We don’t know of any company that likes to put out email marketing campaigns and not expect them to prosper. Yet, this tragedy happens each time a business foregoes utilizing best practices in its’ customer emails. Moreover, in disregarding best practices, companies also negate the powerful backing of innovative marketing strategies that can help solidify campaign success. So, if you’re ready to get the money ball rolling and kick-start your marketing efforts with the right footing, read on!
In this article, you’ll learn about the most significant aspects of conducting email marketing campaigns and what makes them profitable. You’ll also discover the five down-and-dirty steps to help your business launch profitable email marketing campaigns that “kick-@$$” every time!
Step 1 – Ask yourself WHY and WHAT!
There are two primary questions you must first consider before launching an email marketing campaign. Those questions are – Why are you sending the email? And then, What do you want visitors to do once they receive it? Without considering your why and what, you have no sense of direction or purpose for your email. In other words, what will a successful campaign look like for your company, and how will you measure that success?
Why do email marketing?
So, when asking yourself “why,” you should already know the potential impact email marketing can have on your ROI. For instance, over the last ten years or so, email campaigns have continued to generate the best ROI rates. Back in 2015, research showed that email marketing ROI for businesses was at a ratio of 1 to 38. Meaning, for every $1 spent, businesses averaged a $38 return. Companies should also know that email automation provides the broadest reach for business growth and conversion rates.
For the above reasons alone, it should be clear why you should do emails. Emails help you connect with your audience, increase CRO, and generate the highest ROIs because you’re offering potential and existing customers the best product and/or service solutions available.
What do you want your email recipients to do?
Email marketing provides an excellent approach for businesses to connect with customers in a highly personalized way. Yet, once they click the email and read the content, what’s next? Before launching any campaign, you should know the primary purpose behind sending emails is to get customers to convert. In other words –
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- Provide solutions-oriented information and insight
- Answer and address various questions that customers currently have
- Promote the sale of a new and existing product or service solution
Step 2 – Develop a compelling subject line for each email marketing letter you send out.
When it comes to developing fascinating subject lines that compel recipients to open your emails, there are three simple rules you must follow:
- Keep your subject lines both persuasive and straightforward.
There’s a way to get to the point clearly and convincingly so recipients will click and read more. One sure-fire way to abide by this rule is to provide campaign subjects related to the audience’s problems and challenges. When your topics clearly define adamant solutions to their issues, you’ve increased the chances of the audience reading the email astronomically.
- Remember the magic of #9!
Every subject line you develop needs to be in nine words or less. So, keep your email intros short but impactful.
- Always create intrigue with your words.
Companies should consistently consider creating content marketing subjects that intrigue their audience. Intriguing lines will always whet recipients’ appetites and help trigger them to open the email.
Step 3 – Don’t forget to add a descriptive Alt Text to all of your campaign images.
Having images in your email blast is crucial to conveying your campaign message and creating engagement. However, many marketers make one vital mistake in their journey to launching email marketing campaigns – they forget to add the proper descriptions to each image.
With every email, you’ll want to have an associated image descriptive. These descriptions help recipients know that your email pictures are safe to open and download. Unfortunately, when most people open email today, they don’t automatically allow the images to download because of spam. However, when descriptive alt text is available in the areas where pictures should be, this further encourages recipients to open the email, download the images, and respond to CTAs more frequently.
Lastly, be sure to describe your email images clearly through alt text. Otherwise, what’s the point in adding them? No company wants its recipients to feel uncertain or apprehensive about the messages and pictures they convey in an email. So, make opening your emails simple and as descriptive as possible.
Step 4 – Keep your email marketing content personal, focused, and to a minimum.
As we’ve written many times before, gone are the days of long exhausting emails and content-heavy website pages. People have an even shorter attention span now than they had 10 or 15 years ago. Why? Because there’s so much information available online today that it often boggles and distracts the mind!
Whatever you want to know or learn these days is just a click away. However, before finding exactly what you need, there’s a host of data to comb through first. When online visitors are searching through hundreds of subjects and looking up data variations available on millions of sites, they prefer to get straight to what they need as quickly as possible. So, when they click to open an email that’s been personalized for them, the content has to immediately address their search efforts if they are to continue reading.
Source: Marketing Charts
Below are two more factors to consider when creating email marketing content –
- Does the content support the subject line? If it doesn’t, the probability of them clicking your call to action (CTA) has diminished significantly. We’ll address CTAs in Step 5.
- Did you limit the content to only a few sentences? There is amazing effectiveness that can come with email marketing content whenever it’s precisive in conveying the right message. When you limit your emails to a few sentences, shoot straight, and ensure they consist of no more than 3 – 5 bullet points, your chance of keeping recipients engaged online over 10 seconds increases significantly.
Step 5 – Your emails need to have at least one call to action.
Marketing emails need to have one focus and intent – GET CUSTOMERS to CONVERT! It’s alright to have one or two CTAs in your email, but make sure every call to action that a visitor clicks takes them to the same landing page. Why? Because too many CTAs for different web pages cause confusion. And as Donald Miller always says, “When you confuse, you lose.” (Your audience, that is)
When your visitors are confused, they may not do what you want them to once they open your email, or they may not take the action you need them to take. So, have at least one CTA, but no more than three. Also, make sure they guide visitors to the same website page regardless of which one they click. I’m sure you probably have questions about landing pages too, but I’ll address them in another blog article.
It’s time to use an integrated approach to take your email marketing to the next level.
Email continues to prove more effective when businesses use the proper execution through best practices. Moreover, marketing automation remains one of the most efficient platforms for reaching a broader target audience.
When companies utilize an integrated approach through innovative strategies like CRO and marketing automation, they convey the right messages to their targeted audience every time. For more information and to kick-start your marketing efforts, connect with BUILDINGBLOCKS online, or call 281-203-0529. We’re your building partner helping foster business growth through online marketing!
