Email consistently ranks as one of the top marketing channels for many businesses. Despite not experiencing much change over the years, email continues to foster strong interaction with valuable leads and drive customer conversion. With engaging messaging and well-planned campaign coordination, email can play an important role in your brand’s digital marketing efforts.
Email Marketing Basics
Email marketing centers around a reliable email platform and a well-maintained contact list. There are many platforms to consider, and most offer free plans for accounts with contact lists under certain thresholds. Providers range from simpler email-focused software like MailChimp or ConstantContact to more robust offerings like HubSpot.
You can populate your contact list from existing customers and leads who’ve indicated interest in receiving communications from you. However, you should continue to build subscribers through your other marketing channels. Opportunities range from featuring an email sign-up on your website to collecting contact information at in-person events.
Email Goals
As with any initiative, approach email marketing with your business goals in mind. Ultimately, your messaging needs to connect shoppers with the next steps to engage with your brand. Determine what action makes the most sense for your business and your audience(s), and limit your call to action to one primary “ask” per email.
Email Timing
Send campaigns with a consistent frequency that makes sense for your business and doesn’t overwhelm your recipients. Many brands are successful with deploying eblasts monthly and only sharing special one-off emails as needed throughout the year.
The timing of your email deployments is also important. Your customer personas should dictate the optimal days and times that your subscribers are likely to engage with your content. Many business types are successful by emailing in the mornings during the middle of the week. Others do well in scheduling emails outside of traditional working hours. Try testing send times and determine what performs best with your contacts based on analytics and customer feedback.
Email Elements
When designing an email campaign, there are several elements you can customize for improved performance. The “from” name seems straightforward though consider addressing your email from a business owner or other public-facing team member rather than simply your business name. This can provide a more personal impression and increase email engagement.
For your subject line, choose a brief headline that attracts recipients to open your email without giving a spammy impression. For example, headlines with words in all capital letters can potentially land your email in the recipients’ junk folder. You should also craft a preview message, the short text that appears by the subject line before an email is opened. This text should be brief and encourage the subscriber to open your email without raising alarms of potential spam.
Once opened, the content of your email should focus on engaging the reader and encouraging one primary action such as browsing a product sale or booking a reservation. Featuring multiple “asks” in one email can leave recipients feeling scattered or only focused on the last thing they see.
Before sending your eblast to subscribers, send a test email to yourself and view it on multiple device types. Ensure the desktop experience of your email translates well to mobile as most recipients will likely view it from their phone.
Email Analytics
Once your campaign has been sent, email providers offer analytics into how subscribers engage with it. Review the percentages of your list that successfully received your email, those who opened your message, and those who clicked through to your website. As you send additional emails, use this data to identify the types of messaging that draw the most interest from subscribers and which days/times attract the most engagement.
Next Steps
Though this guide only scratches the surface of email marketing, it should highlight the importance of this valuable channel and offer insight into developing your email strategy. From here, several optimizations can further improve the performance of your campaigns including automatically personalizing emails with your subscribers’ information, A/B testing variables such as subject lines, and implementing automated drip campaigns based on leads’ interactions with your brand.
