Email Marketing continues to be a proven way to engage with customers at various stages of the buying process for businesses of all sizes. Finding your email marketing voice occurs when your company’s email marketing campaign connects with email subscribers at the right stage of their buyer’s journey.
An excellent email marketing strategy will take into account that you aren’t the only business sending emails. Your current customers likely receive valuable content from restaurants, authors, and your competitors.
Regardless of how full an inbox remains, there are many things you can employ to create successful email marketing campaigns your target audience will love.
Always Make It Relevant
When it comes to actually reading and engaging with an email, people are most likely to open it when the title gives a clear idea of the content, and it seems like something they need more information about. If I find that the same person or company has sent me emails with misleading titles or information that isn’t relevant to the company I hunt for the unsubscribe button.
- Do you have a sale coming up?
- Are you publishing a new book?
- Did your company just earn an award of some kind that is relevant to your industry?
- Do you have industry-relevant blog content you want to feature?
These are all email subjects that are interesting and likely to contain key information your persona will want to know about.
Reminder emails can also be helpful, but they can go too far. There is a balance between knowing a sale is going on and being told this sale is the most important sale of someone’s life. For me, one has me browsing the website, while the other is quickly deleted.
Personalization is Vital
Adding personalized tokens like someone’s first name is great, but that’s not what I’m focusing on. Include personalized content within the email content. Ask a question or respond to a customer review. Personal engagement takes time, but it is a great way to add a personal touch and set your business emails apart.
Personalization might highlight the business mission statement. It could remind a subscriber of the services offered. This type of content can be a great way to feature all the aspects of a company that may not initially be realized. For example, if an accountant is contacted for tax filing support, a new customer might not yet be aware that the company also offers bookkeeping services.
A key part of email marketing personalization is that your company’s voice is represented. The email needs to sound like it came from you. You might think this will happen automatically, but that isn’t always the case. Use similar wording to what is used on your website and in person.
Details Matter
I’ve received many emails with typos or broken links. I’ve sent a few too! Although this is an easy mistake to make, it’s one that can also be avoided. Have a second and possibly a third set of eyes review all content before it’s sent out.
When it comes to the structure of an email, I find that my eye naturally gravitates toward a few specific things:
- A relevant picture
- A short, bulleted list
- The last paragraph
Using a wrap-up paragraph to reiterate the most important point of the email is always a great way to ensure your point isn’t missed. I find I’ll reread an email to confirm I understood all the relevant details when the last paragraph includes a few sentences that increase my interest in an offer.
It’s also important that your emails are compliant with current laws, such as the CAN-SPAM Act.
Avoid the Spam Filter
When sending email newsletters, you’re likely to have some emails bounce back. Whether someone has blocked your email or you imported an old email that no longer exists, your future email campaign may be impacted by your current bounce rate. The lower your click-through rate, the higher the risk your next promotional email will be considered spam by email filters. Take time to review your email statistics and remove an old email address from your current list.
Another way to avoid the Spam filter when you email clients is by avoiding words in all caps. Personalized messages are great, but you don’t need to shout them!
The best way to avoid a Spam folder is by segmenting email marketing lists so that you are sending the right information to the right people. Loyal customers will appreciate your reminders about sales however new customers may be more interested in learning more about your products and services.
Set Yourself Up for Success
Email marketing software is abundantly available. However, each platform has its own benefits and drawbacks. It’s best to choose a platform that will grow with your business marketing strategy. While free is great when starting out, it’s important to compare what each software offers. Some platforms limit the number of marketing emails you can send, others limit the number of email addresses you can collect.
You’ll find customizable email templates available on each platform. However, some are easier to manipulate than others. If your email marketing efforts include the goal of sending a series of emails to a segmented list, you will want to look at automation features.
Setting up your email tool will have a learning curve. However, the benefits of email marketing as part of your digital marketing strategy are well documented.
Set Reasonable Email Marketing Goals
Email marketing is a free, simple way to continue engaging your customers along their buying journey. Whether that journey concludes in the purchase of a book or clothing item, or a call to utilize your company’s services, email can help build a relationship of trust without even meeting in person.
How do you know what types of email marketing campaigns are working? It starts by setting a reasonable goal and tracking campaign performance analytics to see when that goal is met.
Set goals around conversion rates. How many people use a signup form to download a free offer or fill out a contact request? How many people in that group continue to engage by reading additional emails, responding to offers, or moving down the sales funnel?
I’ve never heard of a campaign with a 100% conversion rate, but that doesn’t mean the majority of potential customers who fill out a form won’t eventually become loyal customers.
Let’s Get Started
If you think email marketing is a service that would benefit your company, we would love to help you get started. As email marketers ourselves, we understand the details that go into developing a relevant email list of loyal customers. We will help you create engaging emails that inspire customer loyalty.