While social media is great for staying connected with your audience and engaging with your followers, traditional email marketing is crucial for driving traffic to your website and boosting your conversion.
Why Email Marketing?
According to HubSpot Blogs research, 89% of consumers prefer to receive emails from brands rather than social media platforms. This makes sense since email prompts you to take action whereas social media is a passive activity that people use to learn about your brand or product.
In addition, 68% of consumers prefer to receive emails from businesses they already trust, and 63% of consumers prefer to receive emails from brands they have a positive experience with. Essentially, email marketing allows you to stand out from your competition since you’re able to target and engage with prospective customers based on what they’ve already expressed an interest in.
How Can Email Marketing Improve Your Business?
1. Website Traffic – One of the main benefits of having an email list is that you can have continuous traffic flowing to your site even when you’re not actively promoting your products or services. With email marketing, you can get the most out of your SEO efforts, having a steady stream of customers coming in daily whether you’ve promoted or not.
2. Sales – Did you know that 74% of consumers want to receive discounts and promo codes through email marketing? When someone signs up for your email list, you have the opportunity to engage with them and entice them to make a purchase. You can use tools like MailChimp to easily create discount codes and offers for your products or services that you think will be valuable to your audience.
3. Lead Generation – If you’re looking to grow your business, having a small, curated email list is a great place to start. You can use tools like MailChimp to easily create emails with valuable information about your product or service, and when people click through and make a purchase, you can follow up with them to continue the relationship and hopefully grow your business.
The Basics of Effective Email Marketing
Before you begin your email marketing campaign, make sure that you’ve got the following:
- A clear purpose for the campaign.
- Segmentation of your audience.
- Content that’s valuable and relevant to your audience.
- An email marketing campaign requires some attention to detail, so be sure to plan out a schedule to ensure that you’re getting your emails out on time.
- Proper email marketing includes a subject line, which shouldn’t be overused. Make sure to include a call-to-action at the end of your subject line (e.g. “Download our eBook today!”).
- A list of email addresses.
- Content
- An unsubscribe link.
The Importance of Personal Branding
Branding is an important aspect of any sales funnel, and it’s especially vital for email marketing. You want to brand yourself as a thought leader in your industry, and showing initiative and competence in your industry is the best way to do this. If you’re searching for a new job, your personal brand will get you more interviews than you know what to do with. Develop a personal brand that is specific to your industry, and if you can, develop a brand that is also synonymous with excellence. This way, when people hear your personal brand, they’ll immediately think of you and your work, not your email address or website. This will make you appear highly competent and will boost your interviews along the way.
The Ultimate Guide to Email Marketing Campaigns
Now that you have the bare necessities in place, it’s time to get creative and figure out a way to stand out in the crowd. Below, we will provide you with some tips and tricks for crafting an email marketing campaign that will generate results.
Tip #1: Customize your emails
One of the simplest and most effective ways to make your email marketing campaign stand out is to customize the content inside the email. You can use tools like MailChimp to easily create and send out personalized emails to your customers. If you’re not using MailChimp, you can download the free version from the Chrome Web Store to easily create and send out personalized emails from your computer. Just import your email list, and you’ll be able to send out personalized emails in no time. This way, your campaigns will stand out amongst the rest and you’ll be able to drive more traffic to your site and convert more people into paying customers.
Tip #2: Use videos
If you’re reading this article online, you’ll probably have a video playing in the background. Videos are extremely engaging and can help you stand out amongst the rest of the content on your website or in your emails. People love engaging with videos—and why shouldn’t they? It’s easy enough to become a YouTube superstar with helpful, educational videos on just about any subject. Instead of just text on a website, you can use a tool like Rev.com to create a free website within minutes that will allow you to upload a video and gain backlinks to your site. You can also use services like Fluid.com to create, host, and monitor videos for your business—all from one place.
Tip #3: Measure the results of your email marketing
It’s important to measure the results of your email marketing efforts, both to prove the value of the campaign and to continue improving the effectiveness of your emails in the future. You can use tools like MailChimp to easily track the results of your email marketing campaigns. Just enter your email addresses into the tool, and it will give you a complete overview of the performance of your email list.
Now that you know the basics, it’s time to get creative and figure out a way to stand out in the crowd. Above all else, be consistent, and if you’re able to, experiment with different approaches until you find one that works for you.