Email marketing is all about sending promotions and branded content via email messages, to help companies increase sales, build relationships, and stay in the eye of existing and potential customers.
In their article, published by Forbes, authors Christa Fabregas and Kelly Maine said that even with social media and other digital platforms vying for user attention, email marketing is still very important and effective.
On average, email marketing provides a return on investment of $36 per dollar spent, making it a very economical option for small businesses.
Email Marketing Brief
The authors say that email marketing is the oldest form of digital marketing that is relatively easy to implement and maintain, as it essentially consists of only 5 elements:
Build Your Email List:
Get email subscribers through in-person and online sales activities through free e-books, webinars, coupons, and trial subscriptions.
Segment your email list:
Segment your email subscribers into categories, called segments, based on their interests, locations, purchased items, and interactions on websites and blogs.
Maintain your email list:
Removing the email addresses of users who block messages or who don't open them regularly can improve email delivery rates.
Consistently send useful content:
Consistency is key to a successful email marketing strategy, as is sending engaging content that delivers value to your readers.
Measure the results of your email marketing campaign:
Tracking the percentage of open emails, click-through rate, and mail content helps boost the success of your marketing campaign.
According to the authors, a successful marketing strategy can be easily built using effective and often free email marketing tools through the following steps:
Why is email marketing important to your success?
Email is a form of digital communication that almost everyone uses on a continuous basis, social media and other forms of digital advertising can already reach very large audiences, but no single platform can rival the number of active email users.
In addition, e-mail provides a personal point of contact, where you can direct e-mail messages to certain users with common interests.
Also, the cost of email marketing is very low for startups, small businesses can take advantage of top-rated email marketing tools for as little as $50 a month, and most of them offer free offers until they reach a certain level of subscribers.
So if you've been spending money on marketing via other methods, but aren't building a list of email addresses that you send to regularly, it's time to try this effective method in your campaign.
6 Tips to Boost Your Email Marketing Strategy
Use dedicated email marketing tools
You can't oversee an effective email marketing campaign with a regular email service, although you can send quick bulk emails from Outlook, Office 365 and Gmail ), they do not provide email list creation and maintenance tools, list segmentation, attractive email templates, campaign reporting, or list filtering features.
For better results, you need an email tool designed for email marketing or a CRM system that includes email features.
Proactively build your email list
Start building your list by collecting customer email addresses during the sales process or customer interactions.
However, opportunities to build email lists are not limited to these interactions only, you can attract potential customers and customers to provide their email address before they pay any money by using magnetic marketing technique for customers who are interested in getting free gifts with added value, such as e-books webinars, free trials, and even coupons.
To get new email subscribers, promote magnetic marketing elements on your website, landing pages, social networks etc., request an email subscription so they can upload or receive the gift, if the user realizes the value of the gift, they will be happy to provide their email address mail.
Divide your list by user intent
Segmenting your email subscriber list by user interests is an essential strategy for successful email marketing.
With segmentation, you can target specific groups of subscribers with specific content.
It should be noted that campaigns that use segmentation have higher email open rates, as well as lower opt-outs than those that send generic messages to all subscribers.
You can segment email subscribers in many ways, such as purchase history, website interactions, and other factors.
Many email marketing tools integrate with automated websites and retail platforms, based on sales history and website interactions.
Involve readers at every step
Once you've created a list of email subscribers, the authors explain, you'll be ready to create and send meaningful content to your segmented subscribers.
It is worth noting that there are 5 ways to help engage subscribers and motivate them to open and read emails.
Sender:
The name of your company that subscribers will know and trust.
Subject line:
It should be a short phrase that catches their eye while checking their inbox.
Extra line:
The subject line should support and entice the user to open the email.
Email content:
A short message containing an announcement or news update.
Call to Buy:
Featured links help increase the likelihood of clicking on shopping pages, sign-up forms, or any action you would like subscribers to take.
The authors stress that your emails should affect engagement, open and click rates.
Most experts maintain that emails should arrive in the inbox at 10 a.m. or 2 p.m. on business days.
The data shows that Mondays have the highest open rates for messages, averaging 22%, while weekend open rates are down around 20%.
Measure the results of an email marketing campaign
After sending your email marketing message, you'll be able to review key metrics including the number of email bounces, the number of subscribers who opened your email, and the number of clicks on links.
Tracking and measuring email open and call-to-action clicks helps you identify the phrases that have caught the attention of your target audience.
Sort emails
Bounce emails are an integral part of email messages, and to maintain an efficient email list and improve overall deliverability, you need to make sure that you remove or remove bounce emails from your list.
Most email marketing systems make this an easy step, once the bounce email cleanup is complete, you'll be ready to launch another marketing campaign on the schedule you set.
Effective Email Marketing Tools
Email marketing tools generally fall into email-focused solutions or call-to-action with automated email marketing, and most of these options work consistently with e-commerce and POS systems, so you should check if you're already using a platform for sales.
The authors conclude that email marketing centers around sending emails with useful, effective content tailored to subscribers' interests to help boost brand recognition, consumer trust and sales.
Email marketing remains one of the most proven and cost-effective digital marketing options available to small businesses today.