Email marketing has arguably been the most successful way of generating buzz for your business and it’s showing no signs of slowing down.
The email marketing market is expected to hit $17.9 billion by the year 2027, making it one of the biggest industries in the world.
This is largely because emails are one of the most popular forms of communication. Did you know that there are 4 billion people using emails daily? That’s more than half the world’s population. This statistic shows us that emails are an easy way to reach out to a massive number of people.
All this coincides well with the growing popularity of email marketing. Needless to say, any wise business is going to use this strategy to its full advantage.
But to make the best use of email marketing, we need to start by knowing exactly what it is. Let’s start by doing that then.
In layman’s terms, email marketing is the marketing strategy where you inform your target audience about your product with the use of email. You probably already knew this; it’s pretty self-explanatory.
Here’s something you probably didn’t know: only 64% of small businesses are using this method. This is an insane waste of potential; the process has very lost costs and is proven to give you some impressive results. For every dollar you spend, you get $42 back. That’s quite a return on investment.
Most marketers (4 in 5) would abandon social media efforts rather than email marketing if they had to make a choice. So what makes this simple practice so important?
The number of users isn’t the only statistic that shows you just how huge the email industry is. Around 300 billion emails are exchanged daily. That is a lot of exposure that you aren’t making good use of if you don’t use email marketing.
But it isn’t just being wasteful you should be worried about it. There is a very key demographic that prefers emails over all other modes of communication. These are the baby boomers or the generation born between 1946 and 1965. 74% of users share the aforementioned opinion.
Why is this demographic so important?
Baby boomers make up over 20% of the US population. You are failing to reach out to them if you don’t use email marketing. This is a nightmare if they are the intended users of your product.
On the bright side, using it right means you please this demographic. Don’t be fooled into thinking that they are the only people who use email, however. Over 90% of all internet users in the US between the ages of 15 and 65 use emails. For those over the age of 65, the percentage is slightly lower at 84.1%.
Simply put, you are missing out on a lot of potential customers if you don’t adopt an effective email marketing strategy. But how do you go about doing that?
So now that you know what email marketing is and why you can not afford to miss out on this awesome strategy, let’s get to how you can make the best of email marketing.
Before you even think about the strategy, you need to know what a marketing email looks like. A marketing email must have 2 components: a strong subject line and a call to action (CTA).
Your subject line is the tagline of your email. It is arguably the most important phrase in your email as it determines whether or not someone will open your email. You need this to be engaging and relevant. Throw all your writing chops into this.
The CTA is what you want your reader to do. Do you want your recipient to buy your product? Attend an event? This line is basically what tells the recipient the reason why you are sending them the email.
Any good strategy needs a lot of pre-planning. You can’t just wing it. You need to research a lot of things before you decide to send out your emails. How do you plan out the perfect email?
Start by deciding the purpose of your email. 81% of small businesses use emails as their main strategy for customer acquisition. That is likely the goal of most of your emails. The keyword here is most. 80% of those businesses also use it as their primary customer retention technique.
You have to decide whether your email is for customer acquisition or customer retention. In simple words, you can write an email to bring in new customers or to keep your old ones.
Next, you think about the target audience. Who are you sending this email to? Different age groups and genders have different preferences. You need to craft your mail to cater to that particular audience.
These are the two primary factors you need to consider before writing a particular email but you also need to plan out your mailing strategy as a whole. Again, you need to keep two things in mind here; your schedule and campaign time.
The schedule is pretty straightforward. Which days are you sending these emails out on? What time? This can be the difference between a top-tier strategy and an average one.
For example, you want to try and send emails on Friday and not on Saturday. This is because open rates are sky-high on the last weekday at 19% and less impressive on the weekend at just 17%. That 2% makes a world of difference.
Lastly, sort out the type of campaign you want to run for email marketing. Do you want to run a weekly newsletter? Product updates? Or just special announcement emails? We suggest adopting multiple campaigns at once.
Let’s get this straight: people aren’t dying to give you their email addresses to be bombarded by your frequent emails.
Your email list consists of those people who have explicitly permitted you to send them mail. This list is really small for most businesses that are just starting but you need to keep going.
In a lot of cases, your email list grows simply through word of mouth. If your emails are working their magic, your recipient may recommend you to their acquaintances. This doesn’t account for much though.
You need to rely on lead magnets and engaging opt-in forms for most of your email list growth. Let’s start with the simpler of the two. Opt-in forms are basically the way people can sign up for your email.
You need to keep three things in mind when creating an opt-in form; it needs to be easily accessible, attractive, and simple. If it meets these criteria, it is likely to get you the best results.
Lead magnets are more effective though. As the name suggests, they draw people in. What do customers love more than anything else in the world? Free stuff. There is plenty of material you can give away online at barely a cost to yourself.
An ebook is a perfect example of this. You could write a short book for your prospects and give it away for free for their emails. You may also use webinars, coupons, and special stats. The possibilities are endless.
The only rule is that it has to be interesting or useful for the recipient. Boring free stuff simply isn’t very exciting.
You’re almost done. You’ve planned out the perfect email marketing strategy and gotten a list to send your emails to. All that’s left to do is send them out. Seems simple enough right?
The truth is you still have ways to go. You need to segment your email list. In other words, you need to break up your audience into smaller subgroups.
This may be by age, gender, geographical location, or even activities, such as buying a specific product. Remember how we said you should keep the target audience in mind when writing an email? This is where it comes to use.
You send out different emails according to the segment the recipient belongs to. This process is simplified by the use of automation.
This is done through a drip campaign. Here, mails are triggered by certain activities such as purchasing a product. We know this is all a bit confusing but don’t sleep on it; segmented emails account for 58% of all your revenue.
Last but not least, you need to keep an eye on how your emails are performing. You need to check stats such as open rates and click-through rates to measure the success of your campaign and improvise accordingly.
Now, you know how to start and run a successful email marketing campaign. But your job is far from over.
In fact, it isn’t a strategy where most businesses are failing. A survey found that the top reason for unsubscribing from a mail list in the USA is the fact that people receive too many emails in general.
This statement tracks well, The average working person receives around 121 emails every day. That means that your email is sandwiched in between hosts of others. In other words, you are facing some heavy competition.
For this reason, you need your emails to stand out. Here are 5 ways you can do that.
Whether it be for getting new customers or customer retention, always make sure your emails catch the eye. As we said, people receive an overwhelming amount of mail on a daily basis. So a boring piece of writing won’t go over well.
Try to use fun vocabulary and short sentences. That’s an easy way to make your writing more linguistically appealing. Effective email marketing doesn’t have to be boring.
Alternatively, you could try to crack jokes to keep the tone lighthearted or use fun facts to hook the reader in. Try to make it personalized. Personalized subject lines have 50% higher open rates.
It’s not all about what you write. Simply put, your emails have to be aesthetically pleasing. A colorful and attractive email will definitely be more interesting than a drab and dull one.
Your readers are smart; they know when you put in the time and effort into an email but that doesn’t mean you overdo it.
Here is the thing: a lot of people forget that emails aren’t read for too long. The average recipient doesn’t even spend 15 seconds on a particular email. So, you have a very short time to make an impression.
We just discussed how you can make a good impression but you also need to account for the time. It isn’t like a book where you can start poorly and get better as you go. You need to keep people interested from the start to finish.
We found that the best way to do this is putting yourself in the shoes of the reader. Would you read this full email? Will it give you the information you need instantly?
Say writing isn’t your thing. You can’t create an interesting email even if your life depended on it. We get that; writing is an art that isn’t everyone’s skill set. That is why you have the luxury of using other means.
Pictures and videos have a lasting effect on your reader. As they say, a picture is worth a thousand words. Even if you are a talented writer, we suggest integrating this media into your emails.
Your click rates shoot through the roof if you add a video to your email. They increase by a whopping 300%. To put that into perspective, a person is three times as likely to go to your site if you add a video.
You can send the greatest emails of all time but there’s still a very good chance that your recipient doesn’t even open it. That’s a huge bummer, we know, What is the solution to this problem?
You keep sending mail. 35% of marketers send around 3 to 5 emails every week. That is an email every other day. We hate bugging people just as much as the next person but you just need to be persistent if you want results.
There is a fine line between spam and a good campaign. You need to tread it carefully. If you follow Monty Python’s definition of spam, it is ubiquitous, unavoidable, and repetitive.
Although the first two factors are not in your control, repetitiveness is something you can actively avoid. Change up your emails. Don’t send the same one every day. If it didn’t interest your recipient the first 100 times; it won’t this time either.
The last tip we have for you is arguably the most important one. Do not overlook the massive number of mobile users you are sending these emails out to.
You’d think in this day and age that is no longer a concern but almost 20% of emails are not optimized for mobile.
That statistic looks even more absurd when we consider the fact that 55.6% of emails are checked on mobile devices. That’s right; without proper formatting, you may miss out on more than half your client base.
There you have it. We hope we were able to give you a comprehensive guide to starting your journey in email marketing. Unfortunately, following these steps and clever tips isn’t enough.
You need reliable software that can help you in email planning, grow your email list quickly, get the list segmented appropriately, automate the process. and keep an eye on your progress.
Want to get started with email marketing? EWarmup is the solution you’ve been looking for to keep your emails out of the spam box. On top of that, you won’t believe the awesome pricing. It is a steal. So what are you waiting for?
