Email marketing acts as a primary component for many companies in various industries. It brings in new customers and influences the purchase decisions of people. Today, many new marketing channels have emerged and have revolutionized the field of marketing. For example, social media marketing has brought new opportunities for companies. However, even in 2022, emails are still one of the most popular and effective ways to reach out to your potential audience. Therefore, companies should consider the ROI of email and look for a way to use it more effectively.
Regardless of your business size, email marketing has the power to reach your target customers any time you want. It is also a cost-effective approach to sustain and grow your customer base. However, when you’re responsible for handling the daily details of the email marketing program of your company, you may feel like there are many aspects to keep track of for getting your email program right.
Here are the top 10 tips that can help you to create the best email marketing campaigns:
1. Know your audience:
It is crucial for businesses to know and have a deep understanding of your recipient audience before you send emails to them. They are more than just a demographic group to you. Try to understand the following necessary questions:
- How and when do they prefer these communications?
- Is there any specific vernacular, jargon, or slang that might be more effective than others?
- What type of activities or actions differentiates your audience from the rest of the population?
It is not that easy to address these questions the first time around, but with the help of email marketing, over time, you can have vital insights and data based on your recipients. Furthermore, it can assist you in making intelligent changes to your program in your future email marketing campaigns.
2. Experiment to see what works:
It is essential to A/B test every section of your email, from subject lines to your call to action (CTAs). Keep the following tips in mind during the test:
- Test only one element at a time, or your results will be inconclusive.
- Ensure beforehand that you have a significant sample size in your testing.
- After finding a winning element, you should move on to the new test.
A marketing team should keep in mind that your product may change, and so do your recipients. Therefore, as a good email marketer, you should keep on testing. A/B testing allows you to take your email marketing in 2022 to the next level.
3. Create and follow a checklist:
You are likely to face failures in your email marketing if you don’t plan your emails. So before starting your next email campaign, you should create a checklist of all the necessary steps you need to consider before sending the mail. Here’s a simple checklist that you can use as a reference. But you can also add your custom items as per your program to ensure a seamless experience:
- Step1: Customize your ‘from’ name. You can also perform an A/B test if you need help with that.
- Step2: Write clear subject lines. You have to keep it short approximately 3-5 words can work.
- Step3: Personalize your content. Provide a compelling CTA.
- Step4: Making it easy to unsubscribe. It is a legal requirement, not optional.
- Step5: Provide information regarding your location in all of your emails.
- Step6: Say thank you. Show appreciation to your users.
If you make any mistake, it is better to send an apology email to your users as it helps maintain trust between you and them.
4. Select meaningful metrics:
You should take your time to decide on your metrics. It doesn’t have to be complicated. Open rates, click-through, click-to-open, and many more options are available to you for making a suitable selection. To decide what metrics are best to track, you need to determine the purpose of your email first. For instance:
- When you want your recipients to read an essential update to your terms of service, you need to provide compelling and urgent subject lines and measure your opens.
- When you want to extend a significant offer or discount, you need to enable clicks as they are your metric to watch.
5. Personalize your emails:
Personalization isn’t a new concept, but it keeps becoming a necessary factor for email marketing. Batch and blast emails aren’t likely to be effective or ensure higher conversion and engagement rates. Instead, you can consider the user data to personalize your emails. Personalization helps you make emails that are better segmented and standouts in recipients’ inboxes. It isn’t about just putting the user’s name in the subject line, but you should utilize every information you have about them to create a tailored message and offer.
6. Quality beats frequency:
Email marketing can be a convenient tool for digital communication, but that does not mean that boosting the number of emails will make your message more effective. It can have the opposite effect if you send way too many emails to your users. Recipients can unsubscribe if they have specific issues with this communication. They can also report your mail as spam, which is even worse. A slow start can help you test how your audience reacts to your email sending frequency.
7. Automation in campaigns:
Marketing automation helps you send the right message at the perfect time to the right person. It reduces your efforts of setting up and sending every email one by one. It is time that companies should apply automation in their email marketing strategy. It can help automate emails like:
- Welcome email
- User registration confirmation.
- Thank you email
- Recovery emails etc.
8. Review the landing pages:
Designing and writing copies of your email campaigns is a very time-consuming process. It is also essential to consider where you are sending your recipients. You should send them to landing pages that make sense based on your goals and email copy. You should also ensure a seamless transition. For instance, If you want to direct users to a specific product, you can send them to that product’s landing page instead of your homepage.
9. Build and segment your list:
You must verify whether or not an email address is added by an individual’s own choice and consent or not. And remove rented or purchased email addresses from your list. Otherwise, you will experience low engagement and risk getting a list denied by major ISPs ( Gmail, Yahoo, etc.). Moreover, your accounts with your email service provider will also shut down.
Email marketing used to be a ‘batch and blast’ communication, and everyone got the same message. If you want higher engagement, you have to cater your emails to specific characteristics, which you know about your customers. You can segment emails based on different factors such as their purchasing habits, location, the timing of checking the mail, etc. The more attention you pay to these factors, the higher reach and responses you will get.
10. Review your emails before sending:
You might make silly mistakes in your email that can affect your whole email campaign. You must check up on the email or send a test email to yourself to ensure that everything mentioned here is in order:
- Email loads correctly.
- The image looks good.
- No spelling errors
- Links and CTA buttons work.
- Email loads correctly on both desktop and mobile.
Creating a creative and effective email marketing campaign could be convenient if you keep these tips in mind and act accordingly. They will help you stand out from your competitors and encourage customers to take further action.
Author’s Bio
Deepali Daiya is a communication expert who excels in understanding customer needs. Currently, she is associated with Sage Software Solutions, a leading distributor of high-quality ERP Software and CRM systems to small and mid-sized businesses in India.