As you are here today reading this blog, let us start by assuming that you already know the significance that Email Marketing holds in your business.
Email Marketing is that solid rock that will take you a step forward in your business journey but this does not come easy either.
Email marketing can connect your business with just the right people you would want to achieve your business goals. So no doubt, Email Marketing renders results, but to get those results, you have to get the process right first. You can not decide to dive blindly into it and expect to work it for you.
Instead, you need to chalk out a process for your email marketing strategy.
Did you know?
According to research, Email Marketing has an average expected return of 42$ for every dollar that you spend on Marketing.
You just have to get it right.
Fear not, this blog will tell you exactly what you need to do to create the perfect Email Marketing Strategy for your business.
How to Create a Perfect Email Marketing Strategy
Creating the perfect email marketing strategy is not a single step but a series of steps needed to be taken. We have summed up how you need to start with your journey.
1. Set Your Goals Right
Email Marketing should not be taken up because every company in the industry seems to be doing it.
You need to define your purpose and need to work your way to achieve those goals. Not sure what kind of goals you would like to have?
Here are some of the purposes for Email Marketing:
- Increasing the Sales
Conversion rate is important. You need to convert your leads into sales and one of the major purposes of your email marketing can be Increasing the sales for your business.
- Improving Brand Engagement with the Customers
Sometimes Email Marketing is not focusing directly on the sales but is trying to achieve the means to improve the sales of the company. An important goal that Email Marketing can fulfill is – Improving the way your company engages with your customers and provide them a great brand experience.
- Increasing traffic to your website
This is another indirect way to improve your sales. Email marketing directs traffic to your website which then gets converted. Email Marketing is one of the best tools to increase traffic to websites.
These were some of the common purposes for reasons for adopting email marketing in businesses. Apart from these, you can also have other goals such as saving your resources, building your brand, re-engagement with old customers, etc.
This is a major step that is often skipped by companies and Email Marketing is then taken up blindly without having any goal or purpose. A defined goal always gives you the direction in which you want to apply your efforts and funnels down your ways to achieve it.
2. Get the Marketing Tool that fits your needs
Assuming that you can take all the burden yourself is not the right way to go about it.
Why?
Firstly, because there is a huge competition out there. You want to be heard in a place where your customer is already hearing everyone screaming from different directions to buy their products. You need to be unique and need to come up with ways to grab your customer’s attention.
Secondly, to be unique, you need to focus on strategy more than the process. The process can be then automated and taken up by the right tools.
A smart marketer always opts for an Email Service Provider (ESP) with the features that best suit his needs.
Once you have set your goals, figure out what you need to be doing with your emails. If you want to set up welcome emails for your new signups or want to send out cart abandonment emails to re-engage with your customers or you want to send out reactive emails for great offers, and so forth.
Go ahead and buy the right Email Marketing tool that can help you launch your email marketing strategy in the best way possible.
3. Identify the Audience you want to Target
The first and foremost step of Email Marketing is ‘building lists’.
You must be aware of the fact that your money lies in the list, right?
So, you need to get your list right to get that money. In simple words, you need to define the audience you want to cater to, through your emails and only then you can get a list of the audience that would be interested in hearing you out and buying from you.
4. Decide on How you want to build your List
So far, you have chalked out your Email Marketing goals, settled on an Email Service Provider, and identified your target audience. Now is the time to weigh out your options to build your Email List.
If you already have one, you should focus on growing that list.
There are various ways through which you can ask your customers to opt-in to get your emails.
- Holding an Event and asking the visitors to pen down their email IDs can be one way of building your list.
- Subscription forms also help you build on to your lists.
- Sign Up Pop-Ups for your Websites also bring in a lot of subscribers.
- Customized Landing pages
Find out what will help you get the most qualified leads for your business and get down to business by starting with creating a list.
5. Segment Your Mailing List
You do not wish to waste your energy on people who are not even interested in hearing what you are willing to say, right?
Segmenting your lists would help you do just that. For effective engagement, you should segment your list based on gender, location, preferences, age, etc. Based on that, you can even send out targeted campaigns. Such emails appeal to your audience more and there is a higher probability of conversion.
6. Choose the kind of Emails you want to Send Out
Not all your segmented lists would be receiving the same email. Know your audience – personalize your email content and serve their needs.
Once you have segmented your lists, it is time that you choose – If you want to send them an email series that might involve welcoming them and feeding them with informational content until they convert, or you want to send them a short term email campaign wherein you send them festive offers for buying your products, or you want to re-engage with your lost customers and send them cart abandonment emails.
Whatever is it that you decide, should be well thought and implemented because this is the step on which your Email Marketing engagement depends on. It plays a vital role in achieving your goals.
7. Always Split Test Your Emails to get the Best Results
Split Testing is a great way to ensure the maximum effectiveness of your emails. In Split Testing, you can send out different versions of the same email to a small percentage of your total recipients
Not only that, you can constantly study how your customers react to your emails, what elements work for you, and what does not seem to have any effect. You can then create improved versions of your campaigns and expect to see better results.
8. Monitor, Monitor and Keep Monitoring Your Performance
No process can be the best until it is constantly monitored, tracked on its progress based on reports, and then improved with changes.
Similarly, your Email Campaigns make zero sense as they stop giving you the results you desire unless you constantly work on them and bring in changes from time to time.
You draft an email, press send, and expect it to increase your conversion rate?
That is not how it works.
No, you need to study how your subscriber is engaging with your email. Keep an eye on your open rates, click-through rates, conversion rates, etc. Tracking your progress and continuously tweaking your emails now and then would help you go a long way.
Make sure that your email strategy is inclusive of improvements that you need to bring after studying your reports and final feedback as well.
Monitoring is an essential stage of a successful email marketing strategy which is often skipped and is undervalued.
In reality, this is the actual step that would help you sustain yourself in the industry amongst the big boys.
Conclusion
Email Marketing is still considered one of the most effective and economical mediums for communicating and marketing.
A majority chunk of the population still relies on emails for corporate communication and this number is continuously on the rise.
With trends favoring this medium in the long run, it is time that you pull up your socks and get yourself together to learn all the effective ways in which you can create the perfect emails for your business.
Strategizing for your emails would help you to be focused on your goals and move in the direction of achieving them. Without the perfect strategy, you would be lost and would not know the direction in which you should be moving ahead.
With this perfect strategy, go on and build your marketing empire!
