Amidst all the hullabaloo surrounding social media marketing, email marketing often gets pushed into the corner. Some even believe email marketing to be dead. Yet, a closer look reveals email marketing outperforms social media marketing on several counts – from the total number of users and the first medium to be checked online every day, to being the most preferred online mode for receiving permission-based promotional messages. Maybe the problem is you haven’t seen the email marketing tips you need in order to grow your business effectively.
If you still need a stronger reason to take it seriously, how about this email marketing statistic:
By the year-end of 2019, 2.9+ billion people across the globe would be using emails, which is more than one-third of the global population.
Now that you know why you simply can’t ignore your potential and existing customers, who are and will be actively using emails, how do you leverage this trend? The answer lies in using email marketing effectively. And that’s exactly where we’ll help you by listing these five email marketing tips, which will get you the desired results.
1. Start building your list
If you aren’t doing it, start creating your email list today. If you’re already doing it, focus on getting the right subscribers. Find out who your core audience is, and then offer them something of value, which encourages them to sign up. Once you have their contact details, deliver on the promise which convinced these people to sign-up in the first place.
Make sure to select an email platform that best suits your needs since switching platforms can be costly and problematic. You can start off with a budget-friendly solution like Mail Chimp or Constant Contact. For those in need of robust platforms, Hubspot or Infusionsoft could be ideal solutions.
2. Segregate your list
Email list segmentation, where you divide your entire email list into more targeted, smaller sub-groups, helps you to send the most relevant message to the right group. This, in turn, will improve user engagement and your chances of closing a higher number of sales.
You can segregate your list based on various factors, some of which are given below:
- Location
- Preferences and interests
- New vs. old subscribers
- Email activity
- Open rate
- The specific lead magnet your subscribers have opted in for
- The type of lead magnet (webinars, e-books, PDFs etc)
- Opt-in frequency
- Purchase cycle and past purchases
- Abandonment rate
3. Craft your email subject lines carefully
If you are prone to using bland subject lines like “June Newsletter” or don’t give much thought on what the subject is, stop and consider this:
Subject lines alone act as a decisive element for 47% of email recipients, who open those emails. And depending on what subject line is used, emails are marked as spam by a significant 69% of email recipients.
If you want to improve the open rates of your emails, you must use subject lines that your subscribers simply can’t resist. Some particular subject lines that have been found effective include the ones that
- introduce the fear of missing out (FOMO),
- are funny,
- evoke curiosity,
- address pain points, or
- encourage greed or vanity
4. Test your emails before sending to the entire list
Use A/B testing (often called split testing) to test and zero upon what works for your subscribers. For example, some of your subscribers may respond well to text emails, while some others may prefer those with images having hyperlinks to the products or services displayed on your website. From short vs. long forms, and text vs. html, to the placement and color of call to action (CTA) buttons, and your email subject lines, test everything to find what works best for which group.
Since your subscribers are likely to use various devices and browsers to open and read your emails, make sure they work across screens and browsers. Also, proof-check your emails, ensure that all embedded links work and point to the intended pages, and your sales funnel guides your subscribers through the steps correctly once they have responded to your emails.
5. Send regular, valuable and consistent emails
Send your subscribers regular emails that consistently focus on addressing their pain points. From telling them how a particular product or service would help them deal with a problematic issue to requesting their suggestions for improving your existent offerings, focus on building a relationship that shows you care. Even when you send deals and special offers, make sure they are relevant to your subscribers. And NEVER EVER spam their inboxes. Remember that emails are personal spaces and sharing their email id shows your subscribers have trusted your entry into that restricted space based on your promise of delivering something useful and interesting. So, live up to that trust and promise by sending emails that offer something of value.
Apart from helping you forge a bond with your subscribers, this planned way of email marketing will also help you stay at the top of their minds since most people have a habit of checking their emails at least once every day. Thus, with regular, targeted emails, you can ensure these people choose you over your competitors who are either not doing the same thing or doing it the wrong way.
In closing…
Last but not the least is adhering to the KISS (keep it short and simple) principle in your emails. Don’t bore your subscribers or make them doze off by writing emails that resemble your school essays. Get inspired by Twitter-length messages to create short, attention-grabbing, action-inducing emails that hit the nail right on its head. After all, you want your emails to be read by busy people, who don’t have a lot of time on their hands, and often use mobile devices (with small screens) that make reading long emails a tough task.
So, use precise, targeted content in your emails with important aspects being highlighted by bold letters or displayed as bullet points to make it easy for your readers to read them and take action.
Go ahead and implement these email marketing tips today to start growing your business! Just avoid putting all of your marketing eggs in one basket. There are still benefits to social media marketing.
