14 June 2017
Five email marketing tips to increase sales
With so many advances in digital marketing, email is sometimes considered a rather old-fashioned marketing tool. However, with around 53% of people now opting to view their emails on mobile, email is still one of the best ways to reach your existing and prospective clients.
If you want to speak out about your brand, build new relationships and convert those all-important leads into paying customers, email is still king. 7 in 10 people are said to have taken advantage of special offers from an email campaign in the last year, and 44% of people made at least one purchase from an email campaign.
Many entrepreneurs have built successful businesses using email lists as the core of their marketing. Want to know how to maximise your email marketing efforts?
List Building
It may seem obvious, but many people overlook this first step as they believe they already have a large list of contacts. This isn’t enough. You must be sure you have a solid bed of leads in your list, not just a list of random emails. There is no point having a gigantic email list if it’s full of people who have no interest in what you have to offer.
Get your email list right from the very start; attract those who are genuinely interested. Filling your list with your target market means you will have more chance of converting those leads into customers. For this reason, be very wary of accepting lists from third parties. It’s better to have a list of 10 people that are interested in your product, than 1,000 people who are just going to ignore your emails or unsubscribe.
Opt-in forms are a great way of collecting solid leads. If someone is already on your website, chances are they already have a need for your product or service. You can use opt-in forms to collect leads in various ways. You can offer blog updates, free downloads, it all depends on your business. This allows you to keep in contact, develop a relationship and nurture the lead ready for a sale.
Crafting the email
The subject line is often overlooked but it really shouldn’t be. If you think about it, the subject line decides whether that content gets put in front of a client or whether they decide to hit delete.
Make sure your subject line is simple, short and to the point. A subject line should be compelling, outlining the value of the email but in just a few words.
When it comes to the content, again we have to say keep it simple. People don’t pay much attention to their emails. You have only a short amount of time to get to the point and make an impression before they click next. There are lots of great ways to make a good first impression by email.
Keep your emails brief. Your content should focus on one key topic and no more. By focussing on one amazing offer or one 'must read' blog and keeping the call to action clear, you will increase the number of click-throughs you receive.
Time and Frequency
Many people ask about the optimum time and frequency to send out email campaigns. Despite extensive research and numerous theories, there is still no right answer to this. It varies dramatically depending on your target group.
The frequency is ultimately decided the importance of your information to the end user. You want to keep in the client's mind, but you don’t want to overdo it. There are too many businesses that are overdoing it and annoying their email recipients.
Be wary of sending too many newsletters; what is important news for your business, may not be as interesting to an end user. Much like blogging, original and useful content is what keeps people interested.
Think about the benefits you have to offer your leads and try to make sure each email is benefit driven. If you have an active blog, this is a great place to start for your email content. It doesn’t take much more work to share weekly updates about a useful blog you have written. There are many other benefits to blogging for business.
As for the best time to send emails, again, this will very much depend on who you are targeting. If you are a B2B company, it might make sense to email on a weekday morning when most employees check their inbox. However, if you are targeting a younger crowd, you may want to email in the evening or at weekends.
When you have a good idea of who your target market is, you need to research their behaviour before you do anything else. Tailored research will guide you to find the optimal time for your specific customer base.
Test and evaluate
As a marketer, there is nothing worse than receiving an email with typos and errors. Generally, your clients will think the same. When email is the sole point of contact with a client, you want to make your impressions count.
If you are sending a campaign to hundreds of clients, you want to be triple sure it’s perfect. Proofread it and send yourself a test email as the very minimum. When you read it back, try to think from your client’s perspective to ensure the correct tone is coming across.
You can even set yourself up with a number of different email accounts to check across different platforms. You want to be sure that the email you send won’t display errors in another browser or platform. With the rise of emails on mobile, it’s also a good idea to test this as well.
Over time, it’s important to analyse your list so you can find out exactly what works for your clients. Your list is unique to your business and this means a lot of trial and error is involved.
By reviewing the number of people who opened an email, the number that clicked links and the number of unsubscribes you begin to get a picture of what works and what doesn’t. Then you are in a better position to craft campaigns that your audience will find useful and engaging.
That being said; don’t get too hung up when people unsubscribe from your list. Part of the process of email marketing is highlighting those key clients who are interested in what you have to say and what your company has to offer. People may unsubscribe because they realise they have no need for what you are selling. Remember, you are not targeting these people.
Not having these contacts in your list will actually enable you to get a more solid idea of your target customers. Essentially, by unsubscribing, they have done you a favour. You are now left with a more focused list of leads who are actually interested in your product of service.
Hacks
Want to take some of the stress and time out of creating successful email marketing campaigns? The final food for thought is some awesome hacks that will increase your productivity when it comes to email marketing.
Automation
Creating an email autoresponder takes a lot of the hard work out of the process. An autoresponder is an email that goes out automatically when triggered by a certain event. An event could be a number of things. For example, when someone signs up to your mailing list or when someone downloads an e-book.
As soon as you receive that person’s email address you can email them automatically. Your auto-response can even be a series of emails, beginning with an introduction, then a link to an important blog and perhaps directing them to a special offer on your site.
A series of emails like this offering something useful each time fosters trust between you and that client. As these early emails help to form a relationship, getting them right is crucial. You can spend more time crafting the perfect series as you will save time and money in sending them. There are plenty of ways in which you can automate your marketing.
Spam fixers
There is one thing worse than receiving a spam email, and that’s sending one. There are some simple ways to ensure your email won’t be flagged as spam. For subject lines, this free spam checker is great for testing if your email will trigger a spam filter.
Being honest in your emails is an absolute must. Don’t lie about anything in the subject line or try to trick people to open them by suggesting something that’s misleading. This is the same with sales emails. Make sure to highlight that this email is, in fact, an advertisement.
Allowing people to unsubscribe with ease is super-important. You need to make it easy as pie for people to unsubscribe from your list. Offer a link in the email which is easy to see and ensure that they are removed immediately.
We hope these 5 email marketing tips will get you on your way to creating your own compelling campaigns.
For more marketing advice, why not come along to one of the workshop held at The British Library Business & IP Centre?