Introduction
Email is one of the top ways of reaching both prospective customers and customers.
However, there are differing opinions when it comes to the most effective techniques for email marketing.
Nonetheless, there are some tried and trusted basic email marketing techniques and strategies. Strategies that apply across the board.
This is what this article is about – examining the most effective ways to use email for marketing.
The goal is to increase your open rate and encourage your readers to take action.
Effective Ways To Use Email For Marketing
- Spend Time on Subject Lines
The time spent on your subject lines is the make or break part of your email. Your subject line is the first thing people read, and either choose to open or not. You must spend time to create a catchy and compelling subject line. You either make it 100% compelling or nothing else.
Your Type Of Business Plays A Role
The kind of business you run, the services you render or the products you offer, might largely dictate what you put here. Some business can afford to be sassier than others. Regardless of your brand personality, bottom line is, your subject line must be compelling enough to make people desire to open your email. Which will give them more information that can lead to sales.
John Hayes of iContact has a list of the best words to employ in email subject lines. Ensure to search it out course it is worth a reading. You can also check out an email subject lines resource published by Digital Marketer(101 different types of subjects that get opens).
- Segment Your Email List
Customer segmentation is crucial. Wondering why? Simple! Chances are more likely than not that your customers are interested in different things.
For instance, if you send out weekly special offers, and newsletters, there are likely people who have interest in receiving only one of those two emails.
Taking a look at your analytics and determining what your customer base responds to, means you can better cater for their needs. While also delivering the right message to the right people. You can do your list segmentation by interest, product or service type, age or date of last purchase, geography, etc.
Folks at Zapier developed a great guide on list segmentation. Search it out.
- Get Personal
If your email list segmentation is done properly, you have an opportunity to make your message go personal to each of those segments.
Blasting email lists on a mass-scale is a thing of the past. Consumers today expect to receive a message or an information that is both relevant and personalized to them.
You may choose to include a first name in the subject line. Or if you wish, reference a previous purchase the customer has made. All of these provides a nice touch that make your customer feel valued and more likely to be responsive. Responsive to open the mail and take the call to action in the email. Note though, personalization requires a decent amount of data to carry out. Hence you may need to make provision to invest in more advanced analytics tools.
- Be Clear and Direct in Your Call to Action (CTA)
Your subject line and a direct call to action are two vital elements you cannot afford to skip in your mail. Too often marketers send a misguided email into a customer’s inbox. A mail that doesn’t call the customer to do anything. This is a huge mistake.
An emails lacking a CTA is confusing to the recipients and does not benefit your business. Note however, as good as a CTA is in your mail, nothing is worse than a mail with an unclear Call-To-Action.
Hence as good as it is to include a call to action, make sure it is very clear.
You could send your email out to be proof read by a few persons, before you send it out. If it takes longer than 5 seconds for them to figure out what they need to do based on your Call-To-Action, then it’s not good enough.
Conclusion
Does email marketing work? You bet it does. This is one of the reasons Email marketing has become more popular than ever before.
However, creating effective emails that produce the desired results is not easy. Many marketers can attest to this fact. Not easy though doesn’t mean not doable.
You can absolutely create emails that your customers look forward to. Emails that are compelling enough for your prospects or customers to open.
A simple way to get started is following up with all the tips listed in this article.
