Most businesses will agree that email is vital to their success. After all, who doesn’t love getting a brand new message in their inbox every day?
You’d think that given its importance, businesses would be doing everything they can to grow and prosper through email marketing. But you’d be wrong. The truth is that many businesses have already given up on email, assuming that it’s never going to be as effective as social media or texting.
Thankfully, you’ve come to the right place. We’re going to teach you the ropes of effective email marketing so that you can grow your business through this extremely useful channel.
How Email Marketing Has Changed
The way that we look at email marketing today is completely different from how we viewed it just a few years ago. Back in 2007, businesses generally saw email as a necessary evil – something you had to do to collect customers’ contact details in the first place before you could start any marketing activity. But today, with the emergence of tools such as Mailchimp, Marketo, and HubSpot, marketing via email is a whole lot more effective.
The nice thing about these tools is that they take the drudgery out of sending emails. We’re talking about stuff like autoresponders that will send out a series of messages automatically depending on your subscriber’s activity, or analytics tools that will help you track the results of every marketing activity – including email campaigns – to gain valuable insights that will allow you to improve future efforts.
Another huge benefit of marketing via email is that it provides you with the ability to segment your audience based on interest. If you’re using a tool such as Marketo, you can send an email campaign to subscribers who have expressed an interest in food service delivery or roof repair, for example.
Why Use Effective Email Marketing
Email is a vital tool in any marketer’s arsenal because it provides you with the opportunity to connect with your audience whenever you want. It’s usually incredibly easy for people to agree to receive email notifications when a new blog post is published or when a new product is available for purchase. That means that you can constantly stay in touch with your audience, delivering value and interesting content whenever you have something new to say.
Email also allows you to identify potential revenue streams that you might not have considered before. For example, if you were running a blog about travel, you could experiment with promoting themed email campaigns where you offer free travel advice to subscribers who are in a particular area or country. You might even choose to send an invitation to join a subscription club where you give away free travel gadgets and accessories.
If you think about it, email is almost like a virtual retail store. You can put products and services into people’s inboxes that they might not have discovered otherwise. Plus, you’re able to test marketing campaigns and analyze how different versions of an email campaign performed before making a decision about which one to use.
The Importance Of Subject Lines
Your subject lines are everything. You’ve got 100 characters (76 if you’re going to go through Gmail) to grab someone’s attention with a clever, succinct line. But since email is such a vast channel, you might want to take some time to think of a catchy subject line that will resonate with your audience. Do some research, put yourself in your subscriber’s shoes, and try to imagine what they’ll be thinking when they see your email.
Here are some top tips for creating killer subject lines:
- Use active verbs (e.g. “Learn how to grow your own food”, “Get a free sample of the new iPhone 7”, “Enjoy special deals from our partners”)
- Keep the subject line short and sweet
- Avoid clichés
- Use intriguing content for more interest
- Avoid spelling errors
- Use alliteration (a term that refers to the same vowel sound repeated throughout the line to create a rhythm and emphasis) wherever possible
- Look at the other emails that you send out to see if there are any themes or commonalities
How To Write A Personal Email
Now that you have the basics down, it’s time to write a personal email to your subscriber. This is the part that many businesses skip over because they think that it’s not necessary. But trust us – this is one of the most crucial steps to sending out successful emails. You want to create a connection with your audience and make them feel that you’re talking directly to them. So don’t skip this step!
You should do everything you can to make your email stand out from the crowd. Personal emails are very difficult to write because you not only have to convince your reader that you’re not just another brand, but you also have to make them interested in what you have to say. This is easier said than done, but you can put in the effort to make it happen. You just need to make sure that you take the time to think of everything that might be relevant to your reader. Think of everything – physical and mental – that you can about the person who will be reading your email. This includes everything from their interests to their hobbies to their favorite football team. The more you know about your subscriber, the more you can tailor your email to make it relevant and memorable.
Make It Easy
There are plenty of companies that will help you craft your email campaign. But ultimately, you’re going to have to do most of the work. The last thing that you want to do is try to format and send your email yourself. There are plugins that can help you with this, but they don’t always work out of the box. And even if they do, there’s always the chance that you’ll end up clogging yourself with formatting errors. So it’s better to write the email by hand and then send it out manually. Even if you use an auto-responder, you’ll still have to click on the “Send” button to send it out. There’s just too much that can go wrong if you don’t do it manually.
When it comes to email marketing, there are plenty of things that you need to keep in mind. But above all else, make sure that you connect with your audience. You want to find a way to make them feel that you’re addressing them directly with your message and that what you have to say is relevant to them. With a little bit of luck, your efforts will pay off and you’ll see a boost in traffic along with an increase in your subscriber’s engagement. Don’t give up on email marketing – it can be very effective when done right.