5 Ways to Win at Email Marketing

This article was created as a part of the content writing sample I share with prospective client.

Category: Content & Email Marketing | Grammarly: ? Quetext: ? Spellcheck: ? Language: English (US)

Anyone who has a website and a substantial viewership online, knows that email marketing is one of the surest ways to succeed at building a consistent follower base. Whether it is an eCommerce store or a marketing blog, all online content creators rely heavily on email marketing techniques to make their voice heard among the noise of everything else. 

With that being said, none of us are strangers at how difficult it is to get our subscribers to actually read our emails and get interested enough to click back to our website. All of us struggle with this at some point in time or other, and therefore to save you some trouble, in this blog post, I will teach you 5 techniques using which you can succeed at email marketing like a pro.

Let’s Begin!

1. Create A Strategy 

A great man once said, “a war is not won by how many soldiers are on the field. A war is won based on the strategy a few soldiers follow.” On similar lines, if you want your email marketing campaign to be a success, you need to devise a strategy that not only works but is also well thought out. Just thinking of your email marketing campaign as an email burst, where you just type out whatever comes to your mind, won’t be of any help, and this is proved by data. 

You need to connect with your list of subscribers and get to know what they are actually looking for, from your email newsletters. Nobody has the time to read your thoughts, and your subscribers are no different. You can only make them open your emails if you have a well thought out strategy which defines what goes into your emails and how much.

Another important point to keep in mind is the fact that when you will be sending your emails out, avoid spamming at all costs. 

Nobody likes spam, and that’s why you should figure out a strategy which involves sending out emails once or twice a month or maybe if you are very passionate once or twice a week. Whatever the number may be, figure it out and stick to it; because one thing I have learned being in the industry, is that consistency beats talent all the time. 

2. Know Your Subscribers

Everytime a person clicks the subscribe button on your website and agrees to be a part of your emailing list, they have an ulterior motive of getting value out of your emails. While it is impossible to individually find out and note what every subscriber is looking for, getting a general understanding of what your crowd wants is a good place to start. 

For example, suppose you are subscribed to Neil Patel’s emailing list. Now you know that Neil Patel talks about marketing and heavily focuses his content around ranking your website on Google. Therefore it can be easily understood that whoever is subscribed to the Neil Patel newsletter is either trying to rank number 1 on Google or is more interested to know the workings of it. And thus, Neil Patel focuses all his emails on this central idea. 

Take this ideology to your own website and find out which are your most popular content categories. It may be in Marketing, Blockchain, Photography, etc., and from there, you can begin to understand what your subscribers are actually looking for. And I don’t have to say this out loud, whichever content your subscribers are reading most often, is the category they want to know most about, be it marketing, blockchain, or photography. 

3. Value is Everything

As explained in an earlier point, delivering value to your audience and customers is all that matters. Your audience chose you over others in the first place because you provided more value to them through your content, and thus they will naturally except, that you will continue to do the same with your emails as well. 

Make it a point to share something interesting in your domain every time a subscriber clicks on your email. And this value might be anything; it can be as simple as a SEO cheat sheet that you have co-authored, or it can be a discounted price on the latest marketing conference tickets happening in town. Whatever might be the case, be sure to deliver value at everything you create and share, and believe me, when I say it, your audience will keep coming back to you, like honey bees to a sweet and fragrant flower.

4. Make them Interactive

When you are a blogger yourself or run an online eCommerce business, in most cases, there is a high probability that you have never met your subscribers in person. And it is not possible. All of your subscribers will be living in different parts of the world, and in most cases, it is not logistically feasible to meet them in person. 

But there is a way in which you can actually interact with your email subscribers and make them feel special. Here are some ways to achieve this goal:

1. When writing your emails, address your subscribers with their first names. Calling out a person by their first names is a way to make them feel that you treat them as a friend and not just some random stranger. Start with something like, “Hey Matt; I hope you are doing well today…” This will not only create an instant bond with you but will also make your subscribers feel special. 
2. Another point to keep in mind is, always speak to your subscribers as their friend. I have seen a lot of marketers and bloggers write emails which sound strange and give the feeling of talking to a stranger right off the bat. On the contrary, if you add a bit of personalization and write your emails in the same manner as you do to your close friends, it will make a difference to your subscribers' minds. 
3. While writing emails for a mass audience, it is always important to find a sweet spot. You have to figure it out either at the beginning or somewhere along the way. In most cases, this sweet spot will involve the tonality of your emails. If your subscribers like strictly professional emails, then keep them professional. If your subscribers like a personal touch, keep it personal, but whatever might be the choice, make sure you hit it off with your subscriber in the first couple of emails, or as I like to call it, “love at first click.”

5. The Numbers Say it All

Similar to any other form of marketing, email marketing, too, can be measured against a set of predefined metrics. While there are a bunch of tests you can run to see if your email marketing campaigns are successful enough or not, one of the most effective in the bunch is measuring your rate of opening emails and clickback to your website. 

Using simple tools like Mailtrack, you can easily figure out how many of your emails are being opened. How many people are reading the content you wrote, and till where. And how many people are actually clicking on the link you shared in the email body. 

Using these metrics, you can figure out strategies to make your email marketing campaign better. For example, if less people are opening your emails, it can mean either of two things, your subject line is not good enough, or you are sending way too many emails. Once you have this figured out, you can start figuring how to increase your email open count and devise a game plan for the future. 

Conclusion

In the world of today, where new websites are going live every minute, and everyone wants a piece of the game, one of the best strategies to gain and hold on to your subscribers is via email marketing. With the above tips and tricks, I hope you will get better at email marketing and, in the process, increase your overall website traffic in the future.

With that being said, I hope you liked what you just read, and if you did, don’t forget to like, share, and comment down below. 

Arpan Sarma 

Signing Off.