Many of my clients ask me how they can use email marketing to grow their business. They have tried many different tactics, but have not found a surefire way to drive sales. The answer is quite simple: Just focus on one thing at a time.
It’s easy to get distracted by all the shiny objects that appear before you in today’s digital world. But you can’t be effective at email marketing if you’re not careful. The more you do, the more you’ll struggle to keep up with all the various platforms, templates, and algorithms that professionals in this space are using to connect with potential customers. If you want to see results, you have to put in the effort to master just one form of marketing at a time.
Focus On Building A List
One of the keys to effective email marketing is to build a list of engaged email subscribers. When you send out regular communications, you’re inevitably going to reach a few people who are interested in what you have to say, but you might also annoy a lot of people who get on your list by mistake or who think your content is irrelevant. If you want to succeed as an email marketer, you need to carefully consider why people are subscribed to your email list in the first place, and you need to work hard to keep them engaged with your brand.
You may be surprised to learn that not everyone on your list is interested in what you have to say. Sometimes it’s better to have a small, targeted list rather than a massive list of loosely interested email subscribers. Massive lists are great for getting your emails out there to hundreds of people, but you may find that you struggle to engage with everyone on the list regardless of whether you send out a weekly email or a monthly newsletter. Having a smaller list of highly interested individuals means you can tailor your interactions with them, which may lead to more effective and relevant marketing.
To get started, you need to have a clear purpose for collecting email addresses. Are you looking to generate leads? Are you hoping to grow your email list to help with your sales? If so, you might want to consider using a CRM (customer relationship management) tool, which can help you keep track of your customers’ journeys and help you follow up with them in the right way, as explained in the next section.
Use CRM To Stay Organized
A CRM is an indispensable tool for any business that’s serious about growing its email list and getting results from its marketing efforts. A CRM can help you keep track of your marketing activities, organize your data, and follow up on your leads. The most popular CRM tools also provide you with highly sophisticated email marketing features, which can help you get the most out of your investment in marketing.
In my opinion, the best CRM tools also offer very high degrees of customization. This means you can set up special rules and triggers to follow when your marketing automation system sends out a new email or a new campaign. For example, you might want to trigger an email when a new lead converts on your website, or when a sales email is opened by a lead.
Set Up Proper Triggers And Respond To Reminders
When you use a marketing automation tool, you have the ability to create automated campaigns and sequences of emails that can be triggered based on certain actions, such as when a lead clicks on a call-to-action (CTA) or opens an email. For example, you can have an email marketing campaign that triggers when a new lead opens an email, or when they make a purchase on your website.
You can also use marketing automation tools to send out follow-up emails based on actions that the previous email or the previous email’s CTA took. So if a person opens an email, you can follow up with them to make sure they’re aware of a recent development, offer them help, or encourage them to check out a related product or service.
To make sure your marketing automation tool isn’t a vacuum, you will need to set up some triggers and send out some reminders to your email list on a regular basis. It’s important that these reminders aren’t too far apart, so people who haven’t opened your emails in a while will be reminded of your effort and incentivized to go through with it. You can also use engagement metrics, such as click-through rates and open-rates, to track the success of your efforts and identify areas for improvement. For instance, if your click-through rate is low, but your open rate is high, this could mean your emails are not gaining traction with your audience. You may want to consider experimenting with different subject lines or messaging to see what resonates with your audience the most.
Don’t Forget About Mobile Marketing
In today’s world, consumers are increasingly accessing the Internet from mobile devices, such as smartphones and tablets. If you want to expand your reach and effectively engage with your audience, you need to have a presence on social media channels, as much as you do on traditional platforms. The key is to find a way to connect with your audience wherever they are.
To get started, you can use a tool like HubSpot, which allows you to set up simple landing pages on your own website, as well as engage with customers, followers, and potential customers on social media channels, such as Facebook and Twitter. With mobile marketing, you don’t need a separate email list because your customers can simply choose to receive marketing messages, whether or not they’re opted-in, on their smartphones. If you want to succeed as an email marketer, you need to be doing everything possible to engage with as many people as possible, whether this is through social media or by sending out emails.
Use Analytics To Track Results
Analytics, or the use of tracking tools, such as Google Analytics, can help you figure out which tactics are working and which ones aren’t. You can use the analytics to determine the effectiveness of your email marketing campaign, which URLs are proving the most popular, and what subjects, templates, and messages are resonating with your audience, among other things. In addition, you can use the analytics to track the success of your various social media accounts, which enables you to determine what platforms work best for your business, and which ones you should avoid.
To get started, simply sign up for a free Google Analytics account and track the behavior of your website’s visitors. From there, you can determine what kind of visits you’re receiving, what pages are getting the most views, and what campaigns are performing well, and which ones need to be tweaked or cancelled, if any.
You can also use the analytics to track the performance of your social media accounts. For example, you could view your Twitter account’s analytics to determine the optimal times to post, how often to post, and what kinds of content to focus on. Keep in mind: Your social media analytics will be different from one account to the next, so take the time to look into what makes your accounts unique, rather than using one method for all your social media channels.
Test Different Types Of Marketing Materials
Even before you get started with your email marketing campaign, you can begin testing different types of marketing materials, such as landing pages and social media posts, to see which one attracts the most interest, or simply has the greatest impact, among your audience. If you want to use an email marketing tool, you have the ability, through the customizer, to set up a variety of templates, which you can then choose from, depending on your needs and the capabilities of the tool you’re using. This way, you can be sure you’re not sending out the same emails to your subscribers over and over again. You can also use tools like HubSpot or Mailchimp to create and send out complex newsletter blasts with lots of different content types and customized subject lines, as long as you have a significant list of opt-ins.
The bottom line is that to effectively use email marketing in your business, you need to put in the time to learn how to use a CRM, set up proper triggers and reminders, and track your results, all of which can seem overwhelming if you’ve never done this type of marketing before. Don’t worry – after you get the hang of it, it’ll be as easy as pie!