Introduction
Walking on the street, having a coffee in a local cafe, or simply browsing through the internet – we are constantly bombarded with marketing messages from different brands. In such a ‘noise’, it may be difficult to imagine that hosting a email marketing campaign can still be an effective way to reach your customers.
But according to DMASA, email is still one of the most popular channels when it comes to marketing. Email marketing has an ROI of 4300%!
This means that for every $1 spent on an email marketing campaign, you can expect a return of $43. With numbers like these, it’s no wonder that more and more businesses are turning to email marketing to promote their products and services.
Before embarking on the endeavor of sending electronic mails to your list of subscribers, there exist a few salient factors that you must bear in mind. To aid in this matter, we shall elucidate upon the entire gamut of the email marketing process, spanning from the cultivation of your list of subscribers to the fashioning of your email’s layout, and culminating in the transmission of said emails.
What Is An Email Marketing Campaign?
An electronic mail campaign represents a series of one or more emails, directed towards a catalogue of subscribers, designed to promote a particular commodity, amenity, or social advocacy.
Email campaigns can be used for a variety of purposes, such as:
Generating leads: Sending out emails to potential customers who haven’t yet bought your product or service.
Nurturing leads: Sending out educational emails to potential customers to help them move further down the sales funnel.
Engaging customers: The act of dispatching emails that are of a promotional or informative nature to extant customers, with the explicit goal of coaxing them into procuring additional wares or remaining steadfast in their allegiance to your particular brand.
Building relationships: Sending out emails to customers or subscribers in an endeavor to maintain communication, thereby fortifying and reinforcing the relationship between them and your establishment.
Increasing brand awareness: The act of transmitting emails with the specific intent of propagating the awareness of your brand to a wider, more expansive audience.
Email Marketing Campaign Types
There are several email marketing campaign types out there with different objectives and goals each. Depending on what your business intends, you can choose 1 or multiple of the types to host your campaign:
Welcome emails: These are dispatched to nascent subscribers upon the initial registration of their email address into your roster.
Promotional emails: These missives are transmitted for the purpose of advancing a newly introduced commodity, service, or promotional bargain.
Newsletters: These are emails that are dispatched at periodic intervals (i.e., weekly, monthly, etc.), which include updates regarding the state of affairs within your company or industry.
Transactional emails: These missives are transmitted subsequent to a consumer transaction, comprising of information pertinent to the acquisition such as order confirmation and shipping status.
For more types of email marketing campaign types and their usage, do not miss to read our blog “10 Types Of Email Marketing Techniques To Boost Your Sales”.
How to Make Your Email Marketing Campaign Successful
Email marketing campaigns are an extremely effective way to reach your target audience and promote your product or service. However, for campaign to be a success, there are a few things you need to keep in mind:
#1 Developing a list of subscribers:
In order to commence an email marketing campaign, the preliminaries necessitate the existence of a roster of subscribers, to whom your emails can be dispatched. Various approaches may be undertaken in the cultivation of said list, such as:
Website sign-up forms: Sign-up forms ought to be integrated onto your website to afford visitors the opportunity to opt-in to receive electronic mail from your establishment.
Content upgrades: The provision of content upgrades on your blog posts (such as ebooks, templates, and the like) in exchange for the provision of visitors’ email addresses.
Lead magnets: The proffering of a lead magnet (such as a complimentary trial, a discount, and the like) in exchange for the provision of visitors’ email addresses.
Procuring lists: One may elect to purchase lists of email addresses from third-party providers. However, it ought to be emphasized that this course of action is deemed ill-advised, as it may lead to a preponderance of spam complaints and potentially result in the suspension of your email account.
#2 Segmenting your list
After the development of your roster of subscribers, it is of paramount importance to partition them into distinct groups, thus enabling the dissemination of more targeted and personalized electronic missives. Segmentation of your list accords the opportunity to dispatch emails that are highly pertinent and germane to each group, resulting in augmented open and click-through rates. Several methodologies may be employed in segmenting your list, such as:
Demographics: Categorize your subscribers into distinct groups predicated on their age, gender, geographical location, and the like.
Engagement history: Distinguish between subscribers by grouping them based on their interaction history with your establishment, such as the frequency with which they open and click your emails, which links they click, and other related metrics.
#3 Writing email copy
After the successful segmentation of your list, the next crucial step is drafting your email content. Whilst writing the copy, there are several factors that you must bear in mind:
Concise and crisp: Avoid protracted and verbose emails. Instead, make your emails succinct and snappy so that your subscribers can peruse them effortlessly.
Persuasive diction: Employ language that is persuasive and convincing to sway your subscribers into taking the intended action, be it purchasing a product, registering for a service, and so forth.
Compelling call-to-actions: Use cogent call-to-actions that motivate your subscribers to take the desired action.
#4 Designing your email
Incorporating visual elements such as images and videos can be an effective way to enhance your email content and increase engagement.
Choose an appropriate layout: Choose a layout that is visually appealing and easy to navigate, with a clear hierarchy of information.
Optimize for mobile: Since more and more people are accessing their emails on mobile devices, it’s important to design your email with mobile optimization in mind.
Ensure accessibility: Make sure your email is accessible to everyone, including those with visual impairments, by including alt text for images and using appropriate font sizes and colors.
Testing: Before sending out your email, make sure to test it across different email clients and devices to ensure that it looks and functions as intended.
#5 Sending your email
Once you have designed and written your email, it’s time to unleash it to your subscribers. However, there are various things to keep in mind before hitting the send button:
Test, test, test: It’s important to conduct extensive testing before sending out your email marketing campaign to the entire list. Send a test email to a small group of subscribers to see how they react to it, and ensure it’s error-free.
Timing is god: Timing plays a crucial role when it comes to sending out your email. There are certain timings that allow businesses to reach wider audiences when they are likely to be read rather than be ignored. Day of the week is also as important, so make sure, you know which works the best.
Monitor your results: Well, to know if you campaign is working right and is giving out the intended results you should analyze and monitor your camapign results frequently and revise the plan accordingly if it does not meet your expectations. This way you know that your campaign is doing well in the market or not!
How to Measure the Success of Your Email Marketing Campaign
Source: Ruler Analytics
There are a few different metrics you can use to measure the success of your email marketing campaign, such as:
Open rate: This is the number of people who opened your email divided by the total number of people who received it.
Click-through rate: This is the number of people who clicked on a link in your email divided by the total number of people who received it.
Bounce rate: This is the number of people who did not receive your email due to an invalid email address divided by the total number of people who received it.
Unsubscribe rate: This is the number of people who unsubscribed from your list divided by the total number of people who received your email.
By monitoring these metrics, you can get a good idea of how successful your email marketing campaign was and make necessary adjustments for future campaigns.
How to Choose The Right Email Marketing Service
What email marketing service should one use with millions of services in the industry promising the same results? Well, there are 4 features to every email marketing service you should first focus on:
- Pricing: Your budget is a significant determinant of the email marketing service you select. Ensure that you choose an affordable service that matches your budget.
- Features: Different email marketing services offer different features. Be sure to select one that provides the features that align with your goals and objectives.
- Ease of Use: User-friendliness is critical. Select a service that is easy to navigate and understand, enabling you to save time and focus on your email campaigns.
- Customer Support: A reliable customer support system is vital in case you have any questions or experience any issues. Therefore, choose an email marketing service that provides excellent customer support.
Tools For Email Marketing Campaign
Now that you’ve mastered the art of crafting an awe-inspiring email marketing campaign, it’s time to get cracking on selecting the perfect tools to help your campaign take flight. But don’t be hasty, there are certain crucial factors that must be considered before settling on any tool:
Email list management: It’s essential to opt for a tool that can manage your email list with ease and efficiency. If you’re looking for hassle-free email list management, tools like MailChimp and AWeber can come in handy.
Email design: You certainly don’t want to send out bland and uninviting emails, do you? Choose a tool that allows you to create stunning, responsive email designs. For instance, MailChimp, Campaign Monitor, and Constant Contact are some of the finest tools available to fulfill your email design needs.
Email delivery: It’s imperative to pick a tool that delivers your emails promptly to your subscribers. To ensure timely delivery, SendGrid and MailGun are some of the top-rated tools that can be of great help.
Examples Of A Successful Email Marketing Campaign
It is not rocket science that you use email marketing campaign to get your products and services out there in the market and make known. However, for an email marketing campaign to be successful, there are a few things businesses need to keep in mind taking inspiration from the already existing.
#1 Like Starbucks: Personalized messages
Starbucks uses email marketing to send personalized messages to its customers. The coffee giant knows exactly when its customers need a pick-me-up and sends them an email with a coupon for a free drink. Starbucks has increased its sales by 18% thanks to its personalized email marketing campaign.
#2 Like Levi’s: Timing is everything
Levi’s uses email marketing to send timely messages to its customers. The clothing company sends an email to customers when there is a sale on jeans. This has saved Levi’s customers an average of $32 per purchase.
#3 Like Amazon: Relevant content
Amazon uses email marketing to send relevant content to its customers. The online retailer knows what its customers are interested in and sends them emails with deals on products they would like. When its customers are running low on supplies, amazon sends them an email with a coupon for a discount on their next purchase. Thanks to its relevant email marketing campaign, Amazon has increased its sales by 36%.
Each business has something to offer, and knowing that will help you create a successful email marketing campaign for your business.
Email Marketing Campaigns FAQs
1. How long should an email marketing campaign last?
The answer to this question is rather indeterminate and highly contingent on your campaign’s objectives and goals. If your primary aim is to enhance your sales, then prolonging your campaign may be the most prudent option. On the other hand, if you simply aim to create awareness of your brand, a shorter campaign may suffice. The duration of your campaign depends on a multitude of factors, such as the complexity of your message, the type of audience you’re targeting, and the budget you’ve allocated for your campaign.
2. How often should I send emails?
It is a question that eludes a single definitive answer. Rather, the frequency of email sending should align with the overarching aims and objectives of the campaign. Seeking to optimize sales, a more frequent cadence of email delivery may be warranted. Conversely, if the objective is brand awareness, a lower frequency may be preferable.
3. What is the best day of the week to send emails?
Ah, the question of the best day to send emails. The answer is elusive, as it hinges on the preferences of your audience. If your target audience comprises businesses, then the weekdays may be more opportune for your email blasts. But if your audience consists of consumers, the weekends could be the perfect window to deliver your emails. It’s a perplexing issue, but crucial to consider as you develop your email marketing strategy.
4. What is the best time of day to send emails?
As much as it is important to know which time or the day works for your campaign, it is your industry that determines as such. And, also the answer largely depends on your target audience and their relative time zones. If you are targeting other business owners, the ideal times to send emails would be either in the morning or afternoon, and if you are targeting consumers, it is recommended that you send your emails during the evening hours, when they are likely to relax and ease into your content more.
5. What are some common mistakes businesses make with their email marketing campaigns?
Numerous enterprises have been unsuccessful in their campaign endeavors due to a variety of blunders, such as inundating their target audience with a surfeit of emails, dispensing irrelevant content, inaccurately timing their email campaign, neglecting to segment their email list, disregarding to scrutinize their email marketing campaign, and omitting a lucid and succinct call to action.
Conclusion
However, even if with the guide and previous unsuccessful attempts, if you are struggling to get started, fear not! Enlisting the services of a professional agency such as ours can be an excellent way to kickstart your campaign. At 12Channels, we specialize in email marketing and can work with you to create a campaign that aligns with your goals and objectives. So why wait? Get in touch with us today to learn more and take the first step towards a successful email marketing campaign!
Furthermore, if you require assistance getting started, enlisting the services of a specialized agency like ours can be an excellent way to jumpstart your efforts. At 12Channels, we specialize in email marketing and can aid you in developing a campaign that aligns with your goals and objectives. Get in touch with us today to discover more!
