You’ve decided to go the email route to spread the word about your business. Congrats! Now comes the hard part—actually, the fun part—of getting emails right.
You want to make sure you implement a strategy that is both effective and enjoyable for your employees. You also want to make sure you’re using a tool that is both accessible and easy to use.
Here are some tips for email marketing with Mailchimp, a tool many businesses turn to for efficiently managing their email campaigns.
Set Up Autoresponders
One of the first things you should do is set up some autoresponders. An autoresponder is a computer program that will automatically send out email campaigns based on previous behavior.
For example, if you’ve got an email list of 200,000 people and you’ve never emailed them before, the odds are you’ll get a lot of unopened emails in your inbox. So setting up an autoresponder that sends out an email campaign every month is a great way to start. Then, you can get to work building your list.
However, not all autoresponders are created equal. Some are better than others when it comes to delivering on promises of getting a lot of email subscribers. So you want to make sure you invest in a top-notch autoresponder that can help you automate the process of getting subscribers.
Set Up Email Alerts
Another thing you can do to make sure you get the most out of your email marketing is to set up email alerts. An email alert will send you an email whenever there’s a particular event associated with your brand.
This is a great tool for marketers because it means you can be sure you’re reaching your audience at the right time. For example, if you sell clothes and you receive an email alert whenever there’s a sale on women’s clothing, you’ll be able to take advantage of this information and send your customers an email offering them great discounts on their next purchase.
Use A/B Testing
One of the great things about online experimentation is the ability to quickly test different versions of an email campaign and determine which one performs the best.
You can use A/B testing when you try to determine the best way to approach your email marketing. It’s common to test the performance of your emails by splitting your list in half and sending one group of email messages to one test email ID and the other group to the other test email ID. You can use different subject lines for the two groups and monitor which ones get the best results.
This, of course, presupposes you’ve got two separate email lists. If you’re using MailChimp, you can simply create two lists, A and B, and send separate emails to each one. The beauty of A/B testing is you can measure the effectiveness of each email before you spend tons of time and effort on an entire campaign. So instead of sending one email and hoping for the best, you can send out a test email and see how many clicks you get before you make a decision about the future of your email marketing.
Personalize Your Emails
Giving your emails some personality is a great way to make them more effective. Take the time to find an image that represents your brand and use it as the subject line. You can also use some of the text in the body of the email to add a personal touch. For example, if you sell pet supplies and your email list is made up of families who have recently lost a pet, you could send them a heartfelt email wishing them peace in their time of need.
Include An Ode To Your Product
If you’ve got an interesting product or service, why not tell the world about it? You can use email marketing to do this. Just remember that you should always include a link to your website in your email. This way, when someone clicks on it, they’ll be directed there. It’s also a great idea to include a call-to-action (CTA) at the end of your email’s content. This way you can get the attention of your reader and make them click on a link or perform an action. The use of a CTA is especially powerful when combined with an offer for a discounted product or service.
Create A Winning Email Copy
When it comes to email marketing, too many people skimp out on the copy in hopes of getting the most results with the least effort. This is a mistake. While it’s important to keep your email concise, you should always make sure to include a compelling offer along with relevant information for the person you’re sending it to. If they don’t have a need for your product or service, you’re wasting your time and theirs too.
For example, if you’ve got an email list of 200,000 people and you’re sending out an email about your new product or service, it’s unlikely more than a few hundred of them will click on the link. However, if you combine that click-through rate with a discount offer for your product, you could end up with a buyer for your product or service. That’s value for your time and effort.
If there’s any part of your email that doesn’t seem to be reaching the persons you’re targeting, you can bet they’re either not interested in your product or service or, more likely, they’ve got their own agenda and are ignoring you. So, if you want to get the most out of your email list, you need to put in the time to create a copy that will engage your audience.
Use Click-To-Call
Making a phone call while you’re on the internet isn’t new, but it’s still considered an older generation thing. This is because most people get their news and social media interactions from digital platforms. So it’s not surprising that they’re less likely to pick up the phone and make a call.
However, there’s still a place for phone calls in our world. If you’ve got an important phone call you need to make, you can use email autoresponders to have someone call you when they receive your email. You can use a tool like ClickToCall to get this done quickly and easily.
Measure The Results Of Your Email Marketing
The best (and only the best) way to measure the success of your email marketing is by tracking the results of your email campaigns. You can use a tool called a tracking tag to do this. A tracking tag is a piece of code you can add to your site’s header or to the end of your email’s content that will direct visitors to specific pages.
For example, if you’ve got a clothing store and you want to promote an underwire bra that will help women control their breasts and prevent them from looking odd, you can create a simple tracking tag that will lead to a product page for the underwire bra.
You can use other pieces of data, too, like the number of times a visitor clicked on a CTA or the length of their visit—all of this is compiled into one report that will show you how effective your email was in growing your business.
The moral of the story? Just because a channel is new doesn’t mean it’s not effective. Email is a form of digital marketing that has been around for a while now and has proven to be one of the greatest ways to reach your audience. Now that you’re onto the right footpath, it’s time to prosper.