri­ve signups to your website. 

When you want to expand your list of sub­scribers, try the following: 

• Con­tests — Spark inter­est in your brand by host­ing online or offline con­tests. Every­one loves the prospect of free give­aways and peo­ple that wouldn’t nor­mal­ly be inter­est­ed in your offer­ings may par­tic­i­pate. This helps to expand your sub­scriber base and reach new poten­tial customers. 
• Share­able — Mak­ing emails share­able is essen­tial to spread­ing the word about what you have to offer. When you’ve tak­en the time to cre­ate an excel­lent and appeal­ing email, you’ll want every­one to know about it. 
• Land­ing page - With great images and valu­able con­tent, a land­ing page with a call to action will help you expand your cus­tomer base and dri­ve email signups quickly. 

Secrets of Great Email Campaigns

When con­sid­er­ing that you’ve been an email sub­scriber of a busi­ness you pur­chased from, you can under­stand the fick­le nature of this group. Yet, email mar­ket­ing is very fruit­ful. A study con­duct­ed by the Direct Mar­ket­ing Asso­ci­a­tion indi­cates that for every $1 spent on an email, there was an aver­age ROI of $38. This means that when poten­tial cus­tomers are look­ing to buy, they are check­ing emails to make the pur­chase. Still, the trick is to stand out from all the oth­er busi­ness­es that are flood­ing inbox­es with their pitch­es. Here’s how to shine: 

• Repeat — When you find an email cam­paign for­mu­la that works, stick with it! That’s why email cam­paign tem­plates are so valu­able because they allow you to dupli­cate suc­cess­ful efforts again and again. This will also help you save time and mon­ey while becom­ing a wel­come and famil­iar face to your tar­get audience. 
• Con­sis­ten­cy — Avoid con­fus­ing your audi­ence at all costs. It’s always best to stay on-brand with con­sis­tent mes­sag­ing that reflects your com­pa­ny and web­site. After you’ve col­lab­o­rat­ed with your team of design­ers, writ­ers, mar­keters, and devel­op­ers to pro­duce a great tem­plate, you can avoid turn­ing your audi­ence off. 
• Ren­der­ing — Before launch­ing an email cam­paign, mit­i­gat­ing errors is cru­cial to ensur­ing that poten­tial cus­tomers receive the mes­sage the way it was intend­ed. Make sure that images and text appear the way they should by send­ing a test email to a team mem­ber. The feed­back you receive will be price­less in the process of fix­ing and per­fect­ing your email mar­ket­ing. Once it is sent to the devel­op­er to fix, you can con­fi­dent­ly send out your expert­ly craft­ed pitch. When you repeat this process, you’ll know that you have an email tem­plate that is ready to be used at any time. 
• Copy­writ­ing — Copy­writ­ers cre­ate an impor­tant aspect of your email cam­paign and it’s best to empow­er them by includ­ing them in the whole pic­ture rather than com­ment threads and feed­back loops. When they can see the email cam­paign tem­plate, they have a more clear and com­pre­hen­sive idea of a project. 

• Analy­sis — Assess­ing the effec­tive­ness of your email cam­paigns will help you iden­ti­fy where changes and improve­ments should be made. Using email tem­plates makes this process much eas­i­er since it gives you the oppor­tu­ni­ty to make sweep­ing con­clu­sions when ana­lyz­ing sev­er­al cam­paigns simul­ta­ne­ous­ly. You can eas­i­ly test the effec­tive­ness of a new image, head­line, or con­tent using con­sis­tent templates. 

Call Today for an Email Campaign Consultation

Mea­sur­ing the per­for­mance of an email cam­paign can be tricky but we can help you with all aspects of an inte­grat­ed mar­ket­ing strat­e­gy. Backed by over 25 years of expe­ri­ence in the field of mar­ket­ing, we take a tar­get­ed approach to devel­op­ing an email cam­paign with high con­ver­sion rates. Give us a call for a free con­sul­ta­tion and start your email cam­paign today!