Email marketing is still one of the most effective ways to communicate with your audience and build lasting relationships. It’s a cost-effective way to promote your brand, its products and services, and can be a powerful tool in your overall marketing strategy. Considered email marketing can help to maximise your marketing efforts and grow your business.
Utilising email marketing as part of your overall strategy offers several advantages for your business:
Low cost
Email marketing is a cost-effective way to reach a large audience. Since there are no printing or postage costs, there are no expenses for physical advertising space – a win-win when you’re on a budget!
Targeted messaging
With email marketing, you can send targeted messages to specific groups of people on your mailing list, based on their interests or behaviour. This allows you to tailor your messages to the needs and preferences of your audience, making them more effective. The more effective your targeting, the better your results.
Measurable results
We love data as digital marketing specialists, as it gives us the insights to deliver better campaigns. Specialised platforms such as Mailchimp can provide detailed analytics on the performance of your campaigns, including open rates, click-through rates, and conversion rates. By tracking your campaign’s progress, you can make data-driven decisions about your marketing strategy.
Automation
Automation is everyone’s best friend! The automation functions of email marketing allow for the scheduling of messages in advance and can follow up with triggered communications based on the recipient’s specific actions or behaviours. This saves you time and ensures that your messages are delivered at the right time, according to your audience’s behaviours.
Increased engagement
Audiences are more open to marketing when it is presented in a personal way. By sending personalised messages that speak directly to their interests and needs, you build trust and loyalty with your audience. This might be in the form of using someone’s name in the headline of the email, or using emojis to create a more engaging eDM header.
Easy to share
Emails are the original social media, and so are easily forwarded and shared with others. By making a sharable email campaign, you expand your reach and increase your brand’s visibility.
Overall, email marketing is a highly effective and efficient way to reach your audience. The form factor of this media allows for its easy monitoring, providing comprehensive metrics to build upon or improve a campaign, driving results. Its personalisation also means that building and maintaining customer relationships is made easy.
Build your email database
The first step in leveraging email marketing to your advantage is to build a quality email list. You could do this by offering incentives for people to sign up for your emails, running social media campaigns, or optimising your website for email sign-ups.
Once you have your list of subscribers, segmenting this list is essential for an effective campaign. This involves dividing your email list into different groups based on factors such as demographics, interests, and behaviours. This allows you to tailor your messages to specific groups, increasing the relevance and effectiveness of your emails to the individual.
Craft your email
Personalisation is key here. By addressing your subscribers by name and tailoring your messages to their own interests and behaviours, you create a more meaningful connection with them. Personalisation can also increase the chances of your emails being opened and read, leading to higher engagement rates and conversions.
Use attention-grabbing subject lines to increase the chances of your emails being opened. This could include using emojis, asking questions, or creating a sense of urgency. Then, to keep your readers engaged after opening your email, it should contain valuable content that is relevant to their interests and needs. This could include promotions, educational content, or exclusive offers, but the key is to provide value to the recipient and build trust with them.
It’s also important to note that your email should be optimised for mobile. This means ensuring that your emails are easy to read on smaller screens, using responsive design, and avoiding large images and long paragraphs.
Measure, test, and analyse
Testing and analysing your email campaign is critical to improving your email marketing efforts. By testing different subject lines, content, and calls to action, you can identify what works best for your audience and improve your overall email performance. You can also use analytics tools to track open rates, click-through rates, and other key metrics to ensure your email marketing is cutting through the noise.
Comparing email marketing to other form of digital marketing
You might be wondering why you would bother putting the time and energy into email marketing when you’re so busy managing your business and spending money on other marketing efforts.
Unlike social media content, email marketing gets delivered straight to your customer’s inbox. No tricky algorithms involved!
Email marketing can be more personalised than social media content. Segmenting your audience on an email marketing platform enables you to send customised emails to certain demographics or people, ensuring content feels personalised and not generic.
You can set up an automated email marketing funnel, which allows you to follow up with customers. If you’re an eCommerce business, sending abandoned cart emails can help boost your sales. ‘Thank you’ emails can be set up, to be sent immediately after a customer or client fills in a form on your website, ensuring they feel valued and nurtured.
Build trust and grow results
By sending regular emails to your database, you forge lasting relationships between your brand and your subscribers. Weekly newsletters, monthly promotions, and personalised welcome emails are all effective ways to build trust and grow results. By setting up automation features and dedicated email marketing platforms, your efforts can also be flexible and measurable.
Need help optimising your email campaigns to leverage your subscribers for business growth? Contact the team at SOAK Creative.
