Many marketers, webmasters, and entrepreneurs might have doubted the power of email throughout the time. Doubt is for the unknowledgeable. Understanding is for the one who doesn’t shy away from exploring the real possibilities and benefits that consistent practice does.
A bit philosophic for the topic of this post, I agree.
So, why email marketing?
- Email marketing is used by 82% of B2C and B2B companies.
- Email marketing campaigns are 40 times more efficient when it comes to generating sales than Facebook, Instagram, or Twitter.
- 81% of customers have reported purchasing a product after getting “convinced” by an email.
- If 17% of surveyed people want promotional content on social media, 72% prefer it in email.
Look, I can go on with the statistics but I believe you’re already understanding that email marketing is never ever going to “die”, and it will always be super effective.
In today’s post, I’m going to share a lot of insightful strategies, tips, and tricks that should complete your existing knowledge and help you materialize your ideas. Let’s begin.
1.Seek to Fully Understand Your Audience
If you really want to get amazing results in email marketing, you must dedicate entirely to the process of understanding and acknowledging your target audience’s characteristics, demographics, status, behaviour, problems, needs, desires, dreams, disappointments, attitudes, and so on.
The reason why this is so critically important is that an email marketer must plan and strategize his moves all the time. To create a delivery plan, you must approximate whether the recipient will benefit from your value proposition. Now here’s the thing:
Great email marketing results show up the moment you get better at recognizing what your audience prefers to hear, see, and feel, and what it doesn’t.
Email marketing is, after all, a communication channel between two peers. You can only offer something relevant (and attract attention) by having a great understanding of your target audience.
2. Build the Relationship First, Sell After
I used to work for MyAssignmentHelp Review, an essay writing company that was getting most of its sales through email. In fact, email was the only sales channel that was generating sustainable leads and sales at that time while the rest of the channels like Facebook, LinkedIn, or Twitter were giving us headaches.
MyAssignmentHelp Review was the first company to offer huge discounts to all the subscribers who were actively engaging with their social and email marketing campaigns. We’ve used this tactic for six months, and by the time it was done, the company was already experiencing an over 150% increase in sales.
This simple example should illustrate the power of overdelivering value. When you don’t shy away from offering value for free, your email leads will start to realize that you’re not here “just for the money”. Then you’ll be able to create real rapport and set the initial foundations of productive and long-lasting relationships with your customers.
3. Never Buy Lists
This is going to be short and concise. DON’T BUY LISTS. The chances of getting relevant leads and sales are very slim, especially if you don’t personally know and trust the seller. The solo ads marketing is full of bots and extremely low-quality leads.
The best way to grow your list and marketing performance is to start from scratch and focus on quality over quantity. You can make much more money with 100 active subscribers than with 1000 inactive and uninvolved random people.
4. Your Subject Lines are Key
Think about it. You enter your email to read a specific email from a friend, and suddenly you see a controversial subject title right below your friend’s email subject line.
What do you do?
If you’re as curious like me, you would click it right after doing what you were planning to do, or you would simply click the headline instantly.
My point is very simple: if you want email marketing results, you need to craft GREAT headlines that truly spark your target audience’s attention. That is why understanding their mindset is so important – the more triggers you can find the better email subject lines you’ll craft.
Here’s a great resource that can teach you how to craft the perfect subject lines, and here’s a list of power words that can help you capture people’s attention due to their impactful nature.
5. Always Include at Least One CTA
I know that you want to trust your subscribers and that you want them to think for themselves but please, don’t assume that you can simply let them do whatever they want.
As the email marketer, you need to “take charge” of the situation and guide your email subscribers throughout the sales process. For example, after you send your welcome email, include a CTA that leads to your best article. Or, lead them towards your FAQ page in case you want them to find out more basic information at first.
Every time you write an email, let people know what they should do next. Tell them where to go, what to check, and how to check it. Also, before adding your CTA, make sure you emphasize the benefits directly or indirectly.
6. Use Your Welcome Message to Survey New Prospects
To get to know your list better, you can welcome your new email subscribers and survey them at the same time.
Here’s a simplified example:
“Hey, welcome…here is what you’ll get here…here is why you should read my next emails…here is what I want to ask you…what is your biggest problem/need/concern/desire/etc?… Reply to this email letting me know…also, check this awesome article that I have recently posted…CTA…”
This does not only achieve the purpose of interacting with your fresh subscribers for the first time, but also tries to set up the foundation of a stronger rapport. If the recipient replies and answers your questions/surveys, you can simply reward that person with a discount or anything that would offer him value (free e-book, a list of useful resources, a trial, etc.).
7. Test, Test, Test
Digital marketing and especially email marketing demand a lot of testing procedures. You probably realise that some of your decisions related to your email campaigns might be bad and that the effects that they provoke might significantly damage your business performance.
Some marketers aren’t even aware of the necessity of testing. That is why they fail and blame a million other things.
Great email marketing is based on a solid foundation of planning, strategizing, and tracking. You need to plan and strategize your moves, put them into implementation, and have them under close observation.
You can test your email marketing performance by leveraging email analysis tools, as you can find plenty out there. Pick one or two and get used to them. They will show you relevant data and KPIs and you’ll be able to track the patterns that advantage or disadvantage your email campaigns.
Conclusion
Email marketing is a true art. The infinite number of possibilities and choices forces you to think out of the box and figure out ways to stand out from the crowd. And you can’t simply stop. If you’re in, you’re in.
The more you “play” the game the better results you’ll eventually get. However, hard work is not always as effective as smart work. What I suggest is you work both hard and smart.
Learn, test, measure, optimize, and scale. Plan your next moves and make sure you’re sticking to your email campaign’s goals all the time. Consistency, persistence, and resilience. Best of luck!