In the world of social media marketing and targeted ad campaigns via social networking platforms, traditional marketing tools like emails do not seem the flashiest. And it is exactly why most people chose to ignore email marketing, not knowing that it still remains one of the most effective marketing tools.
In contrast to popular belief, email marketing is not archaic. Compared to the modern means of marketing, it is the most cost-effective and offers the best return on investment. And with some email marketing tips, it can even outperform most contemporary marketing tools.
It should still be the go-to marketing tool, especially for businesses that do not have the budget to run expensive targeted ads. Several studies have reiterated the importance of email marketing and recommended strategies to extract the maximum benefit from this medium.
In this piece, we will discuss some tips that would help in devising the best strategies for email marketing. So, let’s get straight to it.
1. Repeat The Emails That Worked
Each marketing campaign targets a set of demographics and within that set, most people have similar preferences. You should experiment with multiple emails to see which pattern worked the best.
The changes could be made in the style of greeting, the body of the email, or the media that is attached to it. After sending these emails, wait for a while and analyze the responses that are received from the different patterns.
The analysis would help you figure out the pattern that worked the best. Use that particular template for the next campaign and you will be amazed by the results. You can also analyze the responses from different age groups.
For example, an email with a particular pattern may work better for a certain age group than others. Keep a note of that as well and design tailored emails for the different age groups to receive maximum responses.
Generally, email with contemporary media would appeal more to the young population whereas a formal, well-written email would work better for slightly older age groups.
2. Send Consistent Emails On A Regular Basis
Even with the modern form of marketing like social media ads, the target population becomes interested when the ads are repeatedly shown to them. It is the same with email marketing.
You have to send emails to the same person on a consistent and regular basis to get them interested. The first batch of emails would receive the least responses because it is when you are still figuring out which format works the best.
And once an effective template has been sorted, each batch of emails would receive more responses. It is a long game. You cannot just give in after sending one or two emails to a particular set of audiences.
The market offers a number of applications and services that can send automated emails. If sending emails takes too much time, one can subscribe to these platforms to send a large number of emails in a short time.
You can import all the email addresses in these applications and programs to send a particular email after a certain time interval. It would make the campaign very effective.
3. Run Email Split Testing
Split testing is an experiment to understand which pattern of email works the best. It can be used to judge the performance of different email templates where one element has been changed. The element can be the subject line, call to action buttons, or the template of the body.
You would get comprehensive details with percentages regarding the performance of each email pattern. Hence, running split testing on the email can help figure out the most effective template for the marketing campaign.
That said, the split testing is only effective when just one element of the email has been changed. There are other tests like multivariate email testing if multiple components of an email have been modified.
Split testing will also help to sort out the preferences of different demographics and target populations. You would recognize the most effective pattern for different age groups which goes a long way in making a marketing campaign successful.
4. Use Your Subject Line Wisely
President Barack Obama relied on email marketing for donations for his presidential campaigns. The analysis revealed that there was a difference of about $2.2 million between the amount received from the best and worst-performing subject lines.
You may not have a seven-figure budget for the marketing campaign, but it should at least make the importance of email subject lines clear.
The subject line is the first element that recipients will read which means the margin of error is quite slim. If it does not appeal to the audience, most of them would not even bother reading the body of the email. Thus, it is very critical to come up with creative, catchy, and intelligent subject lines that are able to grab attention.
You can personalize the email subject line based on the demographics of the recipients. For example, if the target population lives in a single city, you can add the name of that city in the subject line.
Furthermore, do not stuff the subject line with unnecessary words and sentences. Keep it comprehensive and short. Studies have found that subject lines that are as short as four letters received the highest responses.
You can also use powerful words in the subject line to spark curiosity in the audience. That said, the most important factor while writing a subject line is the human factor. Your email should look as if someone has invested their time and energy to write the content and the subject line.
5. Provide Value In Your Emails
Most emails go unanswered because despite reading them completely, the audience gets no value out of them. Each sentence of the email should provide some value to the audience for the time they spend reading it. You should focus on the customer, understand their needs, and craft the email accordingly.
For example, if you are marketing for a skincare solution, start with the problems that the product solves. It would create a sense of reliability and compel the readers to read the complete emails. This section should be followed by the solution that you are marketing along with the factors that make it stand out in the market.
However, do not provide the full information. Leave something out to make the readers curious to make them click on the action buttons.
Initially, you would find it hard to figure out which part of the information should be told in the email and which part should be left out. But as discussed earlier, experiment with the different patterns and see which one works the best.
6. Customize Every Email
Personalized emails deliver the best results because they appeal to the audience on a personal level. And in contrast to popular belief, the customization is beyond just addressing the audiences with their names.
There are several ways to customize emails but the most common include adding locations, gender, and role of someone in an organization. Browsing the history of the audiences also helps in customizing the email for them.
For example, if you run an online retail store and store the data about the products of customers in a bucket that they did not purchase. You can use it to customize the email by letting them know about the discounts if there are any of those products.
Furthermore, the birthdays of the audiences can also be used to personalize emails to get the best results. Point is, the more data you have, the better-customized emails would be.
You can also use dynamic content in the email which appears differently to different audiences. The dynamic email allows markers to customize a certain portion of the content’s body for a particular set of audiences.
For example, within a single email, you can attach different types of media. And the audience will see the media that resonates with them the most. A TikTok-style video might appeal better to younger audiences, whereas a comprehensive long video would be appropriate for slightly aged groups.
7. Make Your Email Brief
Making an email brief would let you know about the performance of the campaign. The brief should enlist the goal of the campaign, the content of emails, the demographics of the audience, and key performance indicators.
It should be shared with all the stakeholders of the campaign to ensure everyone has the same agenda and goals. Furthermore, it will also help if you decide to get other employees on board. The email brief would make it clear to the new members of the campaign about the goals the organization wants to achieve.
Email briefs also prevent miscommunications and mistakes especially when a large volume of emails are being sent. When everyone knows the purpose of the campaign and the objective of the emails, the chances of errors decrease by many folds.
8. Maintain A Specific Landing Page For Your Campaign
All marketing campaigns have one agenda which is to boost sales and spread awareness about a particular product or brand. Most of the time, the email’s CTA will be linked to the landing page of the campaign.
It is essentially the first thing that potential customers will see about a business. And if it is not tailored as per the campaign, the audience will be thrown off.
A lot of thought must go into creating a landing page and it should be made appealing to different audiences. You can also make tailor landing pages for different audiences based on their interests. It can be done by linking a particular set of emails with one landing page and the second one with another.
The landing page should provide comprehensive but only relevant information to the audience. It should be optimized for desktops and smartphones and should not take too long to load. Most importantly, the messaging and information on the landing page should be in line with the content that you have sent via email.
9. Recognize And Appreciate Your Target Demographics
If there is one takeaway from the entire discussion in this piece, it would be personalization. The importance of customization is unparalleled for any marketing campaign and it can only be done when the demographics are recognized.
You must understand the age groups, interests, browsing habits, and basically everything there is to know about the target population. If a campaign lacks this information, it would never be able to make an impact.
10. Do Not Violate CAN-SPAM 2003 Act
Email recipients in the United States have certain rights granted to them by Federal Government. The most important of them is to receive emails only from services they have subscribed to. You can land in legal trouble for sending too many emails to a person who has not signed up to receive emails.
Furthermore, the email must contain the address of the company in each email in addition to the “From” and “Reply-To” fields. You also have to provide a link to the recipients that can be used to unsubscribe from the email services.
Moreover, each email platform has certain regulations of its own to protect users from scams. Most platforms automatically send the email to spam folders by detecting certain words like “Make Money”, “Payment”, etc. You must read the guidelines of each platform thoroughly and devise a template that follows them.
Why Email Marketing?
There are plenty of reasons to go with emails for all sorts of marketing ranging from increasing brand awareness to boosting sales. It is the most cost-effective tool which is just as effective as contemporary social media marketing.
Businesses that do not have enough budget to target a wider audience with targeted ads via social networking platforms can opt for email marketing.
Like targeted ads, marketing emails can be customized, linked with landing pages, and analyzed without spending too much revenue. It is even more effective when a campaign targets professionals because they check their emails routinely.
Furthermore, unlike social media ad campaigns, the audience can directly reach you by replying to the email. The ease of communication builds trust and credibility for the business which is the fundamental purpose of any campaign.
Conclusion
Despite the innovations in marketing tools, email is still one of the most effective means of marketing. It helps marketers reach their audience directly and build trust with them.
Furthermore, the emails can be personalized for different demographics to produce relatability which delivers better results.
But the best part about email marketing is that it is one of the most affordable tools. Businesses that run on a tight budget can use this tool and get comparable results as modern means of marketing.
