A collection of procedures that a marketer follows to achieve desired marketing goals with email advertising is known as an email marketing strategy. The plan of action gives the businesses a direct communication channel with customers and prospects for brand promotion. In digital marketing, email can significantly impact revenue as a standalone because it is universal and versatile. Almost everyone has an email address, and it’s so easy to use for communication. There are many things to understand while crafting an email marketing plan. Businesses need to consider which tools to use, segment lists, what to send, and even the way to compliance legalities. Email marketing is complex for experts and beginners alike.
There are several leak-proof marketing strategies formulated by email marketers globally. Today, we will address the ten common yet vital elements needed for designing winning email marketing campaigns.
1. Understanding Your Subscriber
Human psychology lays on the foundation of incentive-based behavior. A prospect who shares his email address with you will ask, “How shall I be benefitted?” and you can ask, “How shall this email campaign be helpful for my brand?” while planning your email marketing campaign.
You need to understand the purpose of sending emails to your subscribers based on what your industry or brand offers. Finalizing the objective helps in the lead generation methods. You can also create capture forms on your page with appropriate incentives based on your goals.
An email sent to your subscriber should build a relationship and also convey a message. It should be compelling enough for the subscriber, and he should spend more than 8 seconds on it.
2. Learning End-user Preferences and Email List Cleaning
Focusing on your subscriber list is essential. It is also necessary to weed out invalid and unnecessary email addresses from time to time. This improves deliverability and also ensures that your emails reach your targeted audience only.
Moreover, it is essential to know your subscribers better to churn out better email content. You can quickly get this by including a link to your preference center in the welcome email or adding specific form fields in your landing page. It is easy to segment your email list when you know your subscribers better.
Segment your lists according to the information your subscriber needs so that they don’t feel like a faceless name. Between an unsubscribe and spam compliant, the former seems like a much better option. However, marketers should make an effort to stay away from either.
3. Preparing the Email Lifecycle
A prospect becomes a lead after providing their email address. After that, a series of emails should be sent that nurtures lead to knowing your brand better and becoming qualified enough to make a purchase. Hence, the email series should be planned accordingly. The email series is classified into four parts:
Onboarding emails: They are mainly sent to know your subscriber better, like personalized welcome emails, introduction to features, or getting started emails.
Lead Nurturing emails: These are the emails that provide comprehensive knowledge of your services and are sent for brand awareness — for example, product update emails, new feature emails, or email newsletters.
Sales / Promotional Emails: These emails are sent to push your subscribers to make purchases gently. They include event or sale announcements, special introductory emails, and promotional discount emails.
Behavioral emails: When your subscriber completes a predicted behavior, it triggers emails, these are those transactional emails. Retargeting emails, order confirmation emails, and cart abandonment emails are a few examples.
4. Being Forthright – Using Preview Text, Subject Lines, CTAs, and Email Copy
Apart from the senders/brands name in your email, the only thing that can help your emails get opened is the pre-header text and subject line. Keeping the email’s purpose right at the subject line helps in increasing the open rates.
Your email copy has to be strong enough to convey the message in the top fold itself. An actionable CTA also improves the click-through rates of email.
5. Giving a Personality to Your Emails
No subscriber wants to be treated as a faceless name picked from a random mailing list in this era of digital innovations. Many people unsubscribe to emails that have irrelevant content. It’s better to engage in a dialogue with your subscribers rather than that bulk email blast. Provide value through updates, insights, and new content without making it sound like a sales pitch. Always write in a one-to-one conversation mode, use personalized tags, and ask for their feedback.
6. A/B Testing Your Emails
To garner more acceptance from your subscribers, A/B test before sending your email. Evidently, A/B tested elements in an email, observe actual click rate. Changing the subject line from “Happy Holidays” to “Merry Christmas” can double the click rate.
A/B testing your emails helps you in keeping yourself updated as to what works and what doesn’t. It is wise to set a timeline regarding how much to wait before sending the winning email to your subscriber list. It is advisable to wait 2 hours after conducting A/B testing to get substantial results.
7. Landing Pages
A landing page is a web page where your subscribers ‘land’ after clicking any of your online campaigns like social media ads, display banners, blog posts, and more. It captures visitor information in return for the incentive that brought the subscriber to this page. Your landing page should communicate the same thing conveyed in your campaign to make the transition seamless. Hence, landing pages should be devoid of any navigations to distract your visitors as it should be the final stop for your subscribers.
8. Improving Deliverability and Looking into Spam Laws
Creating an email campaign, getting your landing page ready for lead generation, and hitting the ‘Send’ button is not enough. Your brand should have a good reputation for your emails to reach your subscribers’ inbox and not land in their spam folder. Here are some tips to ascertain good sender reputation:
- – Don’t do bulk emailing/email blast. It’s better to segment your list.
- – Find an ESP with a good reputation.
- – Send relevant emails and reduce the number of spam complaints.
- – To avoid adding bogus emails, have double opt-ins.
- – Never cheat your subscribers with misleading practices.
It is a good practice to enable subscribers to white list your email address once they’ve subscribed to your emails. This means recognizing and adding your email address as a trusted sender. It is beneficial to increase the overall sender reputation.
9. Measuring Metrics
The three most crucial metrics to measure in emails are click-through rate (CTR), open rate, and unsubscribes. Make sure you receive timely information that can be retrieved from these metrics to perform better.
10. Putting the Metrics to Use
Once the metrics of your previous campaign are in your hand and your emails are set up, it’s time to bring back the abandoners. In the e-Commerce industry, cart abandonment is one of the most critical tools for email marketers.
You can also go for email retargeting. It means you send targeted emails after observing your subscribers’ activity on the web. Marketers can give ads on the webpage where the subscriber mostly surfs, based on the tracking pixel employed in an email. It is beneficial when the communication between the subscriber and the brand is severed, and you need to pick up the conversation from that point itself.
However, marketers who are willing to go the extra mile can make use of it. If you run an e-commerce business, a triggered cart abandonment email is one of the vital tools.
Conclusion
Regardless of the industry or business model, email marketing is a channel worth exploring. With the right kind of information, you can use email to connect with your potential and current customers in a way that builds trust and grows revenue.
