Why use email marketing?
Email marketing is one of marketers' oldest tools. That doesn't make it "outdated". Quite the opposite. There are three times as many email accounts as there are profiles on Facebook and X (formerly Twitter) combined. So email is still alive and well and an effective strategy for turning leads into customers.
Getting permission to send emails to people is easier said than done. And permission is only the first step towards a successful email marketing strategy. It's very much the emails you send afterwards that deliver results in the long run.
So here are 10 tips to make your email marketing more effective all round.
1. Define your goal
Start with one question: "Why should you use email marketing at all?" Without a goal, you won't get the results you want either.
So take a step back and work out what you actually want to achieve with email marketing. It might be to:
- Be "top of mind", so your customers think of you first when they need help or are looking for a preferred partner.
- Educate potential customers and build trust, so they discover that you're the best-qualified partner on the market.
- Remind existing customers to use your products or services.
Once your goal is set, it also becomes easier to define who you're writing to. You can optimise your emails so they work towards exactly that goal.
2. Find the right balance between information and sales
Find the right balance between information and sales when you send emails to customers. It can be tempting to send potential customers a good offer along the way. Even so, don't bombard them with offers. Build trust first, for example through content marketing.
A good rule of thumb is that your emails are 90% information and 10% sales. That way, you won't scare your leads away before they've got to know your business.
3. Make sure the opt-in text and the newsletter itself match
You should keep your promises. You've probably heard that before, and it applies to email marketing too. The page where the recipient signs up to get emails from you makes a promise. That promise needs to match what your emails actually contain. If the two don't match, you lose your customers' trust.
In addition, the GDPR sets some requirements for your emails. You may only send content about the topics you've described in your opt-in text.
So if you want to build a bond of trust between you and the customer, be as specific as possible in the opt-in text. Tell the recipient exactly what they can expect when they get emails from you. Ideally, also say roughly how often they'll arrive.
4. Give your emails an engaging subject line
Your potential customers may have signed up to your emails. That's far from a guarantee that they'll open them. If you want a high open rate, the subject line needs to spark interest. Your job is to convince the recipient to spend 10 to 30 seconds of their life reading your email.
So how do you do that?
- Make it clear from the start what the recipient gets out of your email. For example, you could open the subject line with “Get the best..”, “Learn all about..” or “Don't miss”.
- Make your emails personal, so they feel relevant to each recipient.
- Be clear and direct. Don't wrap your messages in clichés and expressions that are hard to decode. Speak plainly, and keep your subject lines under 50 characters.
- Run an A/B test where you try out different versions of the subject line on a smaller group of your recipients. That way, you'll see what works.
5. Create a call-to-action
What should happen once the recipient has opened your email? What action do you want your recipients to take? Ask yourself those questions if you want to use email marketing to generate new leads.
So make it clear what the recipient's next step is. Should they fill in a form? Read a blog post or buy a product in your webshop? Spell out exactly what you want the customer to do, and give them a clear call-to-action.
6. Keep email design and copy simple
Your email looks very different depending on whether the recipient reads it on an iPhone, in Gmail, in Outlook or through one of the many other email providers out there. So keep both your design and your copy as simple as possible. That way, your message gets all the way through and isn't lost in poor design and long, convoluted sentences.
7. Write alt text for the images in your emails
Alt text for your images is essential. Alt text is alternative text that describes an image. You can enter it in most email platforms and marketing systems.
You need alt text because only some of your recipients get to see the images. Some have image display turned off by default. So each recipient has to take action themselves to show them.
If you have both text and images in your email, describe what the images show. Otherwise the recipient may be met with odd white boxes in the email and get confused.
8. Make it easy to unsubscribe from your emails
Over the years, email marketing has gained a somewhat tarnished reputation, and for good reason. Far too many businesses send emails to people who never gave permission. That's actually a breach of the Marketing Practices Act and the GDPR. Just as many make it hard for recipients to unsubscribe.
You might think it's best to hold on to recipients at all costs. In practice, people just become more annoyed and frustrated with your business when they want to unsubscribe and can't easily do so. You also risk being blacklisted as a spammer by major email clients such as Gmail and Outlook.
So always make it easy for your recipients to unsubscribe. Place a link at the bottom of the email that says, for example, “unsubscribe from all emails”.
9. Test, test and test again!
Test every parameter. It's one of the best things you can do in your email marketing. Start with the technical side. Does your email look the way it should? Most modern email platforms have built-in test features. Here you can see how your email looks on iPhone, in Gmail and in Outlook.
Then test which time of day gets the most engagement on the emails you send. For example, you could test whether sending your emails before or after lunch affects the open rate.
Finally, test the content. We described the subject line earlier, and it's only one part of it. Also test which calls-to-action work. And test how the open rate changes when you change the sender name.
10. Remember the email marketing legislation
Most people know the spam rules when doing email marketing. Even so, new cases and reminders keep cropping up. Follow the rules so you stay off the Consumer Ombudsman's radar.
BONUS: 3 types of email that work
Succeeding with email marketing requires you to follow the customer through the entire buying journey. Your emails need to be relevant and interesting for recipients. They also need to make sense in terms of when the recipient receives them. So it's a good idea to take a bird's-eye view of your email marketing strategy and divide your email marketing into 3 categories:
- Welcome emails:
The welcome email is your first step towards a relationship with the customer. This is where you introduce your brand and tell the customer what the next step is. Welcome emails have a really high open rate, so go all out and create the best possible welcome email. Your recipients are at their most receptive right here, and you should make the most of it! - “Complete your purchase” emails:
Has a customer added an item to their basket and left the website without buying it? Then you can send an email reminding the customer to complete their purchase. You can also use the email to remind the customer of the products they never got round to buying. - Follow-up emails after purchase:
Customers who stay are at the heart of a well-run business. So hold on to the relationship after the customer has made their first purchase. There are many ways to do it. For example, send an email that says “thank you for your purchase”, an email asking about their shopping experience or an email recommending related products.
Let our specialists handle your email marketing
Want to succeed with email marketing? Our specialists help you send emails that actually work.
Write to us using the contact form or send an email to info@amplify.dk. You can also call us on 70 60 50 28. We're ready to help you with your email marketing.