Email marketing is still as vital as ever, people have come to expect email marketing now and therefore look for emails worthy of being clicked and opened. This is why it is crucial that you put lots of thought, planning and due-diligence into the creation of your email to give you the best possible chance of making this a worth while sales funnel into your business.
Before we dive into the tips of good email marketing, let's start with your recipient list. This is an important starting point for any email campaign because this will set you up for the best possible opportunity for high engagement and action. If you’re going in cold then expect to get a cold reception from your email list but if you’ve cultivated an email list then you’ve taken the first step in your journey to email campaign success.
Here are 4 tried and tested ways to build and grow your mailing list with warm customers.
Social media engagement
Engage with your social media community by answering questions, posing questions, create content and encourage feedback. From this you will create potential customers through creating relationships with people, the people you’re engaging with will show their intent for your content/product on the channel. Save any warm customers and ask them to sign-up.
Website sign-ups
Have a section of your home page offering customers the option to sign up for content, value and updates on your services/products.
Customer purchases
Offer to email receipts to customers, this will help save paper (and the environment) whilst giving you a method to engage with your customer in the future and the best thing is that they’ve already bought from you.
Free content/resources
Offer valuable content/resources in return for their email address and name. If what you’re offering is valuable enough then your potential customer will give you their details, if they don’t take this up then consider what else you could offer to teased their contact information from them.
Plan your journey
Email marketing is most effective when you design the whole journey, ultimately your campaign should deliver you a sale for your business so making sure your potential customers journey is simple and effective is vital to your success. We have a guide to help you start thinking about how to create an email/sales funnel and start mapping a customers journey.
Outcome for you
Have in mind what your ultimate goal is. Is it a sale, sign-up, download, call, meeting, etc.
Outcome for your customer
What will your customer get from talking action on your email. Will they get an offer, product, value, content, etc.What do you need to let your potential customer know before they take action to get their “outcome”?
What value or additional value can you give that customer as part of this transaction?
This doesn’t have to cost anything, it could be as simple as they will benefit from being in capable hands but it has to have value to your customers so think carefully about what they would want and what they would deem as valuable.
Funnel your leads
Next the step is to design the funnel/journey, this can be super simple or a lengthy journey depending on what you’re trying to sell your customer. The general rule is the more complex and expensive the solution/service/product the longer the journey, this is mainly caused by having to educate your customers on the product/service/solution (not always technically but definitely on why you are the right person/business to provide it).
Again, this isn’t always the case, for example an expensive watch sale could be really simple by offering a discount or time limited offer.
Email > offers discount > link to webpage > process order
Alternatively, you could offer value to your watch customer by using the following journey.
Email > display top watches but offer a watch comparison > link to webpage > compare watches > offer a personalise experience through asking a few questions > display the best watch for your customer > process order
The last journey I’ve just detailed will give your customer a better experience and increase the chance of repeat business and at least a higher email opening rate for future campaigns. Think about the journey before writing any content, carefully consider the elements above to create a compelling journey and campaign for your customers.
Subject Line
One of the most important things in email marketing is getting the subject line spot on, this is the first and (if your bad at it) potentially the only thing your recipient will see of your email.
Creating the right subject can be an art form and below are some tips on how to improve your chances of getting that first, crucial click.
Open rate data across 1m marketing emails in 2018 show that subject fields with no more than 5 words stand the best chance of being opened
1 word subjects perform 87% better than subjects with 5 words or more
Be snappy and to the point, highlight what value the customer should expect
Creating email content
Now you have your click through to open your email, the next part is to grab and keep your potential customers attention and convert their attention into an intention of your choosing. The intention could be a website visit, sales, course attendance, membership, personal detail exchange, etc. Here we have some tips for you to consider when pulling your email body together.
Sound more natural and human, create personal sounding email content by using names where possible. You have a better chance to grab them immediately if the message and content is personal and relevant so having a warm contact list is crucial to your success as previously mentioned
Keep emails to no more than 50 words to increase response rate, leave out long detail, move all the detail onto a webpage.
Don’t lose sight of the purpose of email marketing and that’s to have a call to action for the user to do something, be this sign-up or purchase but this should take place on your webpage not on the email.
Your content needs to quickly and concisely explain “why” the customer should take action on this email
Avoid bullet points - 37% less likely to get a response back if you include them on an email (if you need bullet points then save them for your landing page)
Make sure you have a clear “call to action” for the reader to take, this should then take your potential customer to a landing page on your website that details the offer, promise, course, content, etc that you’re put in your email
Be genuine and not misleading, if you’re going to betray your readers trust then don’t even bother wasting your time creating a campaign because you’re going to fail before you even start
Testing
Email marketing isn’t an exact science therefore testing and tweaking is essential with any campaign. Here are some actions and points to consider when you’re looking uptake an email campaign.
Track email open rates, if you’re open rates are low consider tweaking your subject line.
Test and re-test as many time as you need until the open rate increases
Track click through rates for your landing page, this will show the performance of your content and offer.
Again, tweak, test, repeat until you hit the sweet-spot.
If you would like support with your email campaign or if you would like Purple Yak to help build your journey then just reach out to us on social media or via our contact us page. We’d be happy to help you on your journey to email campaign success.