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Email has been one of the best ways for businesses to get in contact with their customers for years, and is a tried and tested method of converting potential leads into sales, as well as helping to further awareness about your business.
It’s arguably the communication system with the largest number of users too, with over 4 billion email users worldwide.
But marketers don’t just love email because of the huge user base, they also love it due to its incredibly high Return On Investment (ROI).
In 2020, the average ROI was $36 for every $1 spent.
So, if you think email marketing (see also ‘The Six Challenges Every Email Marketer Must Face‘) is going to be a successful marketing option for your business, then you’re going to want to know how to run an email marketing campaign successfully, so keep reading on for our guide to a successful campaign!
Email Marketing – What Is It?
If your business is relatively new, and you haven’t had much prior experience in the marketing field, then you might be slightly confused about what email marketing is, and what it involves, so allow us to explain.
Email marketing is a way of communicating with your customers, and attempting to try and develop your relationship with the consumer to eventually turn them into customers.
This is done by sending out emails to both your active customers, and people who could potentially become customers, in the hopes that you will be able to increase your brand awareness, further engagement with your brand, and help to nurture any possible leads.
You might think that email marketing is outdated in comparison to the different forms of digital marketing that exist today, but since email marketing has the best ROI, and the highest conversion rate out of any of the marketing channels, then it makes it impossible to neglect for any business.
Benefits Of Email Marketing
There are a load of benefits to email marketing, and we’re sure that once you’ve learnt about them, you’ll agree with us about just how important email marketing is for a business, and we hope this list will inspire you to get your own email marketing campaign running as soon as possible!
Brand Awareness
Brand identity is one of the most important aspects of running a successful business in this day and age. It helps consumers understand your brand and products better, and allows them to better align themselves with the values you share.
However, identity is nothing if people aren’t aware of your brand to begin with, and email marketing is a fantastic way of increasing your brand awareness by sharing contextual information about your products and other valuable resources with those who subscribe to your mailing list.
The content and design of the emails you send need to be cohesive and concise, otherwise people will struggle to recognize when an email is from your brand!
Website Traffic
There are many ways to increase website traffic for your site, however none of them are as effective as email marketing.
There are multiple ways to use emails for this purpose, such as providing snippets of articles in the email which are shared to those on the mailing list, but then the full version is only available on your website.
Alternatively, including a Call to Action to your email where your subscribers will be redirected to a specific landing page (see also ‘How To Create A Landing Page On AWeber‘) or sales page is an excellent way to drive traffic and provide potential customers with more information about your products.
How To Create A Successful Email Marketing Campaign
1. Set A Goal For Your Campaign
The first thing to do is establish what you want your email marketing campaign to achieve. This is the key to whether or not your campaign will be a success, so think about it before you start. Here’s what most campaigns typically aim for:
- Increase brand awareness
- Drive website traffic
- Generate revenue
- Nurture potential leads
- Gain feedback
2. Understand Your Target Audience
The next step is to try and understand your audience. We recommend you segment your email audience, because although they may all share a general interest in your topic, each person has different characteristics, such as:
- Age
- Gender
- Location
- Preferences
- Engagement
- Preferences
- Activity online
3. Choose Your Campaign Type
You’ll also need to pick the type of email marketing campaign (see also ‘What Are The Different Types Of Email?’) that you want to run, and picking the right one is another factor that will determine whether or not the campaign will be a success.
Each of these have their own benefits, it’s up to you to decide when to use them:
- Welcome email
- Cart abandonment
- Newsletter
- Re-engagement
- Others (Seasonal discounts, Post-purchase, announcements)
4. Timing
You want to ensure that you’re sending your emails out at a time where everybody is going to read them, which means you probably shouldn’t send an email out at midnight on a Sunday otherwise it will be lost in a pile of emails on Monday morning.
Generally, the best days to send emails are usually Tuesday, Wednesday, and Thursday, and the best time to send them are 10am, 2pm, and 8pm. However, this can be niche specific, so do make sure you test different options.
If you’re an international business, you might want to segregate your email campaigns into time zones, which will allow you to send all of your emails at the correct time for your subscribers.
Other Tips To Ensure A Successful Email Marketing Campaign
So now that you know the basics of what makes a good email marketing campaign, here are some other tips that will help you too!
1. Creating An Email List
Running an email marketing campaign is pointless if you have no one to email, so make sure that your business’ website has an email sign-up form so your customers provide you with their email addresses.
2. Email Design
It doesn’t matter what sort of content your site or email has, if the design is messy and incoherent, then people aren’t going to pay attention to what you’re trying to say, let alone what you’re trying to sell.
So, you should make sure that your branding is coherent and consistent, making use of plenty of images and visual prompts, but not filling the page so much that it is hard to read or take in.
Make use of visual hierarchy principles to help build and organize the various elements of your email.
3. Personalization
No one likes emails that feel like they were written by a robot, and a touch of personalization is a great way to ensure that your email subscribers engage with their emails.
Including the subscriber’s name in the opening line is a great way to catch their eye.
Providing them curated product suggestions based on their previous purchases or what they’ve viewed on your site is a great way to help demonstrate that you understand them!
Summary
To summarize, there are many factors that go into creating and running a successful email marketing campaign, but once you understand the basic principles of how to create a good email marketing campaign, then you should be able to create your own email marketing campaign in no time!
