There is a big push for marketers and brands to focus on their marketing and content on social media platforms, but you may be overlooking a crucial marketing tool by doing this. Email marketing is one of the most effective strategies for engaging customers and driving sales, engagement, and sustained traffic for your site.
Email marketing
If you have already built your site, email marketing is a no-brainer, as many hosting plans include email accounts and have newsletter options integrated into their dashboards.
Email marketing isn’t free like some other marketing options. However, email marketing has the best return on investment of any marketing tool; with email marketing, every $1 spent generates $38 in return on investment.
Email marketing allows you to have a long-term, uninterrupted dialogue with your clients and customers. Email marketing can be designed to align with your strategies for products and development perfectly. Email marketing also allows you to create content without limitation; your emails can look however you want and are unrestricted compared to some other marketing options.
Email marketing vs. social media marketing
While social media is ideal for finding new customers and building initial exposure for your site, email marketing keeps users coming back and spending money. Ideally, on the first visit to your site, a user will provide their email address, encouraged by a call to action on your site. This initial call to action is invaluable, as once they sign up for emails, you can have a continuous dialogue with these users, building a relationship and client base.
Email marketing has another advantage over social media when it comes to selling. Emails have the benefit of being interpreted as more ‘professional.’ When people open their email, they expect to be marketed to receive updates on products, and read about business operations; However, although ads proliferate social media, many people desire to only interact with family and friends and use social media in a more personal way. This is advantageous for email marketing because when someone interacts with your email, they already have an established interest in your brand. Additionally, they are likely seeking to buy something or read about your products when opening your email.
Getting started with email marketing
Email marketing requires planning in order to be successful. Like any marketing strategy, you will need to create a marketing strategy, design the content, test the content, and measure your analytics.
1. Marketing strategy
Define your target audience and purpose
You already have a product or service, a brand image, and a voice established through your website. But for your email marketing to be successful, you need to decide who your ideal client is; whom do you want on your email list? What do you want them to do after reading your emails? Once you determine this, it will be clear how to write your content and design it to be most appealing to them and give them a clear path of action for engaging with your business.
Determine how users will sign-up
An essential part of email marketing is building your mailing list. This mailing list will be incredibly valuable for your business and will allow you to engage your entire audience. It is easy to add a sign-up form to your website or provide users with information on how to access an external sign-up form. Either way, make sure your sign-up form is prominent, encouraging, and easy to fill out.
Set a schedule
Ideally, your emails strike the perfect balance in frequency. You find a way to keep your business in the minds of your customers, but you don’t send too many emails to the point of annoying them. This will take some trial and error, so it is good to keep track of interaction and unsubscription rates as you start sending out emails. It’s good to schedule your content, specifically what emails you send out and when. This not only makes it easier to create content, but it allows you to maximize your use of email marketing so that it aligns with your entire marketing strategy.
2. Email design
Set your priorities
Consider what content you want readers to notice first when designing your emails. What is the most crucial element of your message, and what do you want them to do? Then, design your emails to complement this and make your message clear visually.
Code your emails or use a template
Emails can be coded with HTML so that you have complete control over every element of design and content. However, if you don’t feel comfortable using HTML, many easy-to-use templates are available online.
3. Testing and measuring analytics
Get feedback
Before sending out emails to clients, test them with your peers, friends, and family. Ask them what they noticed first about the content, what parts of the email caught their eye if they would open it, and if your call to action was clear and attractive. Use their feedback and impressions to rework anything in your strategy. Additionally, sending your emails out for feedback is your opportunity to test your emails on different clients and devices. Make sure you check how the email looks on mobile, desktop, and various email clients.
Adjust based on analytics
Once you’ve sent out some emails to clients, make adjustments to your strategy based on the analytics. Track what emails perform the best: which emails were opened the most? What links were clicked on often? Adjust the design of your content or the subject lines of emails in response to these factors. Are people buying your products coming from emails? Are your emails driving more traffic to your website? If these are underperforming, adjust your call to action, the timing of emails, or design.
