In our digitally developing world, there’s no doubt that emails are one of the most effective ways to help build relationships with our leads. Communication through email can gather vital data to help your team boost its marketing performance and return on investment (ROI).
Here are our top 10 tips to help develop, execute and maintain a powerful email campaign, which will resonate with your audience:
- Know your audience with the use of a simple form
Start by identifying who are you going to send your emails to. Promote a simple sign-up form on your website homepage, through your social media channels, and blogs to kick-start the growth of your list of contacts. Keep the form simple, gathering data such as name, email address, job title and how they found out about your company is a great starting point to get to know your audience.
It really is a big open door to success. Finding out this information will enable you to answer many questions including; Who are our customers? What are they interested in? What are their most urgent concerns? What content do they want to see from us?
Once your audience is identified you can create buyer personas to help you deliver focused content, which will guide your audience through the buyers’ journey.
- Personalisation isn’t just another buzzword
Did you know that according to Campaign Monitor, personalising your email campaigns increases open rates by 26%?
Personalise your emails with the use of a first name or company name and include tailored content that will resonate with their persona. Keep your tone natural though, you don’t want to scare them off!
Once someone has signed up to receive your content, it’s always great to welcome your new lead with a friendly email telling them what to expect now that they have subscribed. You may find it beneficial to ask them to add you to their contacts lists, so that your mail doesn’t stray into their spam folder- this will help improve your email deliverability.
- Design your email campaign to fit your brand
Keep the delivery name of your emails consistent, so your recipients recognise who is emailing them. It’s also important to ensure that the overall design of your email campaign is consistent, so you can achieve maximum engagement and set a clear path for your audience. A different colour or theme for each email won’t help your campaign stand out. You want them to remember your brand and staying consistent will help you stay top of mind.
- Get the best out of your subject line
Make the most of your subject line. This is the first moment your audience will engage with your company and where you can really make your emails powerful, affecting the decision of whether your audience decides to open your email or just delete it immediately. Give the email a punchy subject line, or something they can engage with straight away. This could include a fact or statement, a question, or a general insight into what the content will provide them with. Make your audience want to open your email for the right reasons, then give them the right content to match…
- Make your content easy to R E A D.
This may sound obvious, but we’ve all seen emails that look so cluttered and full of content that we don’t want to actively read it. It’s fair to say that there is no point investing time and effort into writing a great piece of content if you’re not going to deliver it effectively. Divide your content into chunks so it’s easy to read, include images to support what you’re saying, and make your intentions obvious. If you really want them to download your piece of content, then make your call to action clear!
There’s nothing worse than sending content out without a purpose, this will only annoy your audience. You should only be sending an email when you have something valuable to say or share, and if it will be of interest to your reader. Without doing so could take its toll on the quantity of unsubscribes and ultimately, your ROI.
- Automate your messaging
Aiming for that added powerful impact, but just not enough time in the day? Using automated workflows in a marketing automation platform such as HubSpot, will help you deliver the right message to the right people, at the right time. With automation in place, you will simply be able to create tailored emails to your audience’s engagement history. If they enjoyed your previous email on social media, why not follow up with another email encouraging them to download a useful social media guide? Taking the small steps to engage with your audience in a natural manner will make your campaign feel less predictable, making your audience more likely to see your brand in a positive light, leave them wanting to know more, and as a result, progress through the customer journey.
- Testing, Testing, 1, 2, 3…
As your audience evolves, so should you.
Did you know that according to emailMonday around 47% of people use a mobile device to open their emails? By not optimising your emails to be mobile compatible, you could really be missing out on some exciting opportunities.
So before sending out an email to your contacts, make sure you conduct a variety of tests to ensure it will work on a broad range of devices. Software such as Email on Acid, MailChimp, Delivery Doctor, or HubSpot will test your emails to ensure they make it into your contacts inbox and through their spam filter. Testing will also ensure that your content appears as it should across various devices.
- Include Social Sharing icons
Including social sharing icons within your emails gives the recipient the option to carry on the conversation with one or more of their friends or colleagues. Regardless of the content or offer, this opportunity would help spread the word and allow more people to enjoy your content. You never know, social sharing could also bag you some additional subscribers.
- Accept unsubscribes and keep promoting to new leads
Although it’s not a great thought, we must accept that we can’t always please everyone and that we will receive unsubscribes. The latest GDPR laws stated we must give recipients the option to opt-out of receiving emails, and it’s better to have unsubscribes than emails that are marked as spam and affecting our campaign analysis. Having recipients that do not want to receive content anymore is only natural, their needs may have changed from when they first signed up. Look at it as a positive, you get to tidy up your database so you can focus on those who are still interested and left wanting to hear from you. Focus on your existing subscribers and keep promoting to try and gain additional subscribers.
- Analyse your results
By analysing your results, you will see just how well your email campaigns have performed. Metrics such as delivered rates, open rates and click through rates will help you identify just how well your emails are perceived by your audience. Over time you will be able to pull conclusions by comparing results, finding out which type of subject line works best for you, what time of day your audience opens emails the most, and what content they are most likely to download.