One hundred twenty-one: this is the number of emails the average office worker in the US receives, not in a month or a week, but in a day. On the one hand, this data is proof that email marketing is very much alive and used by many companies as a powerful marketing channel. On the other, competition is high, requiring specific skills and an intelligent strategy to make sure your emails opened and read.
In the past, companies used letters and fliers to promote their products and services, keep subscribers updated on the latest news, build trust, and drive sales. Since then, nothing has changed but the medium; if done correctly, email marketing can still be very effective.
In this article, we’ll discuss a number of helpful email marketing tips and the best practices for creating a mailing list and maximizing subscriber interaction. By nurturing “genuine” relationships, you stand to earn more than if you simply leveraged followers on social media channels.
Table of Contents
What is email marketing, and what are its advantages?
3 key email marketing tips
Conclusioninal thought
What is email marketing, and what are its advantages?
Simply put, email marketing involves sending a series of targeted emails to a list of contacts. An email marketing strategy allows businesses of any size to communicate directly with an audience that has already shown interest in the company’s products or services by subscribing to its newsletter or through a lead.
The ROI (return on investment) of email marketing is known to be the highest of all digital marketing channels. With many providers available for as little as USD 20 a month, companies have been found to make around USD 36 for every USD 1 spent. Also, every lead acquired through a form on a website is the business’s “property,” and they don’t run the risk of disappearing as might happen if a company’s social media account happens to be blocked or deleted.
Therefore, email marketing is a cheap, safe, and multipurpose way to inform and retain customers, establish a relationship with an audience, create a community, drive sales, build authority, convert prospects into customers, and reach other business objectives.
3 key email marketing tips
Running a successful email marketing campaign takes work. It requires experience, continued testing, and improvement. The success of such a campaign is also closely linked to its objectives: it’s easier to measure the effectiveness of an email thread aimed to drive sales, but it’s more complicated when the scope of the action is acquiring brand awareness or engaging readers.
Below, we take a look at some email marketing tips that can help any large or small business run a successful campaign and reach its goals.
Know and mind the rates
Before starting any campaign, you should familiarize yourself with the concepts to evaluate the success of an email, known as the “four rates.”
The delivery rate is an essential performance indicator since it provides information on the quantity of emails delivered over the total number of emails sent. It also hints at the quality of the leads in an email list.
The open rate is one of the most relevant indicators for measuring the performance of an email campaign. It indicates how many subscribers opened an email; thus, it is critical to evaluate the subject line and the level of interest in the topic of the copy.
Businesses should study the click-through rate to ensure the effectiveness of email content. Adding links to the website or a call-to-action button is common in an email campaign aimed at conversion. This metric corresponds to the number of clicks on a link compared to the number of emails sent and opened.
Finally, the unsubscribe rate allows one to evaluate the number of subscribers who decide to unsubscribe from a newsletter after receiving an email. If this indicator remains low, the company has no reason to worry.
Send the right email to the right subscriber
One of the best ways to increase open and click-through rates and decrease unsubscribe rates is to create emails that subscribers cannot say “no” to. Segmentation and personalization can help achieve this.
Segmenting a database of contacts consists of sorting them according to specific criteria. For example, you may want to create lists according to age, gender, geographic location, profession, or even interests or the page on a company website they interacted with. This step is essential because it has been shown that recipients who receive targeted content (via segmented campaigns) are more likely to click on emails. New subscribers are another segment to focus on, and should always receive an automatic “welcome email” as soon as they opt in.
In addition, using personalization tags is also crucial because it helps establish a relationship with the recipient and attracts the reader’s attention. For example, many email marketing experts suggest using the “NAME” tag in the first line of each email and sometimes even in the subject line.
Timing is everything
Once the content is ready, it needs to be scheduled. The exact timing will depend on several different factors.
First, some specific days and times statistically see better results in terms of open and click-through rates: Thursdays have the highest open rate, followed by Tuesdays. Also, many email marketing providers suggest sending emails early in the morning (8-9 a.m.) or right after work (5-9 p.m.). However, efficiency also varies depending on the target audience.
Timing is also essential for events and holidays, and it is recommended to prepare content ahead of time according to an editorial calendar. Although daily mailings must be avoided, it is crucial to maintain a regular schedule to create a compelling dynamic and build a relationship. Once a week works well for general email (new blog posts, new products, news). But when promoting specific offers, such as “back-to-school sales” or registering for an event, many companies will send emails seven, five, and two days before the start date.
Conclusion
Email marketing continues to be a powerful and effective tool for businesses of all sizes. With one of the highest returns on investments compared with other marketing channels, this technique allows businesses worldwide to establish direct and long-lasting relationships with customers and prospects, ultimately leading to increased sales.
However, to achieve optimal results, precise strategies such as audience segmentation, content personalization, and choosing the right moment to send campaigns are essential. By implementing the email marketing tips above, businesses stand to increase open and click-through rates, reduce newsletter unsubscribes, and ultimately achieve their marketing goals.
