Email marketing is an important tool to build and nurture your audience.  Remember that social media is just rented ground but you own your email lists.  Getting yourself directly into the inbox of your ideal client allows you the perfect opportunity to build a relationship, promote your message and create sales.  Let’s have a look at some email marketing tips that can help you build and nurture your audience.

1. Build your list

This might sound obvious but you need to keep growing your list.  You will get unsubscribes (don’t worry, it happens) so keep promoting your lead magnet and giving value to your fans and followers.  Regularly check your lead magnet to see if it’s still relevant.  If you’re not sure what a lead magnet is, read this.

2. Be yourself

Email marketing is about building a relationship between you, your brand and your audience. To help your audience feel a connection with you, you need to get personal. Write in your voice or that of your brand as if speaking to them face to face. Are you a fun, lighthearted brand?  Then use that style of language in your emails.  If what you promote is of a more serious nature then use that tone in your emails.  That’s not to say you can’t be humourous when talking about something serious, just ensure the emails reflect you.

3. Include a Call To Action

Have an objective with each email that leads your audience to take action.  This creates more interest for your readers.  An action could be getting them to visit your website, perhaps your latest blog, or completing a survey.  

You can create a hyperlink (adding a url to a word or phrase) or use a Call to Action button clearly stating the action you want them to take.  

4. Be consistent

To nurture your audience you need to be consistent and not just drop into their inbox sporadically.  Whether it’s twice a week or once a month, as long as people know when to expect your email.

5. Talk to one person

Make your emails personal to the reader.  You may have hundreds, even thousands or subscribers but you want your reader to feel like you are writing to them.  Use merge tags that allow you to insert first names into the email.  Make use of segmentation to provide more relevant content and consider using custom fields that allow you to personalise even further.

6.  Make it easy to read quickly

We are inundated with emails these days and people have less and less time to read each one. If someone has actually opened your email, that’s a great start.  Seriously.  If you’re open rate is over 20% you’re doing ok.  You then need to make it easy for them to consume your content so make your emails easy to read and scannable.  Use a larger font size (I use 14), clear headings and don’t pack a shed load of content into one email. 

7.  Think mobile

According to Campaign Monitor, 68% of emails are opened on mobile. So it’s very important to ensure your email is mobile-friendly.  When designing your email, check how it looks on mobile.  Do any images fit, is the subject length too long, is the CTA button clear, is there too much text?

8.  Testing, testing 123

Various factors can determine the success of your email – subject, images, call to action buttons, merge tags, emojiis. 

An email with one subject heading may have a far better open rate compared to the same email but with a different subject.  Test what works for your audience but change only one thing at a time. Email marketing platforms will usually have a feature that helps with split testing.

9.  Give value

Do not sell in every email, that’s a sure fire why to get unsubscribes.  Instead, make people want to open your email by giving them value in every single one.  What tip or gold nugget can you offer?

10.  Preview

How many times have you received an email that beings “Hi <first name>”.  Not good.  Check your email before you click Send and ensure all merge tags work, all links work and go to where you intend them to and there are no spelling mistakes.

 

Need some help with your email marketing?  Whether you’re stuck on content ideas or frustrated with the techy back-end, wing me an email and let’s have a chat to see how I could support you.