Implementing effective email marketing campaigns for customer acquisition

"Email has an ability many channels don't: creating valuable, personal touches - at scale." - David Newman

Even though so many things have changed…

From the introduction of instant messaging to the rise of social media platforms and various types of ads…

Not everything that was around a long time ago has been rendered obsolete.

Yes. I’m talking about emails.

From selling products, pitching offers, nurturing leads, or simply educating your audience…

You can do so many things simply by sending the right type of emails.

Want to keep your brand top of mind? Send relevant emails.

Want a previous customer to buy something? Send a series of relevant, personalized emails, with offers they can't resist.

However, things go beyond simply crafting a good email and sending it out.

For your email marketing campaigns to be truly effective…

Whether you’re doing it for client acquisition and retention, nurturing or simply staying in touch with your audience…

You’ve got to focus on sending the RIGHT type of content, to the RIGHT type of people, at the RIGHT time, with the RIGHT optimization.

And that’s what we’re going to explore today so that you're able to set up a campaign that can potentially give you an edge…

Simply because you’re armed with the right information.

Let’s get straight to it.

So, initially, we’ll be discussing four things:

1. The right type of content.
2. The right type of people.
3. The right time.
4. The right optimization

Let’s start with the content.

"Okay, slow down Matt. What do you mean, the RIGHT type of content?"

Well, the content you’re going to send out will depend on WHO you send it out to, right?

“That’s right.”

Well, it's the same case here.

If you want leads, you’re going to send out case studies, no-brainer offers, examples of your work… you get the idea.

However, if you want someone to buy something from you (suppose you’re an E-com brand owner), it’s different.

Now, it depends on if they’re a first-time customer who’s simply signed up for your newsletter or if they’re a loyal customer who keeps coming back for more.

If you have heavily discounted deals, or surveys, those will likely go to the loyal customer.

However, if it’s a first-time customer, you might send them a free shipping coupon or put them into a welcome sequence.

That’s what I mean by the right type of content.

If you’re sending out a summary of the articles or blog posts you wrote in a month, well, that’s relevant for everyone that signed up for your newsletter.

However, If it’s an in-depth dive into setting up E-commerce stores with a CTA to buy a course...

You're better off sending it to a segment interested in E-com.

There are a lot of different types of content that you can send out.

However, although they might all be valuable in some way...

That depends on who's going to be getting it.

So, that’s what I mean by the right type of content.

Next up: The right type of people.

It’s the same case with people as it is with content.

On any email list, there are a variety of people, with different interests, pain points, and desires.

So, when sending out emails, it’ll be more effective to separate them based on various factors like:

• Their job
• Their age
• Their country of residence
• any other factors

You could choose any one or combination from a VARIETY of various factors to segment an email list.

It all depends on what the purpose of your newsletter is.

Then we’ve got the right time.

Now, by time, although literal time, as at 12 PM or 1:30 PM, is what you might think, that is not what I mean.

I’m referring to what stage they are in.

Are they new to your list?

Have they been reading your emails for quite a while?

That’ll help you determine what type of content you should send them...

As well as how much you should try to ‘pitch’ or ‘sell’ to them.

+And finally, the right optimization.

As smartphones become more widespread, it’s a good idea to make sure your emails are compatible with whatever device is used to view them.

I recommend having a responsive design.

That way, the email will render correctly, regardless of what device it’s viewed on.

The benefits of this are two-fold:

1. You won’t have to worry about risking being marked as spam or getting open rates but not click-through rates, simply because your email looks like there’s some major formatting problem.
2. You’ll be able to focus more on the quality of your content, as well as its relevance, rather than the formatting and if it’s going to look good on whatever device it’s viewed on.

"I assume we wrap up here? We haven’t exactly covered HOW to run a proper email marketing campaign to get customers though."

Well, this is where we begin discussing that.

The reason I discussed things like content, optimization, etc. is that...

When you send out emails and onboard people onto your list and start sending them sequences, these are the things and processes you should already have thought about.

Otherwise, you’re going to great effort (and potentially great expense as well) to get potential prospects...

Only to risk losing them, simply because something was out of order.

So, now that we’ve got that over with…

Here’s how YOU can run an email marketing campaign for customer acquisition.

Or, in other words, run campaigns to grow your potential and actual customer base.

Step one: Nail down your objective.

Figure out why you’re running a campaign. Is it because of some hyper-relevant, specific, limited-time offer?

Whatever it is, that’ll determine the people you try to get on board, as well as how you do that.

Your offer, your service, and your purpose in sending those emails will determine how you move through the next steps.

Step two: Work on setting up the things that’ll funnel people to sign up.

So, when it comes to getting people to sign up, there are many incentives that you can offer up.

One thing you can do is offer up valuable gated content i.e. a resource or a guide that took some effort and has some sort of value.

And then, instead of asking for money for it, which it is worth, all you’ll be asking for is their email. That way, you’re exchanging value for their email.

Another way is to have a compelling landing page. When someone lands on it, you want to try to get them to enter their details and sign up.

For that, you’ll have to make sure the copy, the content, and the layout all come together in such a way that, for your target audience, it won’t be hard for them to decide on what it is that they need to do.

And there are other things as well…

From running referral programs, and offering value to those who help drive sign-ups…

Conducting live webinars, guest training sessions, and running ads.

Your end goal is to get everyone who fits the profile of your target customer to sign up.

“What specific method should I use?”

That’s up to you.

Pop-ups on your website? Sure, go ahead.

Engaging in various communities and positioning yourself as an authority figure, attracting people to explore more about you, and potentially signing up for your email list? That’s one way you could go about doing things.

Whatever your method is, it should help drive the key metric here, which is email subscribers.

Now, once they’re onboarded…

Start with overloading them with value. Give back to them.

Have lots of blog posts and social media content? Share a curated summary of links that they’d find useful.

Have a variety of digital products?

Give them a quick introduction, so they get a recap about what’s going on, and who you are.

Obviously, you’re going to want to pitch and sell to them at some point.

However, after starting by giving value, and segmenting them either initially or later on, using the data you get from them...

You’re going to be in a better position to present things that they’ll find relevant as well as greatly reduce the chances of you coming across as salesy or spammy.

And before we wrap things up, there are just two more things that you should do.

Two things that can help you potentially squeeze out more value from your efforts.

1. Using personalization from whatever type of data you have on them and
2. Using analytics.

"Uhh Matt? How will I be using personalization here?"

It’s really simple.

Whatever data you have on them…

Whether it’s from a form that you might have had them fill out right before or after signing up for your list…

Or from any activity ie. engaging with links or browsing your website, or making any purchases…

You can use that to personalize the email, using things like their name and past activity to make the templates you send out seem written specifically for them.

“Aah, okay. And analytics?”

Well, with emails, you’ve got a lot of data.

However, at least in the beginning, you’re going to want to focus on KPIs such as bounce, open, click, and conversion rates.

That way, you’ll be able to see what type of content, subject lines, and CTAs are performing well with what segments, and make tweaks and adjustments, as well as run tests to determine what variations work better.

So, tracking and analyzing them will help you make the most of the data that would otherwise remain unutilized.

And…that’s it.

After you’ve set up things on the email side, and understood what type of content you should be sending to who...

You’ll be in a better position to get more substantial results, simply because you’ll have done the groundwork.

Anyway, as usual, if there’s any way I can help you out, let me know and we’ll see what we can do.

Till next time, Keep building.