E-mail Marketing is a quintessential marketing tool to run customer acquisition and retention campaigns for the business of all sizes. It may be one of the oldest mastering tools but it still has not lost it mojo when it comes to customer interaction. With more than 4 billion email users in the world, it is easier like never before to get connected to your consumers. There are numerous statistics available on the internet that reflects the continuous growth rate of email marketing and the importance of adopting it for businesses of all types and sizes.

Before we get into the actual subject of how to run the campaign effectively for better conversion, a quick run-through of the factual advantages of email marketing and the variants of it.

BENEFITS OF RUNNING AN E-MAIL MARKETING CAMPAIGN

• It helps in building brand awareness, loyalty, and trust

• It enhances Customer relationship

• It is easy to measure and so is reporting

• It is quite economical compared to other tools

• It can be personalized and sent to the targeted audience with more precision

COMMON E-MAIL VARIANTS THAT HELP ACHIEVE MARKETING GOAL

1. Lead generation & Nurturing

2. Welcome Email to new customers

3. Informational Emails like a Product announcement, Newsletters etc.

4. Transaction-related Emails such as a closing purchase or follow-up when it is incomplete

5. Thank You Emails

6. Greeting Emails such as festive/seasonal greetings, birthday or anniversary wishes and the list goes on and on.

As a result, the opportunities it creates to enrich customer interactions are boundless which in turn, does wonder in customer retention.

8 EFFECTIVE WAYS OF UTILIZING E-MAIL MARKETING TOOL FOR YOUR BUSINESS

E-mail Marketing is all about building relationships

SET THE PURPOSE OF YOUR E-MAIL CAMPAIGN

E-mail Marketing, just like any other marketing campaign, requires a very clearly defined business goals and marketing objectives. The more the clarity you have in your goals, the better. It does miracles not only to understand what you want to achieve but also to your creative ideas for your next campaign.

ORGANIZE YOUR EMAIL RECIPIENT LIST

Agencies and companies spend time and money on ‘lead sourcing’, a process adopted to collect the e-mail addresses of potential customers. It is mandatory for B2B businesses. But if you have a blog or a B2C business, then you’d be collecting e-mail addresses from people visiting your website already. Whatever the source of e-mail list is, it is extremely important to organize them. What I mean by that is, build an email list by categorizing your clients base as present, previous and prospective clients with their e-mail addresses. This helps you to target your e-mails for the right group and can send more personalized e-mails.

IDENTIFY THE OPTIMUM TIME TO SEND E-MAILS AND SCHEDULE THEM AHEAD OF TIME

Your e-mails will generate the best response rate based on the day and time you send it, according to reports. Having said that, there is no pre-defined schedule as such because it varies from business to business. Therefore, one of the foremost steps is to identify which time schedule works the best for you in terms of open rate and stick to it. It is also a best practice to schedule your e-mails to be sent out during that time every week or month using tools available.

YOUR SUBJECT LINE MATTERS THE MOST

As they say, the first impression is the best impression and it applies aptly for E-mail subject line. Make your subject line stand out by using powerful words that capture the attention of your audience. E-mail subject lines are generally 41 to 50 characters long but according to research data from Return Path, 65 characters seems to be a sweet spot. When used correctly, they can help increase the response rate by 10 – 20 times.

WRITE A POWERFUL, PERSUASIVE E-MAIL MESSAGE

The next crucial point to your E-mail is quite obvious, yes, it is the body of your E-mail. Always ensure that your content is up to the point and delivers what you want it to. Another thumb rule here is, include a sense of urgency with any promotional offers that may apply to your e-mail which would enable your audience to click the link. Making use of attractive graphics, photos, gif images etc is always welcome and another catalyst to engage the audience.

HIGHLIGHT CALL TO ACTION

The vital organ to the body of your email is CTA (call-to-action) buttons. There can be multiple buttons in your email but never overdo it. Based on your content, the number of CTAs differ but ensure the ultimate goal of the email is the most attractive one of them all. Moreover, it should be placed in such a way that the reader feels the urge to click the button to see what’s in it for them.

FOLLOW ANTI-SPAM LAWS STRICTLY

If you’re using a well-known Email service providers like MailChimp, GetResponse, ActiveCampaign to name a few, they will take care of most of the common rules that would get your email to the inbox of the recipient rather than spam box. It is certainly not rocket science but following the rules set in CAN-SPAM ACT (2003) and other regional anti-spam laws that apply to your country strictly will give you peace of mind. It should be noted that other than the basic compliance elements like SPF and DKIM, your content, design, the percentage of spam complaints, blacklists etc also play a vital role in deciding the fate of your email. Therefore, confirm that you are not deviating too much and mostly, breaking any of those laws.

MONITOR YOUR PERFORMANCE

Last but not least, always make a habit that you track the performance of your campaign after it is sent. Every campaign that you send out is different and so are the results you achieve. What makes your emails better over time is, the lessons you’ve learned from the previous campaigns and how well you worked out what worked in the past and what did not.

Tracking the links in your emails is an effortless process but it provides you with the most valuable insights and unearths what worked and what did not. Fortunately, there are tips & tricks to do this and they can be automated using various tools. Also, track which subject line generated the best open rate for you.

That’s not everything! There are a couple of basic tactics that are worth adopting in your campaign,

MAKE IT PERSONAL

Making the email more personal to your recipients is one of the common strategies and they help in engagement compared to the emails sent to a generic group of audience. This can be achieved by calling your recipients first name or surname in the subject line or body or both.

SCHEDULE THE EMAILS AHEAD

Schedule your emails well ahead so that your audience would know when to expect your email (before you wonder, this can be achieved by making your content so useful and informative for them) and if possible, try to automate the email campaigns.

CONCLUSION

Most of the businesses understand the importance of E-mail Marketing, hence made it a ritual to collect your valuable e-mail address as soon as you enter their website. Always refine and repeat your campaigns based on your previous performances and make the best use of them. Remember to broadcast only the useful, informative content to your audience for a successful email marketing campaign.

We really hope you enjoyed reading this article and learned something new and useful for your next marketing campaign. Feel free to give us a shout to discuss more on E-mail Marketing or on this blog, we love to chat. Thinkweaver has a team of experts who specialize in running E-mail Marketing campaigns for businesses of all types and sizes.

So, wait no longer! Talk to us now to see how your business can benefit from our E-mail Marketing services and how to achieve the desired open rate and conversions.  Hit Contact Us button now and get the ball rolling!