Email marketing is the most intimate and cost-effective way to reach your clients and grow your business.
According to Constant
Contact, the average Return on Investment (ROI) for email marketing
is $40 for every $1 spent.
Both big businesses and small startups currently leverage
the power of email marketing campaigns to:
- Reach
their ideal audiences
- Generate
website traffic
- Nurture
leads
- Convert
leads to buyers
Running an email campaign can be fruitless if you don't
optimize the whole process for your benefit.
If you’re an eCommerce business owner who’s worried about
how to run a successful email marketing campaign, I got you.
In this article, you'll get to understand the concept of an
email marketing campaign and why it matters to your business.
You'll also learn 10 essential strategies that will help you
run a successful email campaign to increase your conversion rates.
What’s an Email Marketing Campaign and Why Does it
Matter?
An email marketing campaign is a series of promotional or
educational emails you send to your email list to achieve a specific
goal.
The goal of your email campaign could be to get your
prospects to:
- Purchase
your product
- Download
a white paper
- Subscribe
to a service/newsletter
- Sign
up for a webinar
However, the ultimate reason why an email marketing campaign
matters to your business is to increase your sales and revenues.
It’s the most personalized and effective way you can use to
walk your prospects through the buyer’s
journey and convert them into loyal, recurrent customers.
So, let’s discuss a few basics you need to understand before
you start running your first successful email marketing campaign:
1 – Know Your Target Audience and What They Want
The first key to a successful email campaign is to know your
target audience.
When you know your audience and their needs, you’ll craft
email content that resonates with them, answers their questions, and solves
their problems.
The most effective way to know your target audience is to
use email segmentation and tools to segment your audience.
Email marketing software such as Mailchimp, Aweber, and
HubSpot often have additional email segmentation resources to help you group
your audience based on different characteristics.
You may decide to segment your audience based on:
- Age
- Gender
- Profession
- Geographical
location
- Job
function
- Buying
frequency
Audience segmentation helps you understand specific buyer
needs and, therefore, send out relevant, specific and helpful content. This, in
turn, increases your chances of converting prospects into buyers.
2 – Set Your SMART Email Campaign Goals
After segmenting and understanding your target audience,
next is to set the SMART goals you want to achieve with your email campaign.
What do you want to achieve at the end of this email
campaign period?
Are you running the campaign to:-
- Create
or increase your brand awareness
- Educate
your audience
- Drive
traffic to your website or social media page
- Promote
a new product
- Or
Increase subscriber engagement?
An email campaign without defined goals is as good as none.
Before you start sending out emails, know your goals, write
them down, and ensure they’re SMART:
- S –
specific (e.g to increase sales for my new Cookbook)
- M –
measurable (e.g. Sell 500 book copies at the end of the
campaign)
- A –
achievable: Don't set goals you can't achieve
- R –
realistic (e.g. Aiming to sell 10,000 book copies within one week wouldn’t
be realistic)
- T –
timely (e.g. To achieve x after 1 week, 2 weeks, or 1 month)
Your SMART goals will act as the guide to help you send out
high-value, targeted messages with every email sent. They’ll also help you
gauge whether your efforts are yielding results.
3 – Draw Out an Emailing and Follow-up Plan
Once you set and write down your SMART goals, it’s time to
draw out an elaborate emailing and follow-up plan.
Use an Excel sheet to draw out a plan that includes the
following details:
- The
type of mails you will be sending (e.g. whether promotional or
educational)
- A
rough outline of the content (draft headlines)
- The
core message and CTA of every mail (e.g. buy, subscribe, follow)
- When
to send the mails (which day and what time of the day)
- The
mailing frequency (e.g. daily, or thrice a week etc.)
You emailing plan should also outline how long the campaign
will take and how to track the performance of every email or milestone.
Don’t forget to specify the follow-up period if you’ll need
to do follow-up for any previous CTA.
The more strategic and intentional you are about every email
sent out, the more you’ll achieve with your email marketing campaign.
4 – Choose an Automated Email Softwar
Next is to choose a suitable software to use for your
automated email marketing.
If you already have an email list, you’ve probably selected
an emailing software for your business. If not yet, then you have to find one
right now.
Reports show that automated email campaigns
have higher open rates and generate more ROI than
standard emailing.
You also want something that saves you time and energy,
right? Some good email automation tools to consider include:
Expert Tip: For the best results, choose
an automated email software that’s user-friendly, within your budget,
and has all the features you need.
5 – Write Short and Compelling Subject Lines
Ok, it’s now time to write the actual email copy to send out
to your email list, and it starts with the subject line.
Your email subject line is what determines whether your
recipients will open your mails or just read the subject line and go like, ‘No,
pass!’ (Ouch!)
It dictates whether your mails will be part of the 40%
of emails opened everyday. Email recipients only open emails whose
subject lines are relevant and compelling enough.
To gain a high open-rate and more success with your email
campaign, you’ll need to learn how to write short, interesting,
and compelling subject lines for your emails.
Alternatively, just let me know if
you need help crafting emails with compelling subject lines that will make your
recipients click and read all the way to the CTA.
Watch the video below by HubSpot to learn 10 amazing email
marketing statistics that will help improve your email click-through and
conversion rates.
6 – Write Valuable, Engaging, and Interesting Emails
Now that you’ve crafted your short and compelling subject
line to get your recipients clicking in one second, it’s time to create the
email body.
Are you just going to over-promise in the headline and
under-deliver in the email body?
Please don't do that.
In the email body, provide maximum value by sharing useful
and engaging content that’s relevant for every stage of the
buyer’s journey.
Make every paragraph interesting for your audience to read.
With every paragraph, make them want to read the next, until they’ve read to
the end, where they will take the necessary action.
However, if you don’t have the skills to craft compelling email
copy that will drive action, don’t fret. Simply hire a skilled email
copywriter to do the heavy lifting for you.
7 – Send Personalized, Relevant Content
Remember to send out relevant, personalized emails always.
Every customer wants to feel special and recognized.
Email recipients are more likely to open and read emails
that sound personal and specific to them than those sent out
to a group of people.
They want to feel like you are talking directly to them
individually and not in a hall of thousands. And that is how personalized
emails make them feel.
When sending mails, use email personalization tools such
as OptinMonster and Bronto to make your emails sound
more personal.
Always address prospects by name and avoid
anonymous titles like sir, madam, or customer by all means.
Watch the video below by HubSpot to learn 10 amazing email marketing statistics that will help improve your email click through and conversion rates.
8 – Include Visuals
The eighth most important tip for successful email marketing
is to send emails with visually appealing content such as videos and
images.
Visual content makes your emails easier to understand and
more engaging. They also lower the bounce rate and lead to
higher conversion.
Your readers may get bored and stop reading halfway if you
share only large chunks of texts with no visual appeal.
Ensure every mail you send out has at least one visual
content in the body.
9 – Have a Clear Call-to-Action
Remember never to send any marketing email without a
Call-To-Action (CTA).
A CTA is what you want your email recipient to do after
reading the email. Do you want them to purchase, subscribe, sign up, or
register?
Every email sent out should have a clear call to action that
is easy to execute, often at the end of the mail.
Depending on your overall goal, you may have one CTA throughout
the campaign, or different CTAs for every email sent out. Different CTAs can
coordinate to help your audience move from one stage of the buyer’s journey to
another.
However, it is more effective to have only one CTA
per mail and make sure that the CTA button (or link) is very easy to
find.
10 – Track Your Progress
Last, but not least, remember to track the progress of your
email campaigns. This will help you know whether you are achieving your goals
or not.
As you continue with your campaign, track the progress by
monitoring metrics such as:
- Open
rates
- Click-through
rates
- Purchase
rates
- Sign-up
rates, and
- Unsubscribe
rates
Monitoring progress will enable you to know what's
working and what's not. You will also get to know which type of email
content performs better than others for future improvement.
Boost Your Revenue with Effective Email Campaign
In this digital era, Email marketing is among the largest
sources of revenue that no business owner should ignore.
A successful email marketing campaign will benefit your
business by bringing in new customers or serve as a great retention tool for
existing customers. It is also the best medium to build trust between you and
your customers.
As explained in the
buyers’ journey, customers are more likely to purchase from a business
that has engaged them, built a relationship with them, and walked them through
the journey to purchase.
And what better way can you achieve this than through an
email campaign?
Utilize these strategies to make your first email campaign highly successful and achieve your most valuable business goals.