Email marketing is one of the most effective forms of digital marketing. It offers you tremendous reach beside giving you total control in terms of customization, frequency and campaign objectives.
However, it’s felt that marketers struggle with email marketing, which happens largely because there are more odds than one can imagine when it comes to successfully implementing email marketing campaigns.
From the likelihood of being filtered as spam to having less open rate and less engagement, there are many issues email marketers confront every day.
Here are some actionable tips to address these issues and maximize your digital marketing ROI using email marketing.
Tip #1 Ensure proper timing and frequency
It’s important to choose the timing and frequency of your email marketing campaigns carefully. For example, Mondays are loaded with work and people are busy planning their weekend activities on Fridays, so these two days tend to have low open rates. According to a survey, Tuesday and Thursday have high open rates and hence are recommended for your email campaigns.
Similarly, there are certain occasions during the year, when people simply don’t have the time to check their emails – and what good is sending a well-crafted email, when it doesn’t even get opened?
For example, in the US, Christmas and New Year holidays, tax filing season, Thanksgiving, and the beginning of the academic year are such occasions, when people don’t check their emails.
It’s also important to choose a good frequency (i.e. daily, weekly, twice a week, fortnightly etc.). to send emails, so that the recipients don’t feel irritated. You can better ask your recipients how often would they like to receive your emails.
Tip #2 Aim for long term relationship with subscribers
It takes some time to build trust. It doesn’t happen overnight. So, make sure you’re sending content that helps and addresses the pain points of your customers and prospects. Email marketing should be used to win people and make them your lifetime customers.
Sales follow trust-building. Make sure your open rates are from 25% to 40% in the long run. This bracket is found to have a close link with long term relationship.
Don’t send content that is irrelevant to your audiences. There are strong chances that they will unsubscribe your emails if it happens.
Tip #3 – Personalize email content
Don’t use generic terms such as “Hi” or “Dear Sir”, etc. Use the first name of your recipient and talk to them as if they are your friends. This makes them feel important and valued and makes them more likely to go through your content.
Tip #4 – Include pictures, videos, and graphics
Emails that are colorful and have graphics are more likely to be opened and read, as compared to the plain text emails. Most of the emails we receive have boring plain text in them.
Send eye-catching emails with colorful graphics, attractive fonts and compelling messages and subject lines. It will improve your open rates and CTR. But, make sure it’s not cluttered and messy.
So, make sure your web designer follows the best and the latest web design trends while designing your email. It has been observed that both ROI and CTR have seen a rise of around 50% and 300% respectively when videos and graphics were included in the emails.
Tip #5 – Allow your subscribers to update their email addresses
When you switch companies, your official email IDs also change. Sometimes, people also change their personal email addresses. It’s therefore desired that you should allow your users to update their information from time to time and this should be easy to do. It will help you keep your email database updated.
Tip #6 – Allow your subscribers to unsubscribe from your emails
You should not force everyone to continue receiving your emails. First of all, it’s of no use sending emails to a person, who is not interested in your products or services. It’s a waste of your resources. Your email list should comprise of people, who are interested in your services and are likely to buy from you or at least endorse your products or services.
The more information you can share with your customers, the more likely they are to come to you when they are looking for a product or service that you offer. Enhance revenue and profitability with targeted campaigns.
Tip #7 – Deliver long-term value
Have you come across the emails which add insights and make life easier for you – by giving some valuable tips, information or solution — and I’m pretty sure you like to see such emails in your inbox.
Emails that deliver long-term value are loved by the subscribers. Sometimes, they even anticipate such emails. For example, Marie Forleo, a famous business and life coach for females, sends a newsletter every Tuesday. Her fans and audiences wait for Tuesday to receive her email. This email comprises of an informative video shot exclusively for MarieTV, her official YouTube channel.
This mail sometimes also includes pictures from her past events. But, the common element here is that both the featured video and the rest of the content are aimed to provide some value to her subscribers – the buddy female entrepreneurs!
It surprises me that she has a huge chunk of male fans despite the fact that she loves to position herself as a “business coach for females”.
Tip #8 – Offer concept-driven rather than self-promotional content
Try to be a part of someone’s consciousness by offering concept driven content and insights. Focus on something that adds value and something that makes life easier for your readers, rather than directly promoting and pushing your products and services.
When you become a part of someone else’s life and thoughts through imparting valuable information and communicating with them on an emotional level, your brand automatically gets a boost and you become an icon they look up to, as far as technological advice is concerned.
Tip #9 – Build your own brand, don’t promote others
During the course of time, you’re likely to come across situations, where you might have to endorse or mention other brands. While, there’s nothing wrong with this, it’s always in your favor to focus on your own brand. You can mention others as well, but as complementary products or as relevant examples.
Tip #10 – Use simple language
Avoid jargon and words that are specific to your industry. This may distract an ordinary reader. Use the language that is commonly understood and spoken. So, instead of using the word “Chimera”, say a fantastical figure used as a decorative piece in a building – or something which is impossible to achieve (as per the context).
Tip #11 – Integrate your CMS with email marketing and increase the reach of your emails
Emails have tremendous reach and therefore it’s advisable to integrate your CMS to your email marketing campaign. You might have lots of information about the buying behavior of your customer in your CMS and it can be leveraged to improve the email marketing campaigns.
Tip #12 – Measure effectiveness of your campaign
Measure the effectiveness of your email marketing campaign periodically and you’re likely to get better results. It helps you to fix the issues and monitor your campaign more closely, in terms of important insights such as your email open rate and who’s opening your emails. When you keep on testing it, it helps you to refine your campaign. You can filter people, who are not responding at all and focus on people who regularly open your emails.
Tip #13 – Make sure your email content is mobile friendly
Most of the people check their emails using smartphones. So, if your email content doesn’t have a mobile interface, your user experience will go down and that will affect your campaign. Make sure, it’s optimized for all devices including tablets and mobiles.
Tip #14 – Use a standard email template
If you have a standard template for the outgoing emails, it boosts your branding and improves the user experience. Have a look at the emails sent by Amazon and professionals like Marie Forleo etc. and you’ll notice that they use a certain template.
If you consistently use a specific template, over a period of time, users become familiar with it and it raises users’ engagement level.
Tip #15 – Use social buttons in your email
It’s important to send traffic to your social channels using the social buttons in your emails. Many of your subscribers may like to visit your social pages for more information and product updates. So, don’t lose this opportunity to engage.
Tip #16 – Gather market intelligence using surveys
Gather better market intelligence and insights about your customers using surveys. Your email campaigns can be used to conduct such surveys. This technique will help you to know your customers and predict their (buying) behavior more accurately.
Tip #17 – Try manual email marketing
Sometimes, automated email marketing doesn’t produce the kind of results you want. In this case, you can try manual email marketing. If you have a relevant but small database, you can send your emails one by one. This way your emails will not get flagged as spam and will end up landing in the inbox of the recipients. It produces 10 times better results, according to a digital marketing agency.
Tip #18 – Automate your email marketing
Tools such as MailChimp, ExactTarget, Vertical Response, Marketo, and SilverPop are extremely good tools for email marketing. They will make your campaign easier to manage and measure. You can schedule your emails and automate the process using these tools.
If you follow these tips, you’re more likely to succeed at email marketing both in terms of growing audiences and boosting engagement. Once you’re able to achieve this, generating revenue will not be a difficult task.
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