Email may seem like an ancient technology in an era of social media, but they still remain one of the most effective marketing techniques available. They are accessible for every business and creating a campaign of just one or two emails per month can lead to excellent results.
Email marketing can be slightly repetitive, but you don’t have to get stuck in the loop of sending the same emails over and over – there are many marketing ideas to boost your business and catch your customers’ eye.
Build Your Email List
Firstly, you need to build your email list. You can encourage people to subscribe to your mailing list in several ways:
- Incorporate a signup form into your website – encourage visitors to your website to sign up to your email list with a pop-up box. Offer a free gift, like a tips eBook to encourage them to enter their details.
- Offer an option to sign up at the checkout – when people go to check out, give them the option to join your mailing list here. They’re already interested in your product or service – so provide them with a discount off their next purchase as an incentive to subscribe!
- Prompt them with pop-ups – add a trigger to your website that encourages visitors to sign up if they linger on a particular page or spend a certain amount of time on your site.
Remember: you shouldn’t constantly bombard visitors to subscribe to your list. Your customers will more than likely become irritated and won’t want to join if they are fighting with pop-ups when they visit every page.
Segment Your Audience
You may be familiar with audience segmentation, and A/B split testing. Separating your audience into specific demographics such as age, gender, or marital status is a common practice that can generate great results. However, with emails, you can segment your audience further into categories depending on:
- Engagement – email marketing tools such as Mailchimp allow you to see how many people have interacted with your emails. It shows you how who has opened them or not, who unsubscribed, and more. From here, you can design exclusive content for people depending on what action they have taken.
- Past purchases – segment your audience by past purchases to send them even more personalised content. If they buy something that is consumable, send an automated reminder to repurchase after a few months.
- Cart contents – if customers put items in their cart and then leaves, send them a reminder! This encourages people to complete their purchase and increases the personalisation of your content.
Audience segmentation can be achieved using certain software and is much easier than you may think. Segmentation is a great engagement booster – try it for yourself!
Get to the Point
Long, informational emails are great – they provide a lot of value to your customers and can boost engagement when done right. However, the majority of the emails you send should not be very long. Keep the main point above the fold, so the reader can see what the email is about before scrolling down.
Information you include above the fold gets the most attention, with customers spending approximately 57% of their viewing time reading this rather than scrolling down. If you share vital information about a sale, discount code, or offer with your customers, don’t make them wait for it – keep it clear and visible to grab their attention.
You can even take it one step further by including the specific offer or information in the subject line. Make it snappy and engaging and your customers will take notice.
Create Valuable Content
Your email marketing strategy should not be based purely on promotions and offers. Although these are great and will attract customers, people may get tired of constant offers and sales that encourage them to spend.
Shake it up with valuable content as well. This could include:
- Industry roundups – pull together a list of events or news articles about new things in your industry.
- Tips, advice, and guidance – send advice or write in-depth guidance articles depending on your niche. For example, if you run a business making shoes, include tips on how to style them and how best to take care of them!
- Newsletters – if you have a blog for your business, create a monthly roundup summary that gives an overview of each blog and a link if the reader wants to know more.
Give Your Customers a Choice
Email marketing is all about building your subscriber list. However, although it sounds counterintuitive, giving your customers the choice to opt-out of your emails can actually boost your engagement and image.
Being open and honest with your customers about how you’re changing or updating your emails and giving them the option to update their preferences builds a trusting relationship. It shows that you put the customer experience first, and it can allow them to create a highly personalised experience – for example, you may include the option for them to continue receiving promotions but not informational emails, and vice versa.
And if some customers do unsubscribe, it just focuses your list more! It also saves you money as most email marketing platforms have tiers based on how many subscribers you have, so losing a few makes extra space for more without putting a dent in your pocket.
Conclusion
Email marketing is one of the best avenues to engage your customers. Easy to personalise and quick to segment – an effective email marketing campaign can help boost engagement, increase conversions and build a relationship based on trust and communication.
