Email marketing is a term that has likely been going around for quite some time – probably before any other kind of important marketing strategy has been developed. Since email has been in our lives for so long, it is logical to assume that it would remain for the time following. Honing your email marketing skills should seem like an efficient way to get your business going.
Still, what does email marketing involve? Why is it necessary, and how do you proceed in creating a good strategy? It might seem like something complex to do – and while it may involve some research, you will find that it’s quite logical in its steps. Once you know where to start and what the basics are, it should be easy for you to launch a successful email marketing campaign.
Contents
- What Is Email Marketing?
- Why Is Email Marketing Important?
- Benefits of Email Marketing for a Business
- How to Do Proper Email Marketing
- Growing Your Email List Efficiently
- Steps to Creating an Efficient Opt-In Email that Converts
- Personalizing Strategies with Email List Segmentation
- Top Tips to Improve Your Open Email Rate
- Automating Emails with Autoresponders
What Is Email Marketing?
Email marketing involves using the email to promote one’s business. Entrepreneurs use it to hone their relationships with potential customers, keeping them updated on their brand, and encouraging offers. This way, they will know for sure that people will remain faithful to the brand.Email marketing can be referred to as a direct form of marketing – something like the marketing that is similarly done through snail mail. However, this type of marketing is not only more efficient on your budget, but on the environment as well. After all, you won’t have to use as much paper anymore. You simply type the email and sent it to those that are concerned.
Some people might say that “email marketing is a thing of the past” or that it is “completely outdated.” That being said, there’s a good reason why about 85% of today’s marketers agree that email marketing is one of the most efficient ways to reach success – mostly because you can rely on it. Here is what Ramsay Taplin, founder of The Blog Tyrant says on the matter:
“Google is constantly changing its algorithm and, sometimes, you can end up with a penalty without even knowing what you’ve done wrong. In that situation, your mailing list is the only real protection you have. Even if all of my search rankings disappeared tomorrow, I’d still be able to promote my blog to tens of thousands of people via email. Nothing gets engagement like email. Twitter, Facebook, etc. is almost irrelevant by comparison. If someone has given you their email address, they are ready to engage with your content or products.” [1]
The email has survived for this long – from almost immediately after the Internet came into being. It’s doubtful that it will go away anytime soon.
Why Is Email Marketing Important?
What is the first thing that you do when you wake up in the morning? Some people would wake up, wash their faces, brush their teeth and brew some coffee. However, most people do one extra thing before going onto their routine: they check their phone. They will check their notifications, whether it’s Facebook or email – and after lying in bed for a couple of good minutes, scrolling, they will decide that it is a good moment to start their day.
Many business owners place most of their focus on social media marketing – but in truth, email marketing is a better way to build trust with the customers. This is because it allows you to connect with the customer instead of just hoping that your posts will reach them directly. However, many marketers do not believe that to be an efficient way of making your product known – and here is an opinion from Noah Kagan, founder of SumoMe on that.
“If you rely on Facebook or Twitter, you are at the mercy of them, allowing you to talk to your customers. When you email, it gets in your customers’ inboxes. Then it’s up to you to make sure you are sending things your customers want to receive. Email is the most scalable way to make sales with new customers and build a deeper relationship with deeper customers.” [2]
What he says, in a way, is true. Just think about it. How often have you suddenly realized that you are no longer seeing a friend’s post on Facebook, causing you to go to their page and see if you are still friends? To your surprise, they did not unfriend you – but why are you no longer seeing their posts?
Facebook has its algorithms when it comes to delivering content – in the sense that it only shows it to relevant people. If the person that liked your page did not interact with you for quite some time (or no longer appears interested), there is a chance that it will no longer even show on their feed. Facebook is deciding who sees your post – and all of that is based on an algorithm.
On the other hand, if you decide to go with email marketing, you know that sent mail will go into the inbox of your prospective customer. Even if they do not regularly interact with you, the email that you submitted will be in their inbox – and they will certainly see you. This way, you may connect with them and find out their preferences, thereby improving your company’s efficiency.
Benefits of Email Marketing for a Business
Not sure whether you should use email marketing to improve the ranking of your business or not. Granted, it depends on how you handle it – but if you learn how to use this strategy correctly, here are the benefits of this type of campaign
1. An email has a Larger Reach
At this point, Facebook has more than 1 billion active users, whereas Twitter claims to have a little over 250 million. It’s understandable why you think that these platforms are an excellent way for you to reach potential customers. The numbers are impressive – and if you do create a successful campaign, the chances are very high that you will be able to get a lot of sales.
That being said, those sales are nothing compared to the ones you might get from email marketing – and that’s mostly because, in 2017, there were a total of 4.9 billion email accounts in the world. This is almost five times the number of Facebook accounts.
If this sounds surprising to you, think about the normal email behavior: whenever you sign up to a website and create an account, you need to provide your email. Even Facebook or Twitter requires that you introduce your email as a means to send you notifications (e.g., when someone replies to a tweet or tags you in a picture).
Email is practically Internet currency. If you want to connect or see something, you (may) have to introduce an active email address. People that post a random comment on a blog that they are interested in may also need to provide an email. Once that email has been registered into the system, the company owner may use it to send notifications to the user concerning topics that they may like.
2. Email Shows Your Message
Between gaining a Facebook follower and adding a new subscriber to your list, one should always go with the subscriber – and there’s a good reason for that. While it’s true that some emails end up straight into the spam folder of the email account, about 90% of them go to their inbox. In comparison to that, only about 2% of the people on Facebook see your posts when scrolling on the platform.
Email generally has some fairly strict laws when it comes to spam – so, if your Content reaches the inbox of your prospective customer, it’s probably because you already allowed them to do so. As a result, they should receive all the Content that you sent to them. On the other hand, only about 200 users from 10,000 will see your posts because of the Facebook filters. Here is what Nathalie Lussier, digital strategist for the Ambition Ally, explains on this matter:
“Emails wait in someone’s inbox until they’re read, and when you write beneficial emails, people might refer to them more than once, because emails are easily searchable, too. People consume email differently from other media, and it still converts to sales better than other mediums at this point. The more people you have on your mailing list, the more potential buyers see your marketing messages, and I see spikes in sales every time I send an email.” [3]
You are 45 times more likely to have your posts seen in an email than you have with a Facebook post – which makes email marketing the smarter choice. It’s better to go straight into the customer’s mailbox than to randomly leave a flier down the street.
3. Email Leads to Conversion
As a marketer, your focus should be on driving conversions – so, no matter if you plan to get a lead, a sale, or a membership, your purpose is to get your client to pay. And where conversion is involved, there’s probably no better medium to do so than email marketing.
Email is more “clickable” to some people, and this is something that has been proven by stats. The CTR (click-through-rate) of Twitter stands at somewhere about 0.3%-0.5%, whereas email has an average CTR of 3%. So, those who register with their email do so because they are interested in what you have to post.
4. Email Is Cost-Effective
When it comes to marketing, there are several mediums that you may use to make your business known – and by this, we do not necessarily mean Twitter or other similar platforms. In some cases, such as with PPC marketing, you may have to pull out quite some cash if you wish to go higher up the market.
Email marketing, on the other hand, is very affordable – It even costs less if you decide to do it by yourself. The only way it will cost you money is to hire a marketing agency, which will still be more affordable compared to other marketing strategies.
5. Email Will Likely Stick Around
Think about the popular platforms that we all used to love back in 2005 or so. Think about MySpace – and the fact that we no longer use it. Even LinkedIn is no longer as popular as it used to be. While people are still using it, it is no longer everywhere – not in the way that it used to pop up all over the Internet.
However, if there is one particular thing, it’s that email will not go anywhere anytime soon. Back in 2006, it was one of the hottest things to use – and now, in 2020, everyone is still using it. You subscribe to something, and you add your email. You submit a form for the release of a specific document – and again, you need to provide your email. Email is everywhere, and if it did not go out of fashion until now, it’s probably here to stay.
How to Do Proper Email Marketing
So, email marketing seems like an excellent way to go – but how do you get started with it? Granted, this type of marketing features quite a few twists and turns, along with the move of several essential pieces – but this does not mean that it needs to be anything complicated. Here is how one breaks it down:
- Begin with the List: Start with your list and begin collecting your leads right away. No matter if you gain those leads through ads or asking people to subscribe through advertisements, you will need to get those emails. After all, without them, you won’t have anyone to send your Content to.
- Add an Email Service Provider: Since you will be sending emails to other email users, you will also have to choose your email service provider. There are many of them, the most popular being Yahoo and Gmail, but there are countless other providers you may choose from.
- Once you have gone through these two steps, everything is just a matter of refining your email list and deciding on the message that you wish to send. Depending on your preferences, you may also go for email automation, as you will have one less thing to worry about. This might take some work, so if you are new to the business world, you might want to get some help from Monbi.com. With their support and professional advice, you should be able to raise the rankings of your business.
Growing Your Email List Efficiently
Most of the time, when a marketer wants to create an email list, they will place something called an “opt-in form” on their website and hope their visitors will sign up. However, the truth is that this rarely happens on its own. If you want to grow that email list and get on to business, you will need to give people something they can’t say no to. You need to give them a lead magnet.
1. Defining the Lead Magnet
Lead magnets go under many other definitions. Some call them signup offers or incentives, others call them content upgrades – and there are also those that refer to them as “freemiums.” Some successful digital marketers go as far as calling them “irresistible bribes.” It may sound seedy, but you can’t deny their efficiency.
Lead magnets have always been quite a powerful tool when it comes to marketing. Plus, they are particularly good when it comes to digital marketing, as they have the potential to immediately satisfy the request of a customer. Its purpose is to practically inspire the consumer to “hop on board” by getting on your email list. This way, through proper email marketing, you may be able to convert them into full buying customers.
At this point, you may be asking yourself the question: why do I need a lead magnet? Why do I ask for their email instead of just their credit card? Well, here is some food for thought: when people are browsing your website, only a small amount (less than 2%) end up making a purchase. The rest of them simply look around a bit, doing some research – and leave.
Many people visiting your website are only curious about your business and your product – but they are probably not yet convinced enough to buy it. So, imagine if a window just pops up, asking them for their money right off the bat; what do you think the after-effect of that will be? That’s right; they’ll leave before you even have the chance to advertise your product.
However, let’s say that they were considering your solution. Not convinced whether they should buy, but giving it some thought. By asking them for their email instead of a credit card in the lead magnet, you are connecting with them – all without making them feel that they owe you something. This clears the path for you to further advertise your product – and then turn that “maybe customer” into a “sure thing customer.”
2. What Are the Qualities of a Good Lead Magnet?
At this point, you are already aware of the fact that a lead magnet needs to offer free value. However, if you wish for that lead magnet to be truly efficient, there are five things that you might want to consider. Here is how a lead magnet is supposed to be:
- Easy to Consume: A lead magnet may only be seen as effective when the audience actually uses it. Most of the time, this only involves content that they can easily digest and go through. As a result, if what you provide them with is a 400-page manifesto, don’t expect them to stick around for too long.
- Actionable Look: A lead magnet will have to offer your visitors an actionable tool, some useful information, or a skillset that your audience may use to apply. After all, your plan here is to get your audience to ACT, which is why you will have to give them the right trigger.
- Noticeable Improvement: As long as your service or product is efficient, people will continue to buy it. That being said, your lead magnet will remain successful if it’s as valuable as the service or product you are advertising. Make sure that you create the necessary improvements when they are needed.
- Make It Relevant: When you are creating a lead magnet, you have to do some proper research on the people that are buying it. You are not selling the qualities and features of the product; you are selling the benefits it has on a buyer’s daily life. You are selling a product that solves several problems. The lead magnet needs to be relevant – otherwise, the potential buyers will not get themselves involved with it.
- Provide Immediate Availability. If there’s something that everyone seems to love, it’s instant gratification. You need to give them access right then and there, without any other complicated roundabouts (except for providing the email). The less trouble they will have to go through, the more inclined they will be to subscribe to your product.
Your lead magnet needs to be like a call to action – but one that provides your prospective buyers some benefits that they can’t refuse. They are there to convince your viewers that committing to you is a good idea – and all through the value that you offer them.
3. Ideas for Efficient Lead Magnets
We have determined that lead magnets are indeed a great idea – but what are some good examples of that? What can we use to attract potential customers – to convince them that our product is something that they may want to use? Here are some ideas that generally tend to get quite a lot of leads.
Samples
Who does not like free things? Samples are generally used in the beauty industry or in any other industry where you will have to demonstrate immediate gratification. In exchange for subscribing to your email list, the customer may get access to free samples.
Here is an example. Let’s say that you are selling a new perfume. You believe that ladies will enjoy it – but you can’t be completely certain that they will share the same values as you. They will have to try out the perfume before buying it. As a result, offering them small samples of said perfume will attract them into buying – and if they like it, they might end up buying the full bottle.
Tutorials and Training Videos
Let’s say that you are in the teaching and publishing market. In this case, a good lead magnet would be providing the first few lessons for free. Let’s say, for instance, that you are offering a 10-week piano training for those that wish to learn from the comfort of their home. To attract the customers into getting your product, you might want to make the first one or two weeks free – to give your users a taste of what your easy piano lessons look like. This will trigger them into creating conversions for you.
Free Trials
This is a lead magnet that software companies tend to use, where they allow their customers to first try their service before they buy it. That being said, while it is popular for these kinds of companies, it is not limited to them – and can reach out to apps as well.
Let’s take the music streaming platform, Spotify, for example. Over the years, they used to offer quite a number of free trials. Some time ago, they offered the first month free of charge for their Premium package, after which people had to pay the full $9.99 per package. In most cases, after trying it for free, people realized that they liked the app – and they ended up subscribing to it.
It’s like giving someone a potato chip. They don’t know that they want it until you give them the first taste. After that, they realize that they want more and get the rest of the chips as well – only that for those chips, they will have to pay. The same thing applies to these products: give them the taste, and they realize they’ll want the rest too.
Coupons and Discount Codes
Once more, we are coming back to the question of “who doesn’t like a good deal?” Most of the people nowadays go online before they do their shopping, so imagine how pulled into action they will be once they see a big “20% discount” flashing onto their screen.
This will lead the customer into action, and in an attempt to get access to that discount code, they will provide their email. You may use that email to show them any future offers or products that you may have.
Steps to Creating an Efficient Opt-In Email that Converts
When you are creating your opt-in, you need to make sure that you use all the right techniques to attract your clients. After all, the main purpose of that opt-in is to show the benefits of your product and attract them into becoming a buying customer. Here are the most efficient ways for you to do so.
1. Create an Enticing Headline
When you are creating the opt-in for your lead magnet, you will first need to create a clear and enticing headline. If the headline is vague and does not clearly state the benefits of what you are trying to advertise, the people will just full-out ignore it. Make it visible, make it catchy – and make it something that people are bound not to miss.
2. Provide a Helpful Description
After the title, the description is the next thing that people tend to look at. That section is exactly what convinces them whether it’s worth providing you with their email or not. Keep the opt-in description clear, brief, and to the point. A good tactic would be to use bullet points, as they allow the reader to quickly scan the benefits of your promotion.
3. Include Attractive Visuals
As human beings, we are genetically programmed to be attracted to beautiful things. We stop mid-way when we see a beautiful street, person, building, clothing item – and this is something that marketers need to take advantage of. When you are creating your opt-in, you also have to introduce a picture (for example, a mockup of the e-book that you are trying to sell). It will attract the eyes of the customer and get them even more interested in your product.
4. Make a Simple Form
Once people decide that they wish to gain access to what you are offering, the next thing that they will have to go through is the form. However, not everyone wants to spend their precious time filling in random forms with a lot of information – which is why you might want to keep it as short as possible. Don’t even think of asking for any more than their email address and their full name. If you ask for too much information right away, you will end up intimidating your viewers – which will in return put a halt on your conversions.
5. Make the Subscribe Button Compelling
Once more, visuals influence our way of acting – whether we realize it or not. As a result, you may want to use contrasting colors when you are designing the subscribe button. This way, it will pop up on the page and people will be triggered into action. You might want to go for non-generic email copy that compels the viewers into clicking right away (i.e. calls to action).
6. Decide on Opt-In Style
Once the opt-in form has been created, the last step would be to install it on your page. There are countless ways for you to do so, and they all depend on your preferences and your vision of the website. Here are the highest-converting options and placements:
- The website’s sidebar
- A timed popup
- An exit-intent popup
- The header of the website
- The splash gate
- The welcome gate
- The floating bar
- A scroll box
- A designated sign-up page
- In the blog posts
- The footer of the page
Popups tend to be the most popular options. Exit popups, in particular, are quite a good choice, as they appear when the reader is about to exit your website. This type of popup does not interrupt the reading experience of the audience and allows them to get to the end. They give them a chance to connect with you if they found your website useful.
Personalizing Strategies with Email List Segmentation
The average marketing experts will tell you that to become successful, you have to build an email list. That’s true, in a way – however, what they do not tell you is that not every person that is visiting your website does it for the same purpose. They may have different needs, different purposes – and may overall have very few connections. This is why, for your email marketing strategy to be successful, you will have to go through the proper segmentation of your list.
1. What Is Email List Segmentation?
Email list segmentation provides you with the ability to divide the contents from your group in several other subgroups – all of which have different purposes. For a small business, this works quite efficiently, as it may be used to send campaigns about different products or services. These campaigns may be more relevant to certain groups of people than to others.
According to Monbi’s Louie Ortiz, segmentation is quite an important part in creating your email marketing strategy:
“Segmenting your email marketing list is one of the most important steps in the online marketing process. Every digital marketing strategist needs to understand that not every customer is the same, and as such, you cannot treat them as if they were. You have to study their behavior and give them exactly what they need. This is how you keep them engaged with your business: by offering a product they feel was made for them.”
Segmentation allows you to reach the audience that is more likely to interact with your content. Let’s say, for example, that you have a platform that is selling tickets for various types of concerts all over the country. While it might be tempting to send the user notifications for every concert found there, not everyone will be interested – because each person will have different musical preferences.
In this case, a better choice would be to segment those emails into different categories. The people more likely to view or buy tickets for pop concerts would get pop concert recommendation emails – along with a link to buy a pass. Similarly, if someone has an interest in rock concerts, it is very unlikely that they will click on, say, Latino ones.
There are indeed people that have mixed interests – but you can never know which they are. For this reason, you might want to stick to what you do know. If you send them every email with every ticket that you have, eventually they will get sick of the spam and unsubscribe from your service.
While you may want to send all of them the email notifications with the most important updates, you should send them separate emails in regard to the products that you are advertising. This way, you will be able to hold on to your followers without spamming them.
2. Benefits of Email Segmentation
We are done with the “whats,” now we have to move on to the “whys.” What are the actual advantages of email segmentation? Why can we benefit from it if we add it to our email marketing strategy? Well, here are the most relevant factors that you need to keep in mind.
· Increased Email Open Rates
Think about your usual behavior when you get a mail. At this point, you probably have hundreds of emails marked as “unread,” why do you think this happened? Well, to put it as simply as possible, it’s because the website that you have subscribed to did not send you an interesting email.
How do you deem an email “not interesting,” you may ask? Well, first, it might be because the title was not properly thought-of – but most importantly, it might be because the content is simply not your cup of tea. You have a cat and usually purchase cat food, but the emails you receive are on dog food – it’s obvious that you won’t be opening that email.
· It Decreases the Unsubscribe Rates
Remember what we said above about spamming people? Well, if you do not work on your email segmentation, this is going to happen quite often. Getting people to subscribe to your newsletter is the easy part – everyone can give you their email on the first run if they feel the lead magnet is worth it. The real challenge is in making sure those people stay on your website.
By segmenting your subscribers, you make sure that your followers get exactly what they signed up for. If they subscribed for cat information, they might hit the unsubscribe button very fast if what they receive next is only related to dogs. However, by only sending them what they need and are likely to open, they will engage more with your content – and will increase the chances of improving your sales.
3. How to Segment Your Email List
Segmenting your list can be done in several ways – all depending on the types of followers that you have. That being said, here are a few good segmentation categories or factors that you may want to consider – along with some suggestions on how to deal with them:
- New Subscribers: Begin by sending your new subscribers an email where you welcome them to your website.
- Preferences: Segment the people into those that want to hear more about your sales and those that are more interested in your blog posts.
- Interests: See what the interests of your subscribers are and place them into categories (e.g. those that listen to pop music versus those that listen to rock music)
- Inactivity: Send reminders to those that have not engaged with you for a while. Ask them about the next steps that they wish you to take to increase their activity.
- Open Rate: Provide rewards to the subscribers that engage the most with your profile, giving them a special custom offer.
- Location: Notify your subscribers of your events or special offers that are taking place in your area.
- Shopping Cart Abandonment: Remind those that have subscribed to your website that they still have items in their shopping cart they have yet to check out.
- Lead Magnet: Send your subscribers some emails based on the topic that got them to opt-in through the lead magnet.
These only scratch the surface of the things that you can do to segment your email list. The secret here is to pay attention to the behavior of your followers. This may easily be done using contact forms or information-collecting tools that will allow you to create a targeted marketing list.
Top Tips to Improve Your Open Email Rate
Let’s say that you do manage to get quite a decent email list and that more and more people are subscribing. The numbers should look good – right now, you should have a lot of people engaging with your content. However, for some reason, your open rate still seems to be low, and your conversions are nowhere near good. So, what can you do to change that?
At this point, you’ve already received permission to send these emails to your subscribers. If you’ve also chosen a good email marketing provider, then things should just start working out by themselves. However, you need to use some good practices to ensure that your emails get read.
1. Steer Clear of Spam Filters
Some practices will send you into the inbox of your recipient – whereas others will send you straight into the spam folder. For example, you might want to make sure straight from the very beginning that your recipients have opted in for receiving emails from you. If they haven’t subscribed to you, then your email will be sent into their spam folder.
One more important thing is to ensure the IP address you are sending the email from is a good one. If you are utilizing one that has been previously used to send spam, then yours will also be labeled as such.
This cannot be stressed enough, but you should avoid using too much “salesy language.” Spam trigger words are not nicely viewed by email guidelines, which direct them into the recipient’s spam folder – but they are not very appealing to the recipient either. Very few connect with this type of language, which is why your emails remain unopened.
2. Remove Inactive Subscribers
We know that it’s hard to let go – but sometimes, it is something that needs to be done. Emailing your subscribers consistently is a very important part of email marketing – but you also need to ensure that your list doesn’t just die out. You need people that are engaged with your content – and if this involves removing those that are no longer keeping in contact with you, then so be it.
There are quite a few reasons why some subscribers may be inactive. In some cases, it might be because they are not using that particular email. In other cases, it might simply be because they are no longer sharing an interest with your content. Regardless of the case, you should remove them to ensure that your list remains fresh.
That being said, you don’t have to delete all inactive subscribers right away – but give them a chance to become active again. Send them a reminder about your website, asking whether there is something you might do to keep them active or not. You may also ask them whether they wish to remain subscribed or not – and if the answer is negative or nonexistent, then you can simply remove them from the list.
3. Achieve Perfect Timing
If the subscribers are not opening the emails that you send, it might simply be because you are sending them at the wrong time. If you catch the recipient at a point when they cannot open their email, the chances are that they will forget about it and just leave it unopened. You need to catch them in a moment when they can open it directly – without any delays.
According to studies run by GetResponse, emails that are sent between 8 AM and 10 AM, along with 3 PM and 4 PM have a better chance of being opened. Moreover, it was found that Tuesdays and Fridays are the best days for engagement, whereas Saturday is the best day for conversion. However, this depends on your target audience, along with their particular program.
4. Create a Catchy Subject Line
What’s the first thing that you look at before opening an email? That’s right: you look at the subject line. This is why it’s crucial to work on your subject line if you want to improve your open rate. The purpose here is to make it stand out – but in a classy way.
When creating the subject of the email, you may want to trigger the user’s curiosity – but at the same time, try not to sound too clever. Moreover, you need to catch their curiosity enough to click – but without making the entire email too vague. There is a fine line between saying too much and not saying nearly enough.
One good tip would be to include numbers. Numbers have a way of drawing the eye, which means that your email open rate will also be higher. You may also want to use a friendly language (i.e. use the conversational tone of your readers) when you are trying to deliver a message. If they feel like they are already overwhelmed from the very beginning, there is a very low chance that they will access your content.
5. Add Some Humor
Humor has always had a special way of attracting people, which is why you must make sure that there is just enough of it in your content. Since it’s entertaining, personal, and overall sticking out into the person’s mind, it is exactly what you need to create an instant connection with the followers.
That being said, this does not mean that your entire email should be a comedy show. If you simply aren’t that funny, all you need are a few jokes put in the right place, at the right moment. Learn what your recipients like and what they do not – and pull off a joke when the situation asks for it.
That random chuckle will remain imprinted on the mind of your prospective customer, and it will be much easier for you to sell the product. Add in a couple of gifs or a funny picture, and you’ll be all set. You don’t need to be a comedian when it comes to adding humor to your email. You simply have to think outside the box.
6. Make Content for One Person
As a marketer, it’s obvious that you will want to think about all your readers – which is why you may use a lot of plurals in your content. However, when you are writing to just one person, you will have a much better chance of connecting to that person in particular. Try to make your message seem more personalized – because it’s the only way to make the reader click with you.
For you to write in this manner, you need to know exactly who you are writing to. Create a profile of your ideal client and try to understand all of their issues, their values – what they are looking for and what they are avoiding.
If you are not completely certain about those factors, you may send an email asking them to answer a survey or to join you in a brief chat. Take the opportunity to ask your subscribers exactly what they want from you. Time spent knowing your subscribers will be well-spent, as you will be able to create products that they can truly appreciate.
7. Write for Friends
You are not writing for a client; you are, instead, writing to a friend. If you wish to appeal to your subscribers, you need to create an emotional connection between you two – and this cannot be done if you talk robotically and distant. If you want them to click your email, you first need to get them to click with you.
For example, the phrase “We are offering discounts to our clients!” may sound very distant to your subscribers – and while it may have good information, they won’t be able to connect. On the other hand, a phrase such as “You have to check this offer out…” might seem more friendly and personal. It will seem less like spam and more like the email was tailored especially for them.
Bear in mind that right now, we are living in an age packed with information – so, every person is looking for a reason to scroll down or delete a message. There’s no particular reason for them to read your email – until they realize that there actually is. Try appealing to them as a friend, and you will see that you will have a much higher email open rate.
8. Optimize for Mobile
In the past, people would generally access their emails from their computers. However, nowadays, very few people do that anymore – and most of them are accessing those emails from their cell phones. It’s easier to reach your phone and press on an app rather than to go through the entire ordeal of turning on your computer.
9. Focus on Good Content
Here is some food for thought: when marketers create content, most of them focus on inserting keywords or creating content that may easily be found by the search engines. However, when it comes to email marketing, this should be the least of your worries. Here, your focus should be on creating amazing content for your customers.
Managing director and keynote speaker Andrew Davis once put it this way:
“Content builds relationships. Relationships are built on trust. Trust drives revenue.”[4]
Without good content, you will not be able to attract the customer into reading your content – which means that even if they do open your email, they will not stick around long enough to find out what you were trying to say in there. Plus, if you keep sending bad content, it might lead to one more thing that you want to avoid: people unsubscribing from you, without the product being the actual issue.
To ensure that the people are happy with your emails, there is one thing that you may want to be careful about: don’t send emails just for the sake of sending emails. Every time you send an email to your list, be certain that you are delivering valuable information to them. The higher the value of your email, the more the loyalty of your customers will increase – and the more your open rates will go up.
Automating Emails with Autoresponders
When you have a small email list, it is generally easy to send the emails yourself to a small group of people. However, when you have a bigger list at hand, it might be very difficult to do so by yourself. 24 hours a day might not be enough to answer all your daily emails and send everything that you have to send.
This is why you need to go for an autoresponder if your list has become quite big. This tool will help you engage your email list successfully – all without requiring you to do the work yourself. These emails will be automatically sent based on the product they interacted with, the events that they joined, their browsing pattern and so on. Not only are these autoresponders a good way to nurture your leads, but they are also an efficient method of turning your prospects into customers.
1. Choose a Goal
What is your goal for setting the autoresponder? Is it for welcoming the new subscribers to your page, or do you wish to use it as a lead magnet? Or maybe you wish to make your sales on autopilot mode. That being said, an autoresponder can help simplify things.
2. Map the Email Sequence
How many emails do you want to send – and for how many days do you wish to do so? Depending on the content, you might decide to send them once every two to three days or two of them every day (e.g. for huge sales). It all depends on your goal for sending those emails.
3. Write Converting Autoresponder Series
If you want your autoresponders to work, then you need to make sure that they are qualitative. Focus on the reader, write catchy subject lines, and use personalization. This is how you get the reader to open your email. Depending on the case, you might have to go for a marketing expert or at least follow up on some business courses.
4. Monitor and Re-Touch
Even if it’s something that you use to get the workload off your hands, email automation is not something that you set up now and forget about later on. You need to carefully analyze it so that you know your email strategy doesn’t die out at some point.
That being said, when monitoring your autoresponder campaign, there are three things that you need to keep a close eye on: the open rate, the click-through rate, and the unsubscribe rate. If any of them are not delivering up to your expectations, then it might be a sign that you have to make some modifications.
Wrapping Up
With good planning, anyone can create a successful email marketing strategy. By going to the right people for help and following the right course of action, you can easily connect to prospective customers through the most basic thing: their email. It’s a very good way to ensure your business gets the visibility that you require.
[1] Blog Tyrant – How to Start a Blog and Make Money
(https://www.blogtyrant.com/start-a-new-blog/)
[2] Campaign Monitor – 7 Experts on Why Building Your Email List Is So Important
(https://www.campaignmonitor.com/blog/email-marketing/2019/04/importance-building-email-list/)
[3] Campaign Monitor – Leading Digital Marketers Share Their Thoughts About Email Lists
(www.campaignmonitor.com/blog/email-marketing/2019/04/importance-building-email-list/)
[4] Collective Content – Andrew Davis on Content, Relationships, Trust, Success
(https://collectivecontent.co.uk/2016/10/28/andrew-davis-content-relationships-trust-success/)
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