As a marketer, you’re constantly bombarded with new opportunities, trends, and marketing tactics that can help you grow your business.
One important trend that has emerged is email marketing. Marketers now have the ability to target the right audience and engage them with relevant content, whether that’s an email newsletter or a drip campaign.
Whether you’re just getting started or you’re already doing this diligently, it’s essential to stay abreast of what is working and what needs to be changed to keep up with the trends.
Here are a few tips on how to start your email marketing strategy:
Find Out What Kind of Audience You Have
One of the first things you need to do is find out what kind of audience you have. What are they looking for? What do they want?
You can get a general sense of this by looking at your existing customers. Do they have one key interest or are they a jack of all trades?
If you’re still using the same outdated marketing methods as your competitors, it’s high time you made the switch. Why? Because you’ll soon become extinct if you don’t change with the times.
Decide What You’ll Announce In Your Email
You’ll need to decide what you’ll announce in your email. It would be best if you can narrow this down to a couple of key interest groups or demographics.
For example, you might decide that you’ll email birthdays of your customers to wish them happy tidings. Or you can choose to send an email to your subscriber base at the beginning of each month to keep them up-to-date on the latest news and trends that pertain to your niche.
Whatever you decide, make sure that it’s relevant to your target audience.
Craft An Imaginative Subject Line
Craft an imaginative subject line that will draw potential customers into opening your email. Make it as unique as possible, but not so bizarre that it’ll seem impossible to understand.
For instance, you can say:
“Hey, Annie! Want to make a quick $50? Here’s how…”
Rather than:
“Wondering how to make quick money? Here’s how…”
The first sentence instantly draws the reader in and makes them interested in what you have to say. It also provides sufficient details for the reader to understand exactly what is entailed in making $50.
Use An Introductory Email To Set The Mood
Use an introductory email to set the mood for the rest of the email. Set the stage for what’s to come and create some anticipation for your message.
In the example above, you can see that the first email serves as a little prelude, setting the scene for what’s to come. You’ll notice that the first email is shorter than the rest, which you can assume is because it wasn’t intended to be a full, fleshed-out pitch. More often than not, the first email in a sequence will be somewhat of a brief overview of what the rest of the series will entail. In this case, the overview is the gist of what the email will discuss – creating quick revenue through affiliate marketing – and it doesn’t overstate the obvious; it provides some intrigue for the reader to want to continue.]
Use Subsequent Emails To Follow Up On
Use subsequent emails to follow up on what the reader just finished reading in the previous email. Depending on the structure of your content and the sequence in which you send the emails, you can tell WordPress to wait for a certain amount of time before displaying the next email in the series.
For instance, you might send an email a few days after the previous email in the sequence, but you’ll wait two weeks before sending the next one. This gives the reader time to ponder what they’ve just read and allows you to follow up with additional relevant content.
Drip Content In Easy-to-Serve, Short-Ranged Snatches
Drip content in easy-to-serve, short-ranged snatches. This is vital to keeping the interest of your audience throughout the email sequence. Short-ranged meaning that the information provided is pertinent and applicable to the reader at that particular moment in time. If you want to keep your readers interested, you need to keep offering them new and useful information that relates to what they previously read. This is particularly important with email marketing because, as a rule, people don’t like to get lots of emails from the same source. Especially if they’re not interested in what you have to say at that point in time.
Let’s say that you’re running an email marketing campaign for a company that makes restaurant equipment – something entirely unrelated to birthdays and moneymaking, by the way. Your email may start with a piece of general news about the restaurant industry, such as what type of restaurant equipment is becoming popular or whether there’s been a decline in demand for certain appliances. You might send something like this to a subset of your audience:
“Hey, John! Want to redo your home bar? Here’s how you can make it look like a European castle!”
Now, John is a pretty cool guy and he’s been wanting to redo his home bar for a long time. So, you know what? Why not? Let’s have a chat and I’ll tell you what types of bar equipment he might need. Then, we can work out a plan to get his bar the way he wants it. Sound good?”
Notice how the content relates to what the reader previously heard or read in some way. The key to an effective drip campaign – whether you’re running an eCommerce store or a physical retail business – is to maintain the interest of your audience throughout the sequence. Do this by giving them useful information that they can immediately apply to their situation. You don’t want to bore your audience with overly complex information or content that doesn’t pertain to what they’re looking for. It’s all about maintaining their interest and, ultimately, getting them to do what you want them to do; in this case, purchasing a home bar.
Track The Results Of Your Email Marketing Efforts
You should track the results of your email marketing efforts. If you’re using email marketing software like MailChimp, HubSpot, or Constant Contact, you can simply take a look at your ‘open rates’ and ‘click-through rates’ to get an idea of the effectiveness of your campaign.
If you’re not tracking results, it’s pretty hard to tell whether or not your efforts were worth it. Unless you’re getting a lot of “open rates” and “click-through rates,” you may want to consider putting in a little more effort, or narrowing the target audience and experimenting with different approaches. You can’t fix what you don’t measure, so it’s important to track the results of your email marketing campaigns so you can continue improving.
Use These Tips To Start Your Email Marketing Campaign
With these tips, you’ll start your email marketing campaign on the right foot. You’ll have an imaginative, attention-grabbing subject line. You’ll use an introductory email to set the mood for what’s to come. You’ll use subsequent emails to follow up on what the reader previously read and provide additional content that is pertinent and applicable to what they are already learning or discovering. And you’ll track the results of your efforts so you can continue improving your campaign and increasing your revenue.