In part one of this two-part series, we discussed the importance of learning to use email effectively and the different types of email campaigns you can launch to achieve specific goals. In this article, we will discuss strategies for email marketing and outline best practices.
Make Use Of Email Marketing To Grow Your Business
In many ways, email is the cornerstone of marketing, especially business-to-consumer (B2C) email marketing. Marketers use email to communicate with consumers and drive engagement, interest, and purchases. For example, if you’re running an eCommerce store, you can use email marketing to encourage shoppers to make purchases by sending them promotional offers and discount codes.
For B2B (business-to-business) buyers, you can use email to stay in touch after a purchase, to provide business leads, and to follow up on marketing efforts (e.g., webinars, social media campaigns). It’s a versatile tool and a crucial element of digital marketing.
How To Optimize Email Audiences
If you’re launching an email campaign for the first time, it’s important to identify and analyze the key performance indicators (KPIs) that can help you optimize your efforts. The better you are at measuring and analyzing the results of your email marketing efforts, the better you’ll be able to refine and improve your campaigns.
Here are a few KPIs that you should track:
- open rates
- click-through rates
- conversion rates
- product views
- social media engagement
- site traffic
- unsubscribe rates
- lead generation
- revenue
You should also consider tracking the following metrics:
- click-through rates to see if your messaging is reaching the right audience
- conversion rates to determine the effectiveness of your marketing efforts
- unsubscribe rates to measure the success of your business email strategy
- open rates to identify emails that are performing well and build on this success
- revenue to analyze the return on investment (ROI) of your email marketing strategy
- cost per acquisition (CPA) to determine the profitability of your email marketing strategy
- product views to determine the effectiveness of your content marketing strategy
- social media engagement to analyze the success of your digital marketing strategy
- site traffic to measure the effectiveness of your website marketing strategy
- lead generation to measure the success of your sales team
- sentiment analysis to determine whether or not consumers have an emotional connection to your brand
Choosing The Right Email Marketing Platform
You have many options when it comes to email marketing platforms. From email marketing suites to standalone email clients, there’s a tool for everyone. Before you begin your email marketing journey, assess your needs and the needs of your team. Begin by looking at the basic features and functionality of each product, and then evaluate how easy it is to use.
Email Marketing Software Suits
If you decide that you and your team would benefit from a particular email marketing software suite, you should look for a reputable vendor with a good reputation and track record.
Here are a few things to consider when choosing a software suite:
- integration with other systems (e.g., sales and customer relationship management (CRM) systems, content management systems (CMS), etc.)
- ability to create highly personal emails
- email templates that can be used across different campaigns and products
- a good support team to help you along the way
- a decent amount of flexibility when it comes to creating emails
- an intuitive interface for creating and sending emails
- a modern design
- seamless integration with other systems
- ability to create highly personal emails
- email templates that can be used across different campaigns and products
- a good support team to help you along the way
- modern design
- a good interface for creating and sending emails
- a computer or mobile device
- a reliable Internet connection
- an email account (e.g., Gmail, Yahoo Mail)
- a spam filter (highly recommended)
- a contact form (which can be integrated with a payment processor)
Standalone Email Clients
If you or your team prefer to use a standalone email client to send and receive emails, there are dozens of options available. These applications offer all the basic features you need, and it’s up to you to figure out which one is the best for your needs.
Some of the benefits of using a standalone email client are:
Choosing The Right Email Marketing Strategy
To drive traffic to your website and grow your business, you need to have a clearly defined strategy in mind. For purposes of this article, we’ll refer to this as an email marketing strategy. Once you have a clear picture of what you’re trying to achieve with your email marketing, you can choose the right tools and platforms to help you get there.
Here are a few suggestions:
Use Retargeting To Get More Leads
You can use retargeting to drive revenue and build your audience with these interested consumers. When someone visits your site, you can use a cookie or pixel to track them as they move about the web.
Say you’re running an eCommerce store, and someone has clicked on a product page or made a purchase from your site. You can use a retargeting pixel or a cookie to follow them around the web and show them content that’s relevant to their interests. You might show them content about similar products, or you might show them content about their newly purchased product. Essentially, you’re using retargeting to remind people about your site, and hopefully, convince them to make a purchase.
Invest In Good Technology
If you’re going to be sending emails, you need to invest in good technology. To effectively send and receive emails, you need at least the following:
To send an email, you need a mail client. The best and most popularly used mail clients are Outlook, Gmail, and Yahoo Mail. If you’re using Microsoft Office, you can install the Outlook App to have a full-fledged mail client right on your phone. You’ll also need an SMTP (simple mail transfer protocol) server to connect to.
Additionally, you need to download and install a mail reader on your computer or mobile device to read emails as they arrive. The best free mail reader for PC or Mac is Outlook. If you’re a mobile device user, you can download the free Gmail app or the Yahoo Mail app and read emails as they come in.
Make Sure Your Analytics Are Up To Date
With any marketing initiative, it’s important to measure the results of your efforts. Whether you’re using Google Analytics or other platforms, make sure that you’re inputting the correct website and email addresses and that you’re tracking the right metrics.
If you’re using Google Analytics, you should know that whenever you change the website or email addresses that you’re tracking, you need to update your Google Analytics profile. This is especially important if you’re changing the email because you’ll want to track all the emails that go out from that account.
Avoid Spam
Spam is email that’s been hijacked or bought and sold by spammers to artificially inflate email open rates. These emails often have links to websites that are disguised as offers from well-known brands. If you want to keep your email account safe, avoid clicking on any links in unsolicited emails and report any suspicious activity to your email provider.