Email may not be the newest, shiniest tool in your marketing tool belt, but it’s arguably your most reliable and trustworthy method of effective marketing. A great email marketing strategy can generate unbelievable sales, even for small lists.
If you’ve been in the industry for any significant amount of time, you probably know the stats that show that email’s ROI is still a strong $38 to every dollar spent. Why? Because emails aren’t beholden to a tricky algorithm (here’s looking at you Instagram) and more than 3.8 billion people are email users worldwide.
To put it bluntly, your team needs a plan to leverage the power of your email list ASAP. In today’s post, we’ll highlight eight best practices for email marketing that will set you up with a highly converting email list.
1. Decide What Your Audience is Looking For and Deliver That
Your emails should deliver VALUE to your customer, so you need to spend time researching what exactly your audience craves. Are they looking for deals and promotions? Education, tips, and insights? Stellar customer service? Entertainment?
Spend some solid time studying your customers, conducting interviews with engaged followers, and reading reviews or Facebook group chats. Decide what your audience needs or wants and then build email content around that.
If you’re able to, you can even segment your list (more on segmentation in a bit) to further tailor your content to your audience’s needs.
2. Build Your List
List building should be a constant topic of conversation for your team. The larger the email list, the larger the revenue you’ll experience. It should be noted that your list needs to be comprised of actual people who check their emails – not bots or spam email lists to boost your numbers. Those always backfire.
So, how do you grow an email list? Some of the most popular methods include:
- Creating a lead magnet
- Designing an enticing opt-in form
- Nurturing your social media followers so that they engage with your list
- Running ads that lead to your landing page
3. Create A Schedule and Stick To It
Scheduling is a marketer’s best friend. Just like your blogging or social media, you’ll need to put a concerted effort into your email content schedule and then stick to the plan. Decide things like how often you plan to email your list, what type of emails you’ll send, and what time of day/day of the week your list is most engaged.
4. Use a Scheduler for Automation
There are so many powerful, efficient email marketing software options available for your business that it’s really a matter of which one jives best with your preferences. SharpSpring, ConvertKit, Hubspot, Constant Contact, and MailChimp are just a few of the powerhouse systems you can use to automate your email content.
This is especially helpful as you begin to implement welcome, nurture, and sales sequences into your email marketing plans. These are automated emails that are sent in a specific order and at a specific time to your list. Having these built into your scheduler is a huge time-saver with even bigger results.
5. Be Strategic With Your Content
Be sure to follow best copy and layout practices for the actual content of your emails. Read up on what makes a great subject line (short, not spammy, casual), when to use personalization, and how to properly format your images so that your emails load quickly.
6. Segmentation Is the Name of the Game
Segmentation is the art of categorizing your subscribers according to various markers – age, gender, location, interests, and needs are just a few ideas of ways you can segment your list. When you do this, you can send even more highly targeted emails to your subscribers which, you guessed it, results in even higher conversion rates for your business.
7. Avoid The Spam Folder
One of the most overlooked parts of a great email marketing strategy is how to ensure your emails actually get delivered to your subscriber’s INBOX. This is a huge faux-pas of many marketing teams – they focus so much on creating beautiful, witty emails that they don’t take the time to tinker with the technicalities that ensure your emails are actually seen.
Some of the best practices to implement for this include:
- Double opt-in for subscribers
- Avoiding spammy language (all caps, lots of exclamation points)
- Clearly providing an Unsubscribe button on every email
- Using a legitimate ESP (email service provider)
8. Constantly Analyze Your Results
Ah, the constant refrain for any marketer. As always, you MUST dig into the numbers behind your emails in order to optimize your strategy for conversions. Some effective ways to do this include:
- Check your open rates and click-through rates incessantly. Which emails are opened most? Which emails actually lead to more people clicking through to your site or offer? Take note of what worked.
- A/B testing: divide your list into two groups (A and B) and then send them the same content with slightly different angles. See which one results in a higher open rate and click-through-rate.
- Pay attention to unsubscribes. Sometimes these can be a good thing! You want an engaged list. But too many unsubscribes might be a hint that you’re not delivering content your list deems valuable.
Email marketing should be a really fun part of your teams’ strategy. The inevitable success of this part of your business should catapult this to the top of your to-do list. For help implementing a strategy, reach out to our team at Deal Digital.
