Introduction
- An optimized Email Marketing Strategy is invaluable for growing businesses looking to scale their marketing efforts, accelerate brand awareness, and close sales.
- In this post, we’ll break down the unique benefits of Email Marketing, consider best practices, and get you started creating optimized emails to attract, delight, and convert your consumer base.
Why is Email-Marketing Important?
Having an optimized Email Marketing strategy allows marketers to reach consumers at opportune times with a specific sales pitch that is unique to the individual.
How do you make these emails unique to each individual? I’d like to introduce you to Segmentation.
Segmentation
Segmentation is the act of consolidating people into groups based on where they are in their Buyer’s Journey.
Dividing people into segments allows you to focus your marketing message based on the unique pain points they’re facing at a specific moment.
This is especially valuable because targeting people with specific marketing messaging produces significantly better results. This practice is also referred to as contextual marketing messaging.
Here is a quick statistic from Hubspot on the impact segmentation has:
“Marketers who use segmented campaigns note as much as a 760% increase in revenue.”
-Hubspot
Different email marketing services have intuitive tools that make segmenting and targeting convenient. We’ll circle back to this later in the blog.
Now that we’ve got an understanding of segmentation, let’s introduce the winning formula, which comes courtesy of Hubspot.
C.A.T.S.
You’ll want to send…
- The right Content
- To the right Audience
- At the right Time
- Equals Success
1. The Right Content
The first step in our formula is to send the right email. But, what exactly does the “right email” look like?
You’re aiming to send the most contextually relevant email possible. This email should be informative, engaging, and most importantly, provide genuine value to your audience. Remember, there is a REAL person on the other end of the email. Treat them as such!
Two aspects to consider:
- Why you’re sending the email.
- The value you’re offering to that person.
To add to this sentiment, you should consider which emails have motivated you to take a conversion action on a product or service.
Ask yourself the following:
- What marketing messaging have I been receptive to?
- Which emails stand out in my inbox, and which do I ignore?
- What headline language attracts me to click on an email?
- What content in the email makes me want to read through it?
Using your own personal experiences can be of real help when designing your emails, or when designing a marketing strategy of any kind.
Remember, you are every bit a consumer as you are a marketer. Use that to your advantage!
2. The Right Audience
This is when segmentation becomes crucial!
You should aim to design emails with informational pieces, offers, discounts, free trials, blogs, invitations, guides, etc. based on what you think will be most valuable for that segment.
Some recommendations courtesy of SingleGrain.com are as followed:
Don’t be afraid to get creative, experiment, and produce content that YOU find helpful, relatable, and provides value.
3. The Right Time
Timing is everything.
But, is there truly a correct time to send an email? This is a conundrum that has stumped email marketers for ages, and has morphed into a heated debate.
What’s my opinion on the matter?
Well, I could dive into data that would reveal insights from past campaigns, but the reality is that you don’t need to know. Your email marketing service will (or atleast should)!
Send Time Personalization (STP)
I’d like to introduce you to Send Time Personalization (STP).
Send Time Personalization is a feature of many email marketing services that analyzes historical email open data, and then sends campaign messages to each customer when they are most likely to open.
Yup, sometimes it can really be that easy.
The S-Word...
Now, we must discuss the dreaded S-word: Spam.
Spamming your customers with an excessive amount of salesy emails will motivate potential (or current) customers to unsubscribe from your email list, thus limiting the reach and effectiveness of your email marketing campaigns.
The ideal email send-frequency according to Campaign Monitor is every two weeks. This number is according to data they received, aiming to identify the “sweet spot” between getting the highest email open rate, without driving too many unsubscriptions.
—> Pro tip: This “sweet spot” is dependent on several variables, including what the product is, how intrusive or ‘salelsy” the email is, and more. I’d recommend starting off with one email per month, and then slowly increasing the frequency until you find YOUR sweet spot.
Your Inner-Consumer
Lastly, as we’ve mentioned numerous times, it’s always good practice to listen to your inner-consumer. Have you ever unsubscribed from an email list?
If so, ask yourself the following:
- What motivated me to unsubscribe?
- What was it about their emails that I found off-putting?
- What could they have done differently to not push me to unsubscribe?
For additional investigative purposes, ask these same questions to your colleagues, friends, family members, etc. We’ve all received more than our fair share of marketing emails, so tap into the resources (people) that are available to you.
How Do I Get Started?
There are a plethora of email marketing services that provide the tools required to send the right message, to the right person, at the right time.
Features you’ll need from your email marketing service:
- Contact database (stores names & email addresses).
- Segmentation capability (does the heavy lifting of segmentation for you).
- Send Time Personalization (automates the sending process for the optimal time).
Some of the most popular email marketing services:
Final Takeaways
- Email Marketing is a budget-friendly marketing strategy to spread brand awareness, engage your audience, and most importantly, nurture and convert leads.
- Like any other marketing strategy, listen to the data and don’t be afraid to experiment to find your winning formula.
- For more marketing tips, tricks, and inspiration, continue your reading below for professional insights on all things marketing.
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