Email Marketing: 6 Tips to Help You Get Started

Haven’t started an email marketing campaign yet? If not, you could be missing out on one of the most effective strategies for growing your business. Consider this statistic: For every buck (yep, $1) you spend on email marketing, you’re likely to get an average return of $44.25, according to the Direct Marketing Association.

Let that sink in. If you invest $1 in this effort, you could get a massive return on your investment. And, according to McKinsey & Company, email is nearly 40 times more effective as Facebook and Twitter at getting you new customers.

What makes email marketing even more of a no-brainer marketing strategy is that it’s not that difficult to get started. Here are 6 tips that will help you set up an email marketing campaign that will gain you more conversations with prospects and customers.

1. Set your goals. What do you want to accomplish? Who are the people you’re trying to attract? (Hint: Don’t try to go after everyone. Just those who are a good fit for your products and services). Do you want to provide them with helpful tips? Encourage more sales with discounts and referrals? Lower your cart abandonment rate? Select a few solid goals and keep those in mind as you build your email marketing strategy, with the help of your email service provider (ESP).
2. Grow a list. Here’s where things can get a bit challenging. You probably want tens of thousands of email recipients right off the bat. But you must exercise some patience. Provide a place for visitors to your site to opt-in to email notifications. Increase your chances of attracting subscribers by clearly outlining the benefits of your emails — useful information, notification of discounts, etc. Your ESP can give you more tips on how to grow a list specific to your industry.
3. Segment your messages. With the use of analytics provided through your email marketing platform, you’ll be able to gather customer data to help you better tailor those email messages. That’s the beauty of modern email marketing campaigns. You’ll get a view of which segments of your audience are interested in particular products/services, and you’ll be able to send emails that are more relevant to their interests.
4. Be creative. Avoid sending out uninspiring emails just for the sake of sending out emails. If you do, you won’t likely get a decent ROI. Invest some time in creating engaging emails and subject lines. Break up your copy into short paragraphs and add some art. Remember that subject lines with 6 to 10 words get better open rates.
5. Use templates. Along with creative messaging, your ESP should be able to provide email templates that save time while allowing you to send out emails in a creative layout. These should include areas to highlight a header image, calls-to-action, footers, links and other content elements.
6. Test it. Now that you’re all ready to start, throw some testing into the mix to make sure you’re sending out the right messages at the right time. In the marketing industry, this is called A/B testing. You’ll send out two different messages at the same time to determine which one gets a better open rate and engagement. In other words, are more recipients opening one email over the other? Are they spending more time reading it and then clicking to gather more information on your site? Compare days and times, as well. By regularly testing emails, you’ll get a better idea of what types of campaigns your audience enjoys most.

These are the basics of using an email marketing campaign to get more conversations and, as a result, more business. Have more questions? At Delivra, we will gladly help you get started on your email marketing strategy. Let’s have a conversation.