The line between smart email marketing and unwanted spam is thin – both the success of the campaign and the sales for the business depend on it. This makes knowing and implementing the successful steps for implementing an email campaign essential.
What is email marketing?
Email marketing is one of the most affordable methods of business advertising , part of digital marketing. It is used to promote the goods and services of a company, ultimately aiming to make sales. It is also a channel for communication with the audience, thanks to which you can actively communicate with them, promoting your brand.
What are the advantages of email marketing?
The popularity of email marketing is linked to its undeniable advantages. It provides the opportunity to reach a wide audience with minimal resources and effort, provides a solid return on investment, and when properly targeted and intelligently implemented, the results are easy to track and analyze. Last but not least, it facilitates personal and systematic contact with customers.
A major drawback of email marketing is its popularity – users’ inboxes are flooded with advertising messages. This means that your email is competing with dozens or hundreds of others for the customer’s attention and can often go unopened or even marked as spam – something that is highly undesirable and does not lead to the achievement of your goals.
What does it take for a smart and profitable email marketing campaign?
There are several things that should be in place to run an intelligent email marketing campaign. We briefly present them to you in the following lines:
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Contact list
You can't run an email marketing campaign without having your users' emails. One way to get a list of contacts is to buy or receive them from companies that offer email lists. However, this practice often turns out to be a bad idea and is the quickest way for your campaign to fail. Sending email newsletters to a list of contacts that is not selected in any way increases the chances of them messages to be reported as spam. The legal provisions on personal data protection, implemented in relation to the GDPR regulation, are another reason to avoid this method of sourcing contacts for email marketing.
The other, far better option for obtaining a contact list is for users to provide their email addresses themselves. Ideally, this happens after users sign up for your newsletter. To entice them to leave their email, you can offer a discount or an e-book that comes with signing up. This will help you build your mailing list faster and easier.
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Email title and contentwho promotes
An exciting and relevant headline is essential for the success of your campaign. The headline is the first thing users will read and will decide whether to open the message. If you are running a sale or have a special offer, write it in the headline. A personalized address to the customer, creating a feeling of special treatment, is also a winning move. Creating quality text content is the foundation of a successful email marketing campaign, keep this in mind when planning one.
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The design sells just as successfully as quality text
Make sure that the design of the message is perfected down to the last detail. The vision will be noticed before the text is read. The more unusual, interesting and eye-catching it is, the greater your success will be. Don’t skip the photos, don’t be wasteful with the text. Short and clear are the two formulas for success. If you want to say something more or convey longer messages – do so through a link. During the work week, users have neither the desire nor the time to read long advertising messages. If yours is like that, there is a real danger that it will not receive the necessary attention and will quickly be marked as “spam”.
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Don't ignore the possibilities for automation of email marketing campaigns
A successful email campaign requires certain automation tools. There are many reliable email marketing tools out there. Make sure they are suitable for your goals and work well. Choose the ones that will get the most out of your work and efforts.
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Get to know the audienceon which you advertise
Create separate campaigns for different types of users. If you sell a variety of products, for example, offer mothers an email containing information about your baby products, and men another one tailored to their interests. Sending an email with information about diapers to a user who purchased a computer game from your store is not only inappropriate and unprofessional, but it also leads to your email being marked as spam. Segment your users and target the right messages to each group, relevant to their interests and needs.
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Readers can to opt out of receiving email or personalize the content received
The law requires that you include in every message a way for the user to opt out of receiving your emails or unsubscribe from your newsletter. Be resourceful and give the user another option – to indicate how often they would like to receive your emails. This way you will have the opportunity to retain a user who would unsubscribe because of daily messages, but would not mind receiving your advertisements once a month. Flexibility and personalization are your assistants in this case.
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Remind yourself by approaching it resourcefully
Losing customers at some point is inevitable, but this effect should be minimized as much as possible. It often happens that a user browses a product or service, even puts it in the cart, but does not complete the purchase for various reasons. Reminder emails about a forgotten cart with an offer for a price reduction or free shipping are an impressive expression of attention and attitude for the user, and for your business - an optimized chance for a sale.
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Personal approach always wins
Create an email marketing calendar containing your customers' birthdays and send them a personalized greeting with a gift - a discount or other tempting offer for their holiday. Personal attention and attention are always a winning strategy.
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Analyze the results
They will clearly show you what works for you and your business and which types of messages are a waste of time and money. By analyzing the results and drawing accurate conclusions, you will be able to better plan your next campaign and make it more effective and profitable.
