For entrepreneurs looking to grow their business but don't know where to start, email marketing campaigns offer a low-cost way to reach prospects and customers. Email marketing has a lower barrier to entry compared to other marketing platforms as it does not require advanced technology or design skills. Also, creating email content is faster than many other marketing materials. Email marketing is flexible and effective for marketing products, services, or both. It's also a budget-friendly marketing approach that has lower out-of-pocket costs, is easier to track and measure, and has a higher potential ROI (return on investment) than other marketing strategies.
We asked small business owners and marketing experts about the email campaign strategies they've tried and found success. They offered advice in his 7 tips below.
1. Try market segmentation.
Unlike billboards (because you can't control who drives on the highway), email marketing hits your target every time. In fact, 99% of consumers check their email every day. Therefore, it is the perfect medium for marketing segmentation. This means you can tailor your message to each audience.
One common way to do this is by age group. Ivan Veta, his SEO specialist at Scopic Software, found this to be a beneficial method for his clients as it allowed them to switch strategies depending on each generation's marketing preferences.
“Our findings so far show that Millennials respond favorably to campaigns that include infographics, while Gen “We conclude that people tend to click the action button.”
The best time to send an email depends on the recipient. Aggregated data shows that customers are most likely to open emails on Tuesdays at 10 a.m. and Thursdays at 3 p.m. An email sent at a time like this can have consequences, no matter how small. However, you should research your specific email list and campaign analytics to get the best results. Divide your list into subgroups of customers based on their feedback and interaction with your content. This primary research, not general industry data, is what determines email timing.
You can also create segments with multiple segments or multiple layers.
“Split your list based on where your contacts are in the buyer journey, and segment based on what you know about them,” says Maria Mora, content designer on Meta's New Product Experimentation team. states. “Then we tailor the right message to those contacts at the right time.”
Additional segmentation criteria include geographic location, age, education level, job function, industry, customer profile, interaction with past campaigns, and more. How you segment your email list will depend on your business and customer needs, but here are some ideas for gathering data for segmentation.
- Quiz for subscribers: Quizzes are a great interactive lead generation tool. It's also an easy way to determine what your subscribers are most interested in, so you can easily tailor what you send based on their interests.
- Behavioral segmentation: When you first meet someone you find interesting, you take the time to learn more about them. Customer segmentation works in much the same way, but in a way that is scalable and valuable to your business. First, identify the behaviors you should be aware of. For most online businesses, this includes new leads, cart abandoners, and inactive subscribers. To do this effectively, you need to integrate your email marketing service with your website or e-commerce platform. Next, you need to create an auto-nurture sequence that targets the identified behavior.
- Opt-in survey: Want to know what your email subscribers are passionate about and interested in? Ask them. If you offer an opt-in gift, you can easily add a short survey that allows your subscribers to learn a little more about themselves. Even simple questions like “What are you most passionate about?” You can get a wealth of information.
Editor's Note: Looking for the right email marketing service for you? Use the survey below to have our vendor partners contact you with free information.
2. Make it unique.
The more personalized your emails are, the less likely they are to end up in your spam inbox. There are easy ways to make your emails more personal. It must be sent by an individual.
“I saw an immediate increase in open rates when I sent emails from the owner's name rather than the company name,” says Jeff Moriarty, marketing and web development manager at Moriarty's Gem Art. .
As a side benefit, this helps differentiate your company as a small business.
“Customers appreciate not being bombarded with just sales emails, and they feel the emails we send are much more valuable than most other retailers,” Moriarty said.
Some email marketing software also allows senders to include the recipient's name in the greeting. (This depends on the level of friendship you're aiming for.)
3. Get creative with your subject line.
Once you've developed your campaign strategy, focus on the subtleties of your message. This starts with the first thing your customers see: your subject line. If it doesn't pique your interest among the other emails in your inbox, you might delete it.
If you want your customers to open your email, you need to get creative with your subject line and understand what will grab their attention. Try out different subject lines by asking questions and teasing the content. Avoid words like “donate” that can reduce open rates by 50% or more.
4. List benefits, not features.
To create compelling subject matter, Ryan Gould, vice president of strategy and marketing services at Elevation Marketing, engages customers by being upfront about who you are and what you can do for them. My advice is to be intimate.
“Customers don't really care what email delivers; they just want to know how it benefits them,” he said. “If the subject line clearly communicates that and comes with a sense of urgency, such as a time limit, users are more likely to want to read more. Mentioning them is also a great way to pique readers' curiosity.
According to Quincy Smith, head of SEO at Springboard, highlight these benefits with a subject line like “X helps influencers just like you get paid to do Y.” Even better if you personalize it. After applying targeted reward marketing to his campaigns, Smith increased his open rate from 8% to 17%.
5. Be concise.
Don't complicate your email. Say exactly what you want to say in a way that engages your readers. No need to type paragraphs of content that no one will read. Think press releases rather than research papers.
“Instead of including several long articles that readers will have to spend a long time scrolling through, keep it short and include a link to your blog where they can read more,” says Supervisor of Communications and Outreach at the Washington State Department. Emily Sidley says. of ecology. “This is especially important because the majority of consumers check their email on their mobile phones. If the email is too long, they won't be able to spend time scrolling through it on a small mobile screen. ”
As a rule of thumb, if an email takes more than a few minutes to read, it's likely to be ignored, Mora added.
One way to reduce the word count is to eliminate all confusing words. In any case, customers will appreciate it. For example, Kyle Turk, VP of Marketing at Keynote Search, found that increasing transparency in email subject lines increased open rates from 21% to 30%.
“There's so much noise in inboxes these days that if your message isn't clear, it's going to be seen,” he says.
6. Include a call to action.
It's easy to get so focused on getting your customer's attention that you forget the original intent of the email. Do you want them to know you have an item in their cart? Alert them about a sale? Promote a new product? Clever subject lines can improve open rates, but to increase engagement you need to increase your click-through rate, or the percentage of subscribers who follow an email link to your web page. This is where a call to action (CTA) comes in.
Creating a call to action is as easy as including a direct request. “You can't expect your audience to guess what you want them to do next,” says Kendra Jones, a PR and marketing strategist at her who specializes in influencer marketing. She says, “By hyperlinking the opt-in and placing a concise call to action like 'Click here to download our free guide,' she increased her click-through rate by 18%.”
7. Try A/B testing.
So far, we've suggested that marketers take a deductive approach and test new strategies by observing relative improvements in open and click-through rates. However, there is another way to improve it. It's about comparing two strategies to each other.
According to Sean Nichols, marketing manager at SiteVisibility, A/B testing allows you to try out two variables, such as two subject lines, to find out which one performs better.
Nichols recommends testing just one part of your email at a time (such as the subject line or image) to avoid too many variables. This ensures more accurate results.
The more you run these tests, the more likely you are to discover unexpected strategies. For example, after running various A/B tests, Keynote Search found that using an image with a close-up of someone's face increased click-through rates by 17%, Turk said. Masu.
It's easy to test pre-conceived strategies like the ones on this list. However, with A/B testing, you may discover strategies you never thought of.
Email marketing tools and platforms
There are many things to consider before choosing an email marketing service for your business. Taking the time to thoroughly analyze multiple software solutions along with your business' marketing needs will help you choose the email marketing software that best fits your goals. Use these three resources in conjunction with each other to help you get started, build your contact list, and optimize your emails.
- Regular Contact Email Marketing Review
- Freshworks Freshmarketer Email Marketing Review
- Monday.com Email Marketing Review
- Salesforce Cloud Email Marketing Review
- Campaigner Email Marketing Review
business growth
Building an effective email marketing campaign is easy by following advice from other small business owners. Research has proven that email marketing generates leads with the highest ROI of all B2B marketing channels.
Small business owners recommend the following email marketing techniques to entrepreneurs:
- Plan each campaign by segmenting your customers into unique audiences.
- Personalize your content in a way that feels authentic.
- Create a compelling subject line that resonates with your audience.
- Please keep the content of your email concise.
- Focus your content on the benefits your product provides to your customers.
- Include a CTA for your customers.
- Use internal research techniques like A/B testing on email segments to identify new strategies and measure the effectiveness of subject lines and content.
By following these steps, you can ensure your next email marketing campaign is a huge success and brings in new customers and revenue for your business.
Leslie Pankowski, Siri Hedrien, and Marisa Sanfilippo contributed reporting and writing to this article. Some source interviews were conducted for a previous version of this article.
