Email marketing is one of the cornerstone pieces of an effective marketing strategy. With an average return of $42.00 for every $1 spent in ROI, it can be a tremendous driver for profit.
If done right, that is.
As well as being extremely effective and profitable, email marketing can also be extremely difficult to master. You may not be getting the kinds of conversions you would like, or your interaction rate may be lower than you expected.
In this article, we’ll talk about some of the golden rules you can use to increase the efficacy of your email marketing campaigns, drive revenue, lower costs, and increase engagement.
Your customers aren’t ready for the brilliantly crafted emails that are about to come their way.
Why Email
While email may not be the shiny new marketing tactic, it remains incredibly important to businesses today, particularly with the rise of ecommerce and online marketing.
Think about how many hours you spend scrolling through email. A lot, right?
You wouldn’t be getting all of those emails if they weren’t effective. Email provides businesses with a way to get in touch with customers, or potential customers, directly, in a way that feels personal.
Think about it: there’s only so much customization you can do with other paid advertising efforts like display or search ads. With email, you can really dial in your copy based on your target.
Plus, email provides a much larger canvas through which to talk about new products, deals, or anything else you want to say.
So email is effective. But how can you optimize your marketing efforts to achieve better results?
1. The Almighty Subject Line
How can you showcase your incredible email to customers if they never even open it?
The subject line is the first thing recipients will see – and the power of a good first impression cannot be overstated. Whether they open the email or not literally hinges almost entirely on your ability to create compelling subject lines.
Try to avoid sounding overtly sales-y or demanding. Instead, focus on persuasion. Show them that you have a solution to a problem they have, or how you can benefit their life in some way.
Additionally, utilizing the “fear of missing out” can be a powerful way to capture your targets’ attention, and hook them into reading the rest of the email.
2. Personalize!
No one wants to read a bland, generic sales email. Instead, adding a personal touch can help make recipients feel special and improve their responses to your emails, driving greater open rates and ROI’s.
Audience segmentation is crucial in order to get this right, and segmenting as thoroughly as possible can enable you to go even further with personalization.
For example, consider a travel agency with a clientele that includes people looking for airfare and people looking for accommodation. Instead of sending an email headlined “Travel Deals You Won’t Want To Miss”, you can send two batches of emails, one with the subject line “Top Airfare Deals Just For You” and another with the subject line “This Week’s Best Hotel Deals”.
Just like that, you have a more personal email experience, and you have increased the likelihood of customer interaction.
3. Write More Conversationally
People don’t want to do business with a robot. They also are unlikely to relate to a message stuffed to the gills with technical terminology and business-y jargon.
By writing more conversationally, you enable your recipient to relate to your brand. You establish yourself as a face behind the corporate wall.
This is powerful: Emotionally connected customers have a 306% higher lifetime value for your brand over those who are merely satisfied.
Conversational emails also have a tendency to be more readable, hooking your reader and keeping them engaged throughout. This level of engagement helps build credibility among your customer base, and can solidify your brand.
4. Use Structure
No matter what you do, or which industry you operate in, your emails need to have structure.
Marketing is all about guiding potential customers to a conclusion. You can’t do that if you’re jumping randomly from topic to topic faster than a hyperactive mountain goat.
Focus on writing copy that flows cohesively from point to point. Not only is this easier for your reader to follow, but it helps hook them in and makes reading more effortless.
Structuring your emails can also help make calls to action more clear, resulting in higher interaction and sales.
5. Don’t Make Promises You Can’t Keep
Outrageous promises, aside from disappointing your customers, are usually easy to spot, and one of the most surefire ways to decrease trust among your audience base.
You want the sale – I get it. But using shady business tactics ultimately leaves your customer feeling unsatisfied, and can result in unnecessary bad reviews, negative recommendations, and chargebacks.
Besides, making impossible promises seems cheap. As a tactic, it’s outdated.
Simply put, avoid making crazy promises altogether.
6. Call Them To Action
Once you’ve led your customers down an emotional path, explained how your product can help, and generally got them feeling you, it’s time to get them to act.
Unclear or inconsistent calls to action are one of the most detrimental components of a poor email marketing campaign, and result in wasted opportunities for turning potential customers into paying ones.
Make sure that your call to action is clear, and that you are only using one throughout the course of your email.
This ties into clarifying the email’s purpose in the whole scheme of your marketing plan and sales funnel; you don’t want a convoluted email that tries to be everything at once.
7. Test, Then Test Some More
The only way you’re going to get better results from your email campaigns is by testing different things, measuring results, and testing things again.
Ultimately, every audience, brand, and niche are different, and what works well for you may not work at all for someone else.
The importance of testing cannot be overstated: your email marketing campaigns will grow as you do, and hardwork, dedication, and persistence are needed to get the best results.
Trust us, it’s worth it.
Click, Click, Click
So now you know the seven golden rules of email marketing. There’s not much more to say.
Other than go out and get ‘em, of course.