In this day where social media seems to dominate the marketing world, there is still a place for a successful email marketing campaign. Emails are more personal and speak directly to potential consumers. They can also come across as more intimate and personal than an ad that randomly appears on Facebook or Twitter.
The thing about email marketing is that it’s only as good as your campaign. Random email blasts are no better than traditional “junk mail.” If the recipient doesn’t open your email or worse, reacts to it negatively, then there’s no point in sending it, right?
This is why it’s so important that you create an email marketing campaign that not only reaches the right audience, but also compels them to read your message. Getting your potential customers to open your email is only half the battle.
The whole point of an email marketing campaign is to increase sales or your customer base. Your email has to drive the recipient to take some action. Otherwise, it defeats the purpose entirely.
Here are 7 tips for creating a successful email marketing campaign!
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- You have to target your emails to the right audience
There’s no point in sending an email blast at all if you’re not sending it to the right people. You need to carve out the perfect audience for your email. You can do this in different ways. You may have a list of customers that haven’t ordered anything in a while. Or maybe you subscribe to a service that provides lists of potential customers to your company. Depending on your goal, you may want to send your emails to just a select group or a large number of people. You want to make sure your emails go to people who are going to respond.
If you sell extended warranties, you want to target people who own cars with warranties that are about to expire. Your goal is to reach people who will be in need of an extended warranty in the near future. If you send emails to a random group of people, you’re going to end up reaching people who may not meet your target customer base. It will also affect your brand negatively. - Make sure you personalize your emails
People will ignore an email that looks like an obvious advertisement. They are more likely to open and respond to an email that makes them feel special. You can use different sales funnel techniques to make this happen. Or, you can craft an email that speaks directly to your recipients. If possible, make sure your email addresses the recipient by name. If this isn’t something you can do, then at least narrow it down by town, industry or interest. For example, if you are looking to increase your business in a certain city make sure your email highlights the features of that city. If you’re selling accounting software, you don’t want to reach out to people who specialize in farming. - Make your layout clean and simple
This one seems like common sense, but it’s important. You want to make sure your email layout is clean and simple. If your email layout is too cluttered, nobody is going to read it. Make sure your message is highlighted and make careful and thoughtful use of bolding, underlining and outlining. - A video is worth a thousand words!
If your email is too wordy, nobody is going to read it. Your email will end up in the spam folder faster than you can imagine. It’s important that you use relevant pictures along with your content but what works even better is VIDEO. Include a thumbnail picture linking to a video along with an attention grabbing title. It will result in a lot more clicks and it’s a way to get your message across without boring your audience. If it takes more than a few seconds for the recipient to scan your email, they aren’t going to finish reading it. Why waste your time crafting a lengthy and wordy email if nobody is going to read it? - Always include a Call to Action
The whole point of your email campaign is to get people to DO something. Maybe you’re looking to increase sales. If this is the case, drive your recipients toward buying something. If you want people to subscribe to your newsletter, include a link for them to do so. You need to make it easy for the reader to want to do something. If it takes a lot of work, they’re going to delete your email and forget all about you. - Use an interesting subject line
If your email recipients don’t feel compelled to open your email, they won’t. It’s very easy to hit “delete.” If your email doesn’t include a catchy and interesting subject line, you’re wasting your time. You may want to stress urgency in your subject line – make the reader want to open it right away. Another way to do this is to offer something free in the subject line. Even if you’re just offering free advice or a free trial, people love to get something for nothing as long as there are value attached to your offer. - Don’t Be a Nuisance
There are some people who think a successful marketing campaign involves repeated contact. To the contrary, if your target audience gets emails from you every day or even a few times a week, they’re going to get annoyed. If you annoy potential customers, they’ll always remain just that – potential customers. In order to reel them in, you want to stay on their minds without getting on their nerves! It’s important to time your emails so that they don’t overwhelm your audience
- You have to target your emails to the right audience
When it comes to designing a successful email marketing campaign, you have to remember this – you are only as good as your last email! If people don’t remember you, then you don’t exist as far as they’re concerned. If you annoy your customers, you become nothing more than a nuisance. There is a fine line between marketing and overkill.
The good news is, crafting a successful email marketing campaign isn’t that hard. If you follow the above tips, you’ll find that you can reach the right people with the right message at just the right time!
Emma Parer
Digital Marketing Expert
