WHAT MAKES EMAIL MARKETING STAND OUT FROM OTHER MARKETING STRATEGIES?
Compared to other marketing channels like social media, email marketing is permission-based. With a customers’ email address you have direct access to your target audience and can deliver personalized emails. This allows you to communicate with prospects or customers based on their schedules and you’re likely to get seen because most people check their mails daily. Also, for the same reason, chances of engagement and conversions are higher since you didn’t come uninvited and can communicate with subscribers based on their schedules. It is inexpensive compared to other marketing strategies. Email marketing is best augmented with other marketing strategies to produce the best results. You might be leaving money on the table if you haven’t incorporated email marketing into your strategies.
WHO SHOULD USE IT?
If you have any form of audience and have value to deliver, then you should use email marketing to build lasting relationships . Sendmunk is best suited for creators, bloggers, e-commerce businesses, and online marketers. The umbrella is big enough to accommodate you and the value you have to offer for the niche you are involved in . It doesn’t matter the size of your audience or business.
GETTING STARTED.
1. GOAL SETTING.
As soon as your business and/or website is up and running, you should start collecting an email list and creating an email marketing campaign. If you haven’t started, the next best time is now. Not starting right away, would make you lose a lot of prospective customers, traffic, and significant connections. But also, if you aim at nothing, you are going to hit nothing.
The first step in getting started is to figure out what you want to do with your email marketing campaign.
A good email marketing plan for most businesses should consist of three sorts of campaigns. Each group serving its own distinct and vital purpose:
Direct emails are an important element of the sales process. Customers will have a more personal experience as a result of these emails because they are sent directly to them usually by the company staff.
Newsletters and one-time campaigns provide you with the opportunity to market future events, new products and services, and any other relevant information to your clients.
Businesses can work smarter, not harder, with automated campaigns . Customers at various points on their customer journey receive these pre-programmed messages based on their last interaction or previous response.
A well-rounded email marketing approach includes all three campaign kinds. If you’re clear on your objectives, you’ll be able to build better campaigns and accomplish exactly what you want. Here are a few examples of common objectives:
- Raising awareness for your blog
- Publicizing the debut of a new product
- Increasing the number of visitors to your website
- Boosting sales.
- Promoting a webinar, online course, or other similar events.
You get to decide what kind of campaign will be effective after determining the objective.
2. CHOOSING THE RIGHT EMAIL MARKETING SOFTWARE.
There are various email software providers (ESPs) available out there. To begin a campaign you will require a reliable ESP before sending your first email. Sendmunk, unlike a regular inbox (which is wonderful for direct emails), allows you to send campaigns to huge groups of people, create, manage and segment your subscriber list, and measure your results all from one place.
Many thriving business owners and creators use automated marketing tools to build easy-to-manage and effective automated emails. If this describes what you intend to achieve, then you’ll need Sendmunk to minimise repetitive tasks. Fortunately, you don’t have to choose between sending newsletters and sending automated messages; Sendmunk allows you to do both.
3. BUILDING YOUR EMAIL LIST.
To persuade individuals to subscribe and join your email list, you most likely need to provide incentives that will provide them with a compelling reason to do so. The substance of your emails can sometimes be enough of a reward.
People want to avoid spam at all costs, and handing over your email address to spammers and phishers is a recipe for disaster. Not to mention that the average email user receives a barrage of emails every day, even though they have no recollection of subscribing to any of them – which shows how common bad email practices are.
There are a variety of freebies as subscription incentives depending on your audience segment, they include:
• eBooks • List of useful tools • Templates
• Webinar • Educational podcast • Educational video
If you’re not sure what you can provide, one approach to start is to look at the competitors and see what they’re offering.
A subscriber list is the foundation of any email marketing plan. If your list is small at first, don’t be disheartened; as you express the benefits of opting in and continue to deliver valuable content, it will increase organically. Consider all of your consumer touchpoints and look for opportunities to ask them to join up for your email marketing. As your list grows, you will need segmentation to provide more personalised emails. You can segment based on gender, number of purchases, interests, geographical location etc
4. THE EMAIL
- Subject line
The importance of subject lines and pre-header material cannot be overstated.
Your email’s subject line can make or break it. So much so that 35% of email receivers open emails solely based on the subject line.
Be succinct and witty. It shouldn’t be too long ( 4-7 words can do the magic) Avoid spam triggers. These will cause delivery issues on services such as Gmail, Yahoo, and others.
When viewing an email in the inbox, the preheader text is the summary that appears behind the subject line.
It often serves as an extension of your subject line, and it can be just as significant.
Content
Time is a scarce resource and in this age, attention span has dropped significantly. You want to ensure you deliver value that is worth your audience’s time. Most people do not read the entire length of an email but rather scan through. So you want to make sure the fonts and design attract the viewers’ attention to the most important segments of the email.
Time:
When it comes to emails, the timing is often just as crucial as the substance. More subscribers will open, read, and engage with your material if you send an email campaign on the right day, at the appropriate time.
So, when is the most efficient time to send an email?
It is debatable. Every audience is unique, and what works for one company may not work for another. It’s critical to test your list regularly to see when it responds best. However, there are a few general best practices that can serve as a starting point: The best days to work are usually weekdays. According to studies, weekdays have the highest open and click-through rates. The majority of individuals check their emails first thing in the morning.
MEASURING PERFORMANCE
Setting strategic goals for your email marketing campaign is critical for determining whether your messaging is effective. Sendmunk analytic dashboards makes your email easy to monitor. This board offers vital facts to assist you in evaluating your emails to check for their effectiveness.
Here are some metrics to keep an eye on:
Open rate: Your open rate indicates the percentage of people that opened your email, and it can help you figure out when the optimal moment is to send it out (day and hour). The open rate also determines the success of your subject line and pre-header text.
Click-through-rate(CTR): Click-through-rate (CTR) is a metric that directly gauges success by displaying the percentage of receivers who ‘clicked’ on your a link in the email. Did your target audience receive your content well? Your CTR will inform you. Across all industries, the average CTR is 7.06%
Unsubscribe rate:
Unsubscribers are subscribers who have requested to be removed from your email list. You should expect a few unsubscribes ;nevertheless, a significant increase in your unsubscribe rate is a hint that you should reconsider your strategy. The average percentage of people that unsubscribe is 0.02%
