Most businesses today realize the power of email marketing as a way to keep in touch with existing clients, gain new customers, and even make a little cash on the side.
But sending out mass emails every week can become stale, predictable, and even harmful to your business. If you want to keep your emails fresh and relevant, you have to be smart about when you send them.
In this article, we’ll discuss how you can use email marketing to enhance your business and maximize your ROI (return on investment).
1. Use Email To Create A More Personal Connection
One of the first things that will likely come to mind when you think about email marketing is getting spam. You’ve probably received spam email just to try out a new product or service, or to invite you to a webinar. But that’s not the purpose of spam emails. The main goal of spam emails is to sell something. And what are sales pitches usually made of?
You’ll quickly find that a lot of the emails you receive aren’t very good at all. The writers might have meant well, but they usually go about it in the wrong way. They’ll use a combination of pitches and marketing language that’s meant to be appealing to you, the reader.
When you get an email that’s just trying to sell you something, you know it’s not very good. But when you get an email that’s meant to be an enjoyable read, you’ll find that it has a lot more going for it. Even the slightest use of humor, a story, or an interesting point of view can make a major difference in the reader’s engagement.
Now is a good time to establish yourself as a thought leader in your industry, or at least show that you know a lot about your industry. You can do this through articles that appear in reputable publications, such as the Wall Street Journal, the New York Times, and others.
2. Personalize Your Emails To Get More Engagement
You can take advantage of customers’ personalized settings to send them targeted emails with content that’s relevant to them.
With personalized emails, you’ll want to make sure that you’re taking advantage of the information available to you about each of your subscribers. If you can figure out what they’re looking for, you can send them targeted content that will be of interest to them. If you want to send them information about your newest product or service offering, you can include a link in the email. Personalized emails also allow you to send out content at regular intervals, making the information available when your customers want it.
When a subscriber signs up for your email list, you’ll have the opportunity to customize their experience. You can enable them to receive emails with special offers and discounts, or you can send them content that’s relevant to their area of interest. You can use the address that’s on file to send targeted emails to your subscribers.
3. Measure The Results Of Your Email Marketing Efforts
The ultimate goal of every business owner, salesperson, and marketer is to grow the business. To do this, you have to be able to measure the results of your efforts. And what better way to measure the results of your efforts than by looking at how many people are opening your emails and engaging with your content?
You can use a tool like Google Analytics to track the results of your email marketing efforts. With the introduction of email marketing to the larger world of analytics, you can now see exactly how many people are opening your emails, how many people are clicking on the links you provide in the emails, how many people are engaging with the content in some way (e.g. reading an entire article, watching a video, or even just scrolling to the bottom of the email to see the signature and footer).
The above screenshot is of a webpage that uses Google Analytics. In the top right corner, you’ll see the following elements:
- Campaigns
- Lists
- E-mails
- Conversions
- Demographics
- Geography
- Behavior
- Medium
- Link
- Content
- Customization
- Product
- Sales
- A/B Testing
- Tracking
Each of the above elements is a way that you can measure the results of your email marketing efforts. When you learn how to use Google Analytics, you’ll be able to see exactly how effective your email marketing effort was in getting your desired results.
4. Use Social Media To Grow Your Email List
With more and more people using social media channels like Twitter to share content and engage with others, you can take advantage of this by sharing relevant and interesting content on your social media accounts.
When someone clicks on a link in a social media post, they’re brought to a website. And what happens when they get there? Usually, they’ll see a splash page with quick links to other areas of the site. But what happens if you put up a special offer or new product announcement on your Facebook page?
You can give people the information they need to make a purchase when they arrive at your site. For example, the above screenshot is of a Pinterest page for The North Face. When someone clicks on the orange frog icon at the top right, they’re brought to a page that lists all of the products available for purchase.
If you sell athletic wear, the page they see will likely have all the products in-stock and the option of purchasing them online. If someone is interested in buying a new laptop bag but doesn’t want to spend over $100, you can include a discount code that’s only valid on the website. But what if someone clicks on the frog icon and is presented with a full-width slider of all the summer clothing items you sell?
You can use social media to grow your email list by sharing content that’s relevant to your audience. If someone follows you on Facebook, they likely know that you have an interest in fitness. So, you can share content about the newest products related to fitness, such as gym wear and accessories. Even better, you can ask questions and get advice in the comments section of the post.
5. Measure The Success Of Your Marketing Campaigns
Depending on how quickly you want to grow your business, you can run one, two, or even three full-blown marketing campaigns per year. To determine how much effective your marketing was, you’ll need to measure the results of each campaign. How did you plan on measuring the results of your marketing campaigns?
If you want to track the results of your marketing campaigns, you’ll need to look at three key numbers:
- The number of leads (e.g. new subscribers, or people who’ve expressed interest in what you have to offer)
- The number of customers (people who’ve made a purchase or who’ve signed up for a mailing list)
- The amount of social media engagement (likes, follows, etc.)
Each of the above numbers is a key indicator of how effective your marketing was. You can use tools like Google Analytics and Hootsuite to track these numbers and determine the exact results of your campaigns. Let’s say, for example, that you plan on running a lead generation campaign to find new subscribers to your email list. You can use Google Analytics to track the growth of your email list over time and see exactly how many leads you’ve generated from each campaign.
The above screenshot is of a Twitter account that uses Google Analytics. In the top right corner, you’ll see the following elements:
- Active Users
- User Behavior
- Demographics
- Interests
- Language
- Location
- Navigation
- Product
- Retweets
- Sentiments
- Shopping
- Statistics
- Trends
- Tweets
From this perspective, you can see how much exposure your content has received, whether it’s gained popularity, and even which areas of content are most and least popular. This data can help you determine the success of your content strategy and offer guidance on what to put energy into next.