Email is probably the most convenient, cost-effective and prominent channel of communication. But still, why do people have thousands of emails unread and uncared? Usually, they are dated anywhere from 5 years to 1 day ago and will remain unread forever. So why does this happen? Why doesn’t each and every email we receive, we open and read them?
Well, I guess that’s because the way the emails were written, or the bland subject line that they have, had probably disinterested you and didn’t let you open the emails and read them. So when you don’t get the desired outcome from your email marketing strategy, know it for sure that you may have made some mistake in framing your emails, that has stopped the recipients from opening the emails and read them.
What is email marketing and how does it work?
Though there is no sure shot dictum, but to maximize your email marketing campaign success, you can follow certain tried and tested rules of thumb. Here are the tips and tactics on how to do email marketing!
1. Get a thorough insight about your Audience
Nothing matters more than a clear and concise knowledge of one’s target audience. Get a detailed analysis of your audience, their preferences and then build your email draft. Several marketers completely negate this norm and start with their email drafts. But if there are no personal and informal know-hows, then it is futile to expect a higher open rate.
Ensure you have a provision for your subscribers to unsubscribe at any point of time, without any hassle. Also, you must be fast enough to respond to all requests. Be sure of having a clear and non-ambiguous privacy policy about keeping your subscribers’ contact information safe and secured.
Simply put, you must possess a thorough knowledge of your target audience, and do whatever it takes to make them stick to you.
2. Save your Customers’ Money
Who doesn’t want a little discount, a promo code, offer coupons, and so on! To maximize savings and save money instantly, people will certainly read your email. Because people pay attention only when they see a benefit. Don’t forget to include the savings part in your subject line, because that what strikes the eyes.
3. Come up with a compelling Subject Line
Just as I mentioned in the above point!
Coming up with a creative, unique and compelling subject line is a must-have to augment open rates of emails. Before finalizing a particular subject line, ask yourself, would you open an email if it had this subject line? If yes, then go for it. And if not, then it’s better you chuck it off. A subject line can either make or break your effort.
4. Make your own Trend!
Don’t follow the trend. Break the trend! Make your email formats unique and different from others. If your email format is just as same as the ones others are using, then where is your uniqueness? Try out several formats, don’t cower from experimenting.
Also give uniqueness in your content too. Maybe your content becomes peppy and quirky, but if it has the potential to go viral, don’t shy away from using it. Be informal, witty and use your sense of humor to craft the email body.
These things will make your emails so tempting that your customers would love to share them organically, which is a great benefit for a business for its successful email marketing campaign.
5. Permission-based email list – A must-have
If you want a real return on your investment, then opt for a permission-based email list. A permission-based email list with less subscribers is far better than an email list with tens of thousand subscribers who doesn’t know and didn’t give you any permission to email them. And it is very likely that they will report your emails as spam, and will never engage in your campaign.
It is always best to carry out a permission-based email marketing. This has higher return rate than unsolicited email campaigns. Permission based email marketing campaigns will yield quality leads, positive customer and brand relationship, and also will improve sales along with augmenting your website traffic.
6. Make your email clear and concise
Too much of anything is bad. Too much knowledge is bad, too much food is bad, too much of exercise is bad. Similarly, too much of information in a small space will overwhelm your audience. Don’t force feed them with your erudite talks.
These days our lives have been immensely busy, and nobody has the time to read your email line by line. Moreover, if you have packed your email with more than necessary information, it is likely that people will get bored just by the look at it.
Be succinct, concise and to the point. Use relevant keywords. This will help your audience to scan through the email and fathom the actual message that you want to convey. Just see that the intro and the outro are remarkable, that way you can be sure that your email will be opened and read.
7. Measure, Analyze and Evaluate your Results
Everything remains incomplete if you do not measure your marketing efforts. Measuring and assessing the efforts and the returns received is the key to any marketing or branding success. Because only by analyzing the reports you can understand what tweaks and improvements are necessary to give you the optimum result.
Same goes for email marketing campaigns. You will get to know what is working and what is failing to resonate with your subscribers.
Keep on experimenting with different subject lines, differently written content, unique graphic designs, both latest and a bit old topics, A/B tests. Then use real-time results to check which is getting better response rate.
But most importantly, consider emails as your one of the best marketing tools. Measure and analyze the results to give more value to your subscribers through your email.
8. Don’t forget compelling CTAs
An email or promotional pitch without a relevant call-to-action, is like a ship without a mast. Call-to-actions give your recipients a direction or a guide as to what should be there next step. Give them a feeling of haste so that they take their actions right there. You can give out a freebie, or a ‘Download Now’ button. These kinds of CTA coax the viewer to take immediate action. You may give a CTA in this line, “Place an order for 5 Infographics now, get 15% discount on your next order. Offer available for a limited period.”
Even if your prospects didn’t have a plan to buy any Infographic, he/she would place the order, just to avail the discount as soon as possible.
9. Switch to Automation
Being a marketer and a businessperson, it is certainly not possible for you to dedicate all your time and effort sending compelling emails. But to remain alive in your prospects’ memory, you have to send regular emails. So how to balance it? Make your task easy. Switch to automation.
There are several automation tools available on the Internet, that you can use for your purpose. Namely, MailChimp, iContact, Marketo, CakeMail, Eloqua, Hubspot, and so on.
These are immensely efficient and are adapted by numerous big brands. These tools can automatically send emails once you schedule it, and hence you can be rest assured and focus on your other important works. To maximize email marketing success, automation is the best idea.
10. Include suitable Links in the Email body
By clicking links, your subscribers can check your products or services and can experience the advantages of your brand. This is all the more needed in email marketing because it’s much harder to convince someone through email. Convincing a prospect in person is easy enough because there you have the privilege of showing your website and products. But in an email, your prospects have to click on the links to check your website or products.
So use your links very prudently. Including an appropriate link in your email body will fetch you more leads and higher website traffic. As well as your engagement rate also gets augmented. And the other significant benefit is, your prospects are already aware of your products or services. So it is easy for you to make them move towards the order placement and payment phase.
Extra Tip for You
Trust a second pair of eyes to be doubly sure about your content. Pass on the write-up to a person who has not written the same. Only then the minute errors will be detected and rectified. Before dispatching the emails, don’t forget to send a test email to yourself so you can see how the email looks like.
It is time to re-evaluate your emails when you see the unsubscribing rate is higher than the subscribing rate. Try the tips mentioned above, and see your email marketing campaigns smell optimum success. And if you need any help regarding your email marketing campaign, feel free to touch base. Also keep the communication going by commenting in the below comment section, that what are the other tactics do you follow to get higher email marketing success!
