Introduction to Email Marketing Strategy
You can pretty well assume by this point that the vast majority of your clients and potential clients use email services and frequently send and receive digital messages. This holds true whether you’re seeking for a B2B or B2C audience, clients, customers, supporters, or any other category of responders.
Because of this, email marketing is a tactic that can produce noteworthy outcomes at a great return on investment. But only when done correctly. At 800.com, we’re delighted to provide simple advice on email marketing tactics that even complete beginners can use successfully.
Here are some of your major actions from that first campaign, in our opinion.
Make a conversion map
This is simply another way of expressing that you must be aware of what you’re attempting before you begin.
It could be reasonable to anticipate that a certain percentage of respondents will decide to make a purchase with just one or two contacts if you’re offering a low-cost impulsive buy.
However, you need to take email recipients along a more complicated road from prospects to clients if you’re offering a high-ticket item, a complicated B2B service contract, or other expensive goods or services. Get the respondent to sign up for a podcast or online newsletter as your first call to action.
From there, you advance the prospect into your sales funnel in anticipation of a future transaction and enduring connection.
The key takeaway from this is to set up your email marketing campaign so that your receivers move on to the next stage of the digital marketing process once you have first established reasonable response targets.
Create a Natural Subscriber List
Obtaining dozens or even millions of email addresses is simple. Such a list can be purchased for a few cents per contact. But that might only work against you.
The issue is that all recipients are accustomed to skimming through spam messages. Your email will be deleted, not opened, and not read if it appears that it is not related to their needs. However, your effort can be more than just squandered. Based on a variety of criteria, including open rates, email service providers like Google flag senders as spam. Therefore, if a large portion of your receivers are ignoring your email, all of your subsequent mailings may end up in the system’s spam bin.
An organic list is one that is made up of people who have either opted in to receive your mailings or who you already have a working relationship with. These contacts are more likely to perceive your communications as pertinent to their needs, increasing the possibility that they will open and possibly reply to them.
Increasing Your Open Rates Shrewdly
The percentage of receivers who actually open and (probably) read your emails is indicated by your open rates. Remember that your recipients are busy whether you’re writing to a business or consumer audience. They are accustomed to receiving junk email in their inboxes. Dumping your unread email is a quick and simple way to reduce such clutter. First impressions are crucial because of this.
Your subject line will give people their very first impression of you. Make sure the use of exclamation points and terms like “Free” and “Miracle” doesn’t come off as schlocky. Another method used by email service providers to filter emails into spam folders is through the wording and presentation of the subject line. Even if your email does reach its intended recipients, they are unlikely to consider it anything more than a time waster.
Keep your subject lines concise, direct, and targeted. Keep your promises and promotional tone in check. Think about the end user and what you want them to do. Consider the subject line of your email as a billboard. If your outdoor advertising is succinct, direct, to the point, and pertinent to their needs as they speed by at 60 miles per hour, they will only pay attention.
The subject line for your email marketing is the same. It may be challenging at first to determine which subject lines are effective for your company and which are not, but this is where A/B testing comes into play. Measure open rates after trying various strategies. You can rapidly determine which copy methods are effective and which ones should be abandoned.
Induce passersby to enter your “store”
Take for example that you are browsing a mall. You come across a business with an attractive sign, raising the likelihood that it sells the kinds of goods you’re looking for. As a result, when you enter, the inside has a tacky appearance, the aisles are cluttered with unorganized merchandise, and the air is filled with strange odors. Turning around, you move toward the door.
Your email marketing campaign operates similarly. Although the effectiveness of your subject line and the relevance of your list may result in outstanding (or at least respectable) open rates, this is simply your first indicator of success. You want your email recipients to stay for a while once they’ve opened it. The goal is for them to click.
The percentage of receivers who read your message and click the link you provide to go to the next stage is measured by your message’s click-through rate (CTR). Your recipients must be motivated to read and consider your letter before you can expect the desired response. By using messaging that is visually appealing and engaging, this is achieved.
Don’t put too much pressure on your respondents. Here are some reasons that they might find it difficult to read your mailing (or, more likely, give up the effort to do so):
- Make the communication dull, unclear, and disjointed.
- Make sure the font is difficult to read.
- Create bulky, scary chunks of copy that are difficult to read.
- So that your readers are unaware of what you want them to do, hide the answer button or link.
- Write so much content that the reader must scroll down, down, down without knowing when it will end or what they should do when they do.
- Make sure the email layout is unattractive and unwelcoming.
As you can see, it’s simple to write an email that will alienate your readers in the same way that a disorganized and messy store layout can drive away real and mortar customers. However, providing clear, succinct messages with a call to action that is clearly stated in a clean, appealing structure might turn your window shoppers into actual prospects.
To put it another way, if your emails are presented professionally, simply, and pleasantly, those who open them will read them and may even do what you ask of them.
Audience Segmentation
Your audience will advance through your sales funnel at varying speeds. Some people will be more interested in a particular product offering than others. Others may not even be aware of your business while some are already devoted clients.
No two clients or prospects are same, as you’ve discovered in various methods of selling your line of goods or services. Your salespeople are taught not to use a same pitch for every customer and to start their presentations by posing questions that will help the audience understand what to expect.
By segmenting your mailing lists, you may customize your messaging to address specific client demands by building as many different lists as necessary. This avoids the impression that you are just sending out boilerplate copy to everyone.
A lengthy and devoted client will feel insulted and impersonal if you send them a “about us” email. You can prevent that kind of gaffe by dividing your recipients into distinct email lists.
Never Bomb Anyone
Sending people a ton of messages is probably the greatest approach to get a request to unsubscribe. Your audience receives plenty of email in their home and work inboxes, as we have stated time and time again. Even though each person in your target demographic will benefit from your mailings, too much is still too much.
So what is “too much”? Sadly, a lot of advertisers learn that the hard way when they receive unsubscribe requests from receivers who will never opt-in again. If you must err, err on the side of mailing too few. Only provide information when it is true and pertinent, such as when there are special offers, brand-new product introductions, significant company news, or other items that will directly benefit the recipients.
If they do unsubscribe, ask them why if you can. You can change the frequency if your survey reveals that the majority of customers left you because of excessive mailings.
Test repeatedly
Digital marketing has the advantage of allowing for quick failure. You can adjust subject lines, wording, design calls to action, and other features if your email marketing campaign is not successful.
The open and click-through rates of your emails will be your main success indicators. Once you observe the conversion rates you want, you can measure additional digital campaign elements.
Your campaign plan should continually incorporate A/B testing. Never presume that the campaign is “finally” perfect and that no further testing is required.
