by Local Loyal Clients LLC
Have you ever sent emails to your prospective clients and they marked it as spam, deleted, or ignored it altogether? Perhaps the subject lines were not catchy or the call to action didn’t grab the reader’s attention. Well, just like other digital marketing strategies, the email marketing landscape keeps changing. If you want to improve your campaign results, you must stay current with the best practices. Here are 1o tips you can use for email marketing.
1. Segment your audience
Before you embark on an email marketing campaign, you should define your target audience. The messages you send to subscribers should be relevant to their interests. Your goal should be to target those people who are likely to convert fast.
When you segment your audience, you can be sure you’ll direct the content to a specific group. But the way you do your segmentation should depend on the brand. And once you become comfortable with a specific target group, you can make adjustments to your strategies to fit the business structure.
As you send an email to a prospect, you should consider their position in the sales funnel. Are they in Awareness, Interest, Decision, or Action stage? Because each stage will bring concerns to the users, the email you send should address their specific needs. This means that you should not send the same email to people in different buyer’s journey.
Another strategy for segmentation is sending emails based on demographics. This involves information like gender, age, person’s interests, and income level. The more information you have about your target audience, the greater the segmentation. Be sure not to ask for too much information as it may scare people from signing up.
2. Make the subject line concise and eye-catching
If you want to increase the open rates of emails, you should craft powerful subject lines. From a statistic standpoint, more than 45% of email users test the effectiveness of emails through the subject line. To increase the click-through rate, you should ensure the subject lines are compelling enough.
While subject likes may seem insignificant, this is what creates the first impression to the recipients. Therefore, you should ensure what you write makes the email stand out in a crowded inbox. Regardless of your email marketing goals, your email should possess certain elements. To start with, the subject line should create natural curiosity and interest. The idea is to bring some kind of mystery and trigger the audience to open the email for more information.
The subject line can also highlight an offer – people love free things. For instance, you could state that the product is free or comes discounted. Another tactic to make the email eye-catching is to personalize it. Truth be told, people have different preferences. The subject line you use should highlight the specific occasion that can capture their attention. You can also capture the reader’s attention by crafting subject lines that show the trending topics or information that can help you establish brand authority within a specific industry.
3. Target your audience by age (Millennials and Generation Z)
We can’t deny the fact that digital marketing has become full circle over the last decade. If you think millennials and generation Z have ditched email for social media, you’re wrong. The numbers don’t lie. Generally, the younger generation prefers to have high-quality information about a brand in their inbox. If you’re keen to understand what young people need, you can have a successful email marketing campaign.
Millennials have access to smartphones and internet connection most of their time. It’s estimated that about 25% of the people aged 24-34 years check their phone the first thing in the morning. That’s why email marketing is more effective than social media or text messages. The young generation will always value a work-life balance. But this doesn’t stop more than 80% of the millennials from checking their emails outside working hours.
While millennials take the lions share in the use of emails, you can’t ignore generation Z. They use smartphones for most of their lives before they reach adulthood.
This brings us to the question, how do you market to Millennials and Generation Z?
Unlike the older population, you must have a lot in store to capture the attention of the younger population. What does this mean to your email marketing campaign?
As you craft that email, you should concentrate on selling the experience, not the product. Millennials and generation-Z are not interested in a hard sell. And because they have grown up with the internet, they want to know how a specific product will benefit them. The easiest way to hook them up in your email marketing campaign is to include videos, photos, or graphics. This gives them a hint on how the product or service works.
The second strategy to market to the young generation is communication in a personal, palatable way. Let’s be honest: millennials are the unforgiving generation. You can’t use the same sale tactics you use on the old customers. If you’re selling a product and they give a negative review, you should address their worries to show the other readers that you acknowledge the issue. In addition to that, you must give the assurance you’re doing everything you can to resolve the problem.
Thirdly, your emails should accommodate leads from social media channels. The generation Z population will gather most of the information online when they want to purchase a specific product – this gives them confidence. Don’t forget to include user-generated content as it helps to encourage conversions.
Most millennials have grown with sites like Amazon, so they will make their purchase based on the reviews of friends and social media influencers.
4. How often to email a customer (frequency of emails)
No matter the marketing channel you use, over messaging can lead to frustrated customers. People have limits to the emails that get to their inbox, so you should be careful not to exceed the limit. What’s the ideal email frequency? It will depend on the subscriber’s preferences and customer journey. This could be daily, weekly, or monthly. If you’re doing legitimate marketing, it can be so frustrating to be named a spammer. But since most people check their emails daily, you should send them regularly.
There’s no universal number on the number of times you should send emails to your prospects. The number of times you send will depend on the brand target audience. Of course, the timing also matters. You should consider the best time of the day or week to send the emails.
5. Know what to include in your emails
When writing business emails, your style, etiquette, and format will determine the results you get. An average office will receive 70-80 emails a day, so you must keep the reader glued to the screen.
To start with, the email should be to the point. Maybe you want to remind them of something or do a follow-up – you should stick to your goal. Also, you should separate two emails that require different actions. For instance, you can’t write an email for report revision notes and at the same time remind the reader of the quarterly meeting.
A business email should start with greetings. Perhaps this is the trickiest thing to do. You should be polite and less formal. If you know the name of the recipients, you can use their last names or titles.
The style of the email also matters. It should be brief and professional. Sometimes, using polite words like thank you or please would be appropriate. Finally, you should include your email signature. Avoid adding too much information that can disrupt the attention of the recipient.
6. Personalize each email
If you want to have a successful email marketing campaign, you should address the recipient by name. When you leverage the power of personalization, you make the reader feel unique and special. Also, you can ask relevant questions to bring a personalized feel.
When you target the right people with messages that resonate, your emails will convert. You may even get a response immediately. However, email personalization goes beyond the mention of a name. You can personalize the emails with the landing pages. But here is the catch – both the landing page and personalized email should have a consistent look.
7. A/B testing is a must
A/B testing helps to determine which email campaign is effective and the one that will perform at maximum capacity. This involves evaluation of the winning version in different areas like the subject line, text, personalization, word order, and call to action. With this kind of information, you won’t base your decision on guesswork.
You can use an email builder to create two variations and increase the click-through rates. One thing with A/B testing is to know that those small changes make a very big difference. Because no two email marketing campaigns are the same, you’re better off with the version that gives a high click-through rate.
8. Make CTA buttons contextual
If you craft an eye-catching subject line but your CTA is not compelling enough, your campaign could fall short. So, every time you write a call to action you should ask yourself: Is it hard to miss? Is it easy to act on? Is it descriptive? The way you craft your CTA will determine whether prospects will take action when they get there.
A CTA should consist of a button that is colored carefully. It should also be strategically located to ensure the customer doesn’t miss it. You can place CTA on the right-hand side to ensure it follows the natural direction flow of readers. If you need a lot of convincing, you may want to place the CTA above the fold. When targeting millennials, you should place the CTA on the upper left corner to ensure it doesn’t auto-scale.
The design consistency also matters. Typically, CTA can lead people to blog posts, landing pages, or other online content. That being said, you should ensure the readers don’t click to CTA only to be directed to the wrong place. You must maintain a cohesive design and make the action as seamless as possible. Lastly, you should avoid giving people too many CTAs as it can overwhelm them and not click on anything. No clicks mean that you won’t get customers.
Now that you know the goal and structure of your email, you should match the message with CTA. Striking buttons will allow customers to interact.
9. Make your emails mobile-friendly
The latest statistics suggest that about 65% of emails are opened via mobile devices. If your emails aren’t optimized for mobile and tablets, you could potentially miss out on some customers. To start with, the design should be as concise as possible. The idea is to create short, consumable chunks of text that are easy to understand and take action.
The reader is likely to be multitasking when reading the email, so you should limit the amount of information you receive. Another thing to keep in mind is the positioning of the images. And because all mobile devices don’t display the images the same, you should leave room for `image off xperience.
When it comes to mobile-friendly emails, you shouldn’t leave the pre-header. While this is an area that is often overlooked, it’s very useful in mobile devices. You should pay close attention to the first line of the email that works as the subject line.
10. Use a lot of white space
White space ensures your email is scannable. Just think about it, your subscribers are busy people and are giving you plenty of attention so you should make use of it. So, every time you write an email you should keep the paragraphs short and use bullet points where applicable. This is a surefire way of getting undivided attention. If you want to write a bigger version, you should give a brief intro in the email and then direct the readers to a website.
5 Benefits of email marketing
1. Unlike other digital marketing channels, email marketing helps to get in touch with customers on a regular basis. More specifically, it allows you to segment your customers and give personalized content.
2. Email marketing helps you create valuable content and develop a brand identity. Once you give your customers what they need, you’ll have an edge over your competition.
3. In terms of cost, you can be sure you’ll save more money and still get a higher ROI. You can send thousands of emails at just a fraction of the cost used by other marketing methods.
4. Email marketing is easy to get started. You just need the automation software and email list and you’re good to go.
5. With email marketing, you can learn the metrics that work and those that don’t. Also, you can track the click-through rate to know the number of customers that are interested in your product.
If you’re looking for an email marketing campaign that converts, be sure to follow the above tips to the latter.
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