6 steps for email marketing success

Are you looking to get into email marketing but aren’t sure where to start? Or maybe you’re already running email campaigns but not seeing the results you want? As a full-service marketing agency, we know a thing or two about what makes a great email campaign. To get you started, here’s six steps towards email marketing success!

 

  1. Develop your mailing list

Before you jump in with the actual creation of your email marketing campaigns, you need to think about who’s going to be receiving them: your mailing list.

Whether you’re starting from scratch or want to grow your existing list, one of the most effective ways to gather email addresses is by asking existing customers to consent to marketing communications when they purchase something online or in-store. As these people are already engaged with your brand by making a purchase, they are likely to engage with your emails too.

Another way to grow your mailing list is encouraging sign-ups from your other marketing channels. This could include creating an eye-catching banner for your website, adding a call-to-action to the end of your blog posts, and promoting it across your social channels. Again, if a potential customer is already browsing your website, reading your blog, or following you on social media, chances are they’re interested in what your brand has to say and will want to receive emails.

This will ensure your emails are being delivered to an engaged audience, rather than people who will delete them without opening – or worse yet, unsubscribe.

 

  1. Entice opens

Now you’ve got your mailing list sorted, it’s time to start building your emails. The first thing to consider is how to achieve a good open rate – after all, it doesn’t matter how phenomenal your content is if people aren’t opening your emails to see it.

The main driver of high open rates is enticing subject lines. This could be achieved by:

Our advice is to use A/B testing, with one subject line for half your mailing list and another one for the other half, whilst keeping all other variables the same. You can then analyse the data to see which is most effective for your audience.

Another factor that can influence open rate is timing. The time and day you send emails can make the world of difference in determining whether people open them or not. For example, if your target audience is parents, don’t send an email early morning while they’re likely to be on the school run. If your business is a tourist attraction, send emails towards the end of the week when people are thinking about what to do at the weekend. Put yourself in your audience’s shoes and make a logical judgement on when to send any email communication, then follow up with A/B testing to confirm.

 

  1. Reduce unsubscribes

Congratulations, people are subscribed to your mailing list and reading your emails. Now for the next challenge: keeping them subscribed.

High unsubscribe rates are often caused by emails being too frequent or containing irrelevant content. How often you should send emails depends on factors such as the industry sector you’re in, and whether you’re in a peak, off-peak or shoulder period. We recommend sending emails at least once per month but no more than once per week. To make sure content is relevant, populate a content plan with messages that your audience will care about so each email has a clear and unique purpose.

You should also test each email thoroughly across a variety of screen sizes and email clients to make sure every recipient gets an email that is fully functional and looks appealing. If you’re unsubscribe rate is still high, try incentivising people with special offers to generate ‘FOMO’ (fear of missing out).

 

  1. Drive clicks

Once you’ve figured out everything else, how do you get people to actually click through from your emails to your website? The best way to achieve this is having a strong call-to-action (CTA) running throughout your email. Emphasise the desired action in as many different ways and places as possible, with attention-grabbing buttons, graphics on images and in-text links, giving people multiple opportunities to click.

Although it may feel natural to put your CTA at the end of your emails after readers have had chance to digest your content, it’s important to also prioritise a CTA above the fold (i.e., in the upper part of the email that can be seen without scrolling down), particularly on mobile devices.

Another top tip is to write engaging copy that matches your brand voice, as well as including lots of imagery to ensure emails look visually appealing. However, be sure to optimise images for speedy loading otherwise you risk losing your audience’s attention.

 

  1. Convert, convert, convert!

Now you’ve successfully driven people from your emails to your website, which means you’re almost there – now you just need them to convert. To do this, optimise your landing pages for UX/UI by:

Not only will this help prevent leads generated by emails dropping off once they reach your site, but will also boost SEO to improve your organic ranking on search engine results pages and improve the conversion rate of your PPC campaigns. (Not sure about the ins and outs of SEO and PPC? Read our recent blog post here.)

 

  1. Repeat the process

By regularly sending out relevant, high-quality content, over time you’ll develop an engaged network of loyal subscribers and see massive improvements in the success of your email marketing campaigns. Monitor this by setting optimistic-yet-achievable key performance indicators (KPIs) and reporting on these regularly so that you can spot trends and act on them.

Alternatively, let us take the hassle away by putting our digital marketing experts to test, get in touch today to see what we can do for you.