An email marketing campaign attracts new customers, keeps and builds relationships with existing ones, and maximizes the sale of your products and services.
It is one of the cheapest marketing tools that you can use to communicate directly with your perspective, existing, and past customers.
Let us first explore the reasons why you should adopt email marketing.
Why Email Marketing is Effective
Email marketing is effective because it’s the best way to build a big list.
Approximately 4 billion people worldwide use email and the number is only going to go up. Many people use and open emails daily, making email marketing a great way to reach many people.
It is also effective because it is one of the best ways to follow up with those leads that you’re building your list from.
This is because if you’re trying to build a list of hundreds or even thousands of people, you need an effective way to follow up with them on a daily basis.
Another reason is that about 95% of online consumers use email.
Many people that buy from companies like Amazon, eBay, Nike, Google, Bestbuy, Target even major network marketing companies or real estate companies need you to do promotion and push something out there to the marketplace.
Email is by far one of the best ways to conduct such promotions.
As far as promotion and expansion is concerned or getting the initial first customer, email is very effective.
In order for you to get the results you’re looking for and maximize the growth of your company from an email marketing campaign, consider the following questions.
The Why
First, you need to ask yourself why you are sending this email.
It is very important for you to have a very clear and solid answer to this question because if you’re feeling unsure about it, it is going to show when your prospective customer opens that email.
It is going to be evident that you weren’t quite sure what you wanted out of this, you weren’t quite sure what you wanted to tell them or what you wanted your reader do when they open the email.
Therefore, you need to ensure that at the moment your subscriber or your customer opens that email, they understand exactly what are you asking of them.
Give them a clear point of action and convey your message effectively.
Who are you Sending the Email to?
This is the second thing to consider that goes hand in hand with the why.
Before launching an email marketing campaign, be aware of your target audience.
The purpose of the email ought to be a guideline when thinking about who you are sending the email to.
If you are in a setting where you have a customer list, it could be even more specific than just customers generally. You could start getting it to some segmenting of your customers.
It could be of value if you are more specific. So, it’s not just sending an email to customers but to a certain group of customers on your list.
In business, for instance, it could be targeting the customers who have made a purchase in the past month or to the customers who have walked into the store in the past month.
It is very important to consider who the email is targeting.
When are you Sending this Email?
The when is an important point to think through because it affects the content that’s involved. It also affects the tone of voice of the email or how you compose your email.
It goes hand in hand with why and who you are sending the email to.
What is Contained in The Email?
This is the fourth important point to consider while launching an email marketing campaign.
If you know that you want to send an email to your customers, know the purpose of the email, and you know that you want to send it at a specific time, then it’s really easy to come up with content that accomplishes your goal.
Considering the three previous points helps tell you what your content should look like.
You want to make sure the content is speaking to the person you’re sending it to, conveying the purpose of the email, and at the right time.
By answering these questions in order, you can start to narrow in on what your goals, who you’re sending it to, and when you’re sending it.
That will very quickly influence the content and what’s inside.
Consider these pointers before you even start building an email marketing campaign or review them if you have already started.
These are the important questions that you need to have answers for, in order to make sure that you create an effective email marketing campaign that will have the return on investment you’re looking for.
Creating a Successful Email Marketing Campaign
There are various steps involved in creating an effective email marketing campaign as discussed below.
Build Your Email List
This is the first step in building an email marketing campaign.
You need to be able to build up your list of subscribers and you may need an email marketing company/provider to be able to do this.
Experiment With Your Subject Line
A successful email campaign starts with your subject line.
The subject line should be direct and clear. It should have some self-interest, build curiosity, and have urgency.
The subject line resembles headline of an advertisement. If it does not attract the attention and interest of the reader, it will be ignored.
Make Your Content Easy to Read
The first few lines of your texts have to be as interesting and relevant as possible.
Focus on having shorter sentences and avoid long paragraphs. You could also underline or highlight important words in the email body.
Many people set their inboxes to show the first few words or lines of an email to see if it is worth reading.
If it’s not, they will delete it and your message could be gone forever.
Avoid Sending the Same Message Over and Over
Your prospective customers will buy when they are ready to buy not when you are ready to sell.
If they always get the same information and that information is always trying to sell them something, they will start to ignore your messages.
Keep in contact with news and stories with relevant information.
Make the Purpose of Your Email Marketing Campaign Clear
This is the call to action. What do you want your readers to do? What is the purpose of your email marketing campaign?
Make it clear and congruent what you want, the action you want your readers to take.
Use text that has a compelling reason to click on the link and try to avoid just saying click here.
Always Provide Value
People buy from people, companies, and brands they like and respect.
If your only aim is just to just sell stuff and make money, you will not build any relationship with your list and your unsubscribe rate will be very high.
Ensure you offer something in return for your leads email address. Make it worthwhile.
Some examples of services you can offer include a free training series. It could be a three-part series or five-part series showing your prospective customers how to do something specific inside of their business.
You can also have a free e-book on the email or conduct a free Bootcamp; a seven-day boot camp or maybe a fitness boot camp on how to get in better shape.
You could do free updates. People love updates, for instance, if you’re doing any music promotion, update them whenever you come out with a new song or a new track are of value.
On your capture page, you always want to make sure you’re being very specific and providing value to your customers.
Understand Your Customers
Know the concerns, needs, wants or desires of your clients or potential customers have. Let them know how your product or service meets or solves it for them.
If you don’t know what your readers want, ask them. Manage your expectations with the follow-up efforts.
Bear in mind that no service or product can be all things to all people.
Also, ensure you stay consistent because fortune isn’t in the invite; fortune is in the follow-up.
If you promise something, make sure you deliver.
Whether it is a free ebook or a free Bootcamp, make sure you deliver in order to build trust and rapport.
Test Your Email Before Sending it
Do not send your email marketing campaign without making sure that it is working.
Send the email to yourself to check that it looks and reads as you intended, all your links work, and any personalization is working correctly.
Let People Unsubscribe
If somebody chooses not to receive your email anymore, let them unsubscribe easily.
If a recipient has lost interest in receiving your email, it is very unlikely that they will ever become a customer.
Be Consistent
There is no right or wrong answer to how many emails you should send each week or month.
Have a plan of how often you will send your emails, stick to it, and avoid irregular schedules.
If you email twice a week and then start emailing twice a day then revert to once a week, your recipients may become fed up and unsubscribe.
Invest in a Reliable Auto-Responder
Autoresponder software can handle many more emails than you could ever process manually and allows you to stay in contact with your customers.
It is active 24 hours a day, seven days a week, and will automatically follow up prospects with a series of pre-written email messages at preset time intervals.
Ultimately, email marketing campaigns will have a great impact on your business, generate more leads, and improve online sales.
For more information, contact us.