As with other elements of digital marketing, it’s important to have a email marketing strategy.  Email will always be a valuable marketing channel, not least because you have direct access to and own your audience.  

As great as social media is, remember it’s just a rented platform.  If Facebook and Instagram go down, you have no way of speaking to your audience. With email you do.  In fact, 73% percent of millennials prefer communications from businesses to come via email.

However, it’s not enough to just send out a broadcast every week.  You do need to put some thought behind what you are sending, who you are sending to and why.

1. Who are you speaking to?

You may have a growing email list but that doesn’t mean you have to send your email to everyone.  Consider if the subject of your email is relevant to all on your list. 

This is where segmentation comes in to play.  Segmented campaigns can see as much as a 760% increase in revenue (Campaign Monitor, 2019) and there are many ways to segment including:

a) New subscribers. Engage your new subscribers, introduce yourself and your products or services and build the like, know and trust value.  Don’t go promoting your highest value service to them just yet as you want to warm them up.

b) By product or service. You could send a promotion out to those in your audience who have purchased a particular product.  For example, a make-up brand could send out details of their exclusive new nail varnish just to those customers who have bought nail varnish in the past, knowing they are the customers who are going to be attracted to this new line.

c) Opens. If you’re aiming to re-engage your audience then emailing just those who, for example, haven’t opened an email in the last few months. This option will require some particular thought around subject lines to really peak their interest.

d) Lead Magnet. Emailing those subscribers who subscribed via a particular lead magnet.  This tells you they are interested in a particular subject. Consider sending out a series of emails to these subscribers that beings to build the relationship between you and the reader.  

e) Tags.  Using tags is a great way to segment subscribers and you can tag in so many ways depending on the email marketing platform you are using as some have limited capabilities.  I love using ActiveCampaign as it enables me to add tags to sign up forms and landing pages but also to links in emails.  For example, a client might promote an limited offer and we can add a tag to identify people who have clicked on that link.  My client can then email those who have clicked and therefore shown an interest, but not bought yet.

Other ways to segment include sending to those who have attended an event, by sign up source, geography or abandoned cart.  

2. What do you want to say?

Do you click on New Campaign in your email marketing provider and then wonder what on earth to say this week?  The thing is, if you haven’t got anything useful to say then don’t say anything at all.

However, having a plan will make life so much easier and help your emails remain interesting, consistent and full of value.  This plan will form part of your wider content calendar which will also include your social media, blogs and podcasts.

In your email content calendar, outline things such as your quarterly goals, promotions, your product/service launches, key dates, blogs and awareness days.  Use these dates to plan out your emails ahead of time.  You don’t have to write them in advance (although some batching is always a good thing).  

If you’re launching a product then your series of launch emails will mean you are sending more emails than usual. You can always give people the option to opt-out of this particular series without unsubscribing from your regular updates.

Knowing what you want to say will provide consistency of brand throughout your emails.  It doesn’t mean that each email has to look the same.  Every other week you might send a company update and in between those emails you might send a how-to video for example.  

3. What do you want your readers to do?

There should be purpose behind every email you send and that purpose is to get engagement from your subscribers. Engaged subscribers are raising their hand to show they are interested in what you have to offer.

So ensure there is a Call to Action (CTA) in all your marketing emails, which could be presented as a button or a hyperlink.

A CTA doesn’t have to be promotional.  It could be that you want your reader to read your latest blog or article, follow you on social media, see your latest video or ask for reviews. 

Perhaps you have an ebook for download or a special offer.

Adding a button is a clear way to invite people to take action.  Ensure it’s a colour that is bright but that also fits in with your brand.

It’s important not to overwhelm your readers with too many different CTAs but if you do have more than one then perhaps make the secondary CTA stand out less eg. a hyperlink as opposed to a button.

 

Need some help with your email marketing strategy?  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.