When it comes to digital communications, email is the oldest and most popular medium.
It is true that there are newer methods of communicating with your customers. Some of these include social media, live chat among many others. But email is the king of marketing channels with a user base of more than 4 billion.
It has been found that the ROI of email marketing is $38 for every dollar spent! That is a good enough reason to keep it in your marketing strategy.
Email marketing is one of the most effective marketing channels, and it outperforms social media, SEO, and affiliate marketing.
What’s the reason behind this? Although there are many new popular channels, this decades-old technology is still one of the most effective strategies of marketing!
Although social media has risen in popularity, people use email more. And that is backed up by the statistics(https://financesonline.com/number-of-email-users/).
Another good thing about email marketing is that you are the owner of the connections. There is no need to worry about algorithm changes affecting your reach!
It is more important then ever to build a successful email marketing campaign. But the problem is that most people don’t know how to do it right.
In this post, we will talk about how you can build an impactful email campaign!
What is email marketing?
It is a type of direct marketing that uses personalized, mass emails to educate a lead and convince them to take a specific action, like making a purchase! It can help in making your customers aware of the latest items or offers by taking the help of marketing automation.
It can also play a very important role in marketing strategy and help in lead generation, brand awareness, building relationships, or keeping customers engaged by different kinds of marketing emails.
A brief history of emails!
The first email was sent in 1971 by a computer engineer named Ray Tomlinson. Although the message he sent was a string of numbers and letters, it was the beginning of a new style of communication. Tomlinson was the one who introduced the “@” symbol in the email address.
It was the year 1978, that a marketing manager at Digital Equipment Corp named Gary Thuerk used email to introduce a new product to people. Although his email list had only 400 addresses, the emails he sent resulted in $13 million in sales.
By the ’90s the internet became commercially available to the masses. And this led to a dramatic change in the way people communicated with each other. And marketers discovered that email can be a great advertising tool. With the rise in email marketing, there were some regulations put into place. For eg., U.K.’s Data Protection Act was adjusted to require an “opt-out” option for all marketing emails.
Advantages of email marketing
The email has become such an important tool for marketing because it forces the user to take some action. An email remains in your inbox until it’s read, deleted, or archived.
Elements of Effective Email Marketing
An effective email marketing campaign has three essential elements: –
- An Email List
If you want your email campaigns to be successful, you need an active email list. This is a database of email contacts who have expressed interest in receiving marketing communications from you. You can create an email list in a number of ways. One of the easiest is to create a lead magnet your target audience is interested in.
2. An Email Service Provider
An email service provider (ESP), also known as an email marketing platform, is software that helps in managing the email list. It also helps design and execute email marketing campaigns.
Using an Email Service Provider, you can automate actions on the basis of your target audience’s behavior. You can personalize each interaction using ESP, thus improving engagement and conversion rates.
3. Clearly Defined Goals
Many business goals can be achieved using email marketing. Some of the business goals you can achieve include: –
- Generate and nurture leads
- Driving sales
- Keeping customers engaged
- Boosting awareness of brand
- Increasing customer loyalty
For your email marketing campaign to be effective, there must be an alignment between your email list, ESP, and goals.
You need to segment your email list according to the demographics of subscribers.
Then, you need to create a drip marketing campaign or email series to get prospective customers to take action.
You should use your Email Service Provider to send emails and monitor campaigns automatically.
Advantages of Email Marketing:-
- Email is Permission-based
If you are gaining access to your customer’s email address, it is equivalent to gaining access to keys to their houses. If you first take permission rather than showing uninvited, it increases chances of engagement and conversion.
2. You Get Direct Access to the Audience
You can reach your subscribers directly on schedule. As people check their emails daily, your email is very likely to be viewed.
3. You Get More Control
The relationship with customers on other platforms exists until the platform is there. With email, you are the owner of the relationships that you nurture with your subscribers.
4. Create Personalized Campaigns
In order to create personalized and hyper-targeted campaigns, you can create demographic or psychographic data. According to research, segmented and personalized campaigns increase revenue by more than 750%.
5. Measurable
If you want to make your marketing campaign effective, you should measure everything. Automated email marketing makes measuring your campaign very easy.
6. Scalable
It is easy to scale your campaigns without putting a strain on resources or compromising quality.
7. Targetting and Segmenting
Email marketing can help you build relationships with your audience while also driving traffic to your blog, social media, or anywhere else you want people to visit. You can even segment your emails and target users by demographics. So that the right message reaches the right people.
Disadvantages of Email Marketing
- Tough Competition
We know that the inbox is always cluttered and it is quite a challenge. You have to be very creative to make sure your emails get noticed and opened.
2. An Email List is Required
When you do email marketing, you are required to have an email list for effective campaigns.
3. A lot of Rules and Regulations
The use of email for commercial purposes has a lot of rules and regulations. Some common examples include GDPR, CAN-SPAM, and CCPA. According to all these regulations, you can’t send unwanted emails.
4. Delivery and Deliverability Issues
There is no guarantee that the email you send will land in the receiver’s inbox. If you want to run effective email marketing campaigns, you will face delivery and deliverability issues.
How to do Email Marketing Automation?
Although the automation process varies from one Email Service Provider to another, there are some universal steps that can be taken to automate your email marketing.
- Define Your Segments
If you want your email marketing campaign to be more effective, you need to start with segmentation. You can group your subscribers on the basis of data you have about them. This helps in creating more personalized campaigns.
2. Design Efficient Workflow
Once you segment your email list, it’s time to design the workflow. This is actually the series of emails that can carry out the campaign’s objective.
Identify Right Triggers
After designing the workflow, you need to find out the triggers that will set off the following email sequence. Some examples of triggers include customers opening the email, clicking on the link, or not opening it at all within a timespan!
3. Best Strategies for Email Marketing
To succeed in email marketing, you have to be strategic while designing the campaigns. Some of the best email marketing strategies you can employ: –
4. Use the Right List Building Strategies
The more quality leads you to have in your email list, the more successful will be your email marketing campaigns. If you want to build such a list, you must use list-building strategies that are designed to attract the target audience.
6. Keep Cleaning Your Email List
A good email marketing strategy is to practice email list hygiene. Cleaning inactive subscribers and email addresses will make sure that your sender’s reputation is good.
7. Keep your List Warm
You should send emails to your list regularly and keep your subscribers engaged. Infrequent emailing could result in subscribers forgetting who you are thus leading to a low conversion rate. You can run a re-engagement campaign to turn cold leads into warm.
8. Focus on one Objective
Each campaign should be designed to focus on only one objective. If you try to address multiple agendas in a single email, it will confuse your audience and reduce your conversion rates.
9. Define and Track Right KPIs
It is not enough to just send a couple of emails to the subscribers. You also need to track the performance of your campaigns. You need to set the right Key Performance Indicators (KPIs) for tracking that performance.
Writing An Effective Email Marketing Copy
The success of your email marketing campaign depends on your email marketing copy. And that is why you must write your copy well.
Know Your Audience
Knowing your audience is necessary for crafting a compelling email marketing copy. It will help in better segmenting your list and creating a targeted email copy.
Come Up with Impeccable Subject Line
The most important element of email copy is the subject line. It helps readers to decide whether to open the email. In order to make an unforgettable subject line:
- Use keywords
- Make it useful
- Use active voice
- Personalize it as much as possible
Come Up With A Good Preview Text
Email preview text appears below or beside the subject line. It is limited to only 140 characters. It acts as a call to action to convince people to open your email. An optimized preview text acts as an extension of your subject line.
Make it Easy to Read
The email copy that you write must be easy to read and understand. It helps in grabbing the attention of people. This can be achieved by: –
- Making use of short sentences and paragraphs
- Avoiding jargons and complicated words
- Use of bullet points
Using Psychology to Your Advantage
Human beings react to certain cues in different conditions. You can make use of the psychological triggers to make your readers act in accordance with your campaign’s objectives. Examples of such triggers include:
- Fear Of Missing Out(FOMO)
- Color Psychology
- Social Proof