How to Make Your Email Marketing More Effective

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Suppose you’ve been doing business online for some years. You’ll undoubtedly agree with Colin Nederkoom that “email is still the most effective way to universally reach people who have expressed interest in your product or site.”

But you would undoubtedly have seen sensational headlines saying email marketing is dead! It is far from dead and brings advantages and potential for companies.

It helps you interact with your audience, promotes your brand and increases sales. Here are some essential dos and don’ts that will help you make your marketing emails more effective and connect better with your customers.

According to this article, email marketing sometimes gets a bad reputation. But it’s not as embarrassing as direct mail (a $12 billion per year industry), but it’s pretty close.

Are you worried email marketing is past its prime? Are you wondering if it is still effective? Think again!

Companies shy away from email marketing because they think it is outdated. Many B2B business owners agree that email is the most effective channel for revenue generation and list it as the most powerful tool for customer retention.

According to a study by McKinsey & Company, email marketing is up to 40 times more effective than social media. The same research also shows that buying happens three times faster than through social media.

I will teach you practical strategies for your company to consider.

The list below is in no particular order.

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Table of Contents

1. Know Your Strategy

Avoid Overspending

If you’re a newbie in email marketing and have a robust marketing budget, you tend to want to splurge to set up an automated program with all the bells and whistles.

But I urge you to pull back on the brakes and avoid overspending on a system that may overwhelm you. Your best bet is to tread cautiously and take it step by step. Plan well to prevent burning your fingers. Set your email marketing goals and the metrics to measure your performance.

Create an Email Marketing Plan.

Consider your overall business goals for the year and improvements to your email strategy that could help you reach them. Define your context, objectives, and plans for your email campaigns and strategies to meet them.

Examples of SMART goals include increasing the number of subscribers on your mailing list and the open rate of your campaigns. You must also create and use your customer persona to guide all your email marketing efforts. To achieve even better consistency and set up a plan, you will stick to using a content calendar or an email marketing calendar.

Build a Strong Subscriber List.

‘The money is in the list’ is a common saying among online business owners, email marketers, and affiliate marketers. It emphasizes the crucial role of building a genuine subscriber list from scratch.

When starting email marketing tempts some companies to cut corners because they want fast results. Therefore, some make the sad mistake of buying email lists over the counter from shoddy vendors. It is a terrible mistake that can lead you into serious legal trouble with the authorities, especially now that the European GDPR law is in place.

So, I always advise clients venturing into email marketing to build their list from scratch. It is the proper way of making your subscriber list. However, for some companies, it can be a tedious process. However, the rewards are worth the effort.

Segment Your List for Increased Relevance and Impact.

Your contacts and subscribers to your email list are at different points in the sales cycle, and they require additional information and communication depending on which point they are at.

Sending the wrong information at the wrong time to the wrong person is a waste of everyone’s time. Email list segmentation divides email subscribers into smaller lists (aka segments) based on set criteria. It allows you to send more relevant content. Segmentation is the difference between blasting mass messages to a subscriber list and mailing targeted emails to smaller groups. The benefits of segmentation are that messages custom-tailored to a customer’s preferences, past activities, location, and other variables are much more likely to attract a consumer over a mass mail that makes customers feel like a number on a company’s mailing list.

With segmentation, better customer engagement means improved deliverability, better email open rates, click-through rates, conversion rates, and increased revenues.

It also helps to lower unsubscribe rates. According to this source, email marketing software providers may freeze your entire account if you have too many unsubscribes or a dismal open rate. By comparing users who haven’t opened an email in months to users who open every email, you’ll be able to create unique campaigns to help inactive users re-engage.
According to HubSpot, with up to 77% of email opens taking place on mobile, it's best to keep your email subject lines short and sweet. Share on X Segment your subscribers based on age group, income group, family, education, geographical location and interests.

Segment your list according to the new subscribers and leads. Engage with them and share all information regarding your products or services.

Give Something Valuable Away.

These days, people don’t give their emails to anyone. They don’t subscribe to your emails because they like your website. They only subscribe if you give them a sound reason to do so. Give away valuable freebies for people to subscribe to your mailing list. Make sure the freebie is relevant, useful, appropriate, and in demand in your niche so that your email subscribers find it appealing.

Make It Easy to Unsubscribe.

With policies like GDPR in place, it is unlawful to make it difficult for people to unsubscribe. Make it easy for your subscribers to unsubscribe from your mailing list. Don’t bury the unsubscribe link or button. If you don’t make it easy to find, people will mark your future messages as spam, which will not be suitable for your brand.

Nurture Your Subscribers Actively.

Remember that a subscriber to your mailing list is ready to buy your product or service. That person will appreciate newsletters that give them direct information about your product or service. Not only do nurtured leads more frequently turn into sales, but they also make 47% larger purchases than non-nurtured leads.

A lead nurturing email is an email a business sends to a person guiding them from the consideration stage to the lead funnel’s decision stage. These emails often appeal to the person’s emotions using social proof and user-generated content.

When someone subscribes to your emails, send them a welcome email introducing yourself and your blog. Give your new subscriber the same attention and care you’d give a person on a first date to make a positive first impression.

Through your lead nurturing emails, your subscriber gets content they’re excited to read, and you deepen the relationship and increase the chances of converting that person into a customer.

Most companies use an automated email system to send email campaigns and lead nurturing emails. So, choose an email system with options to tag people and create different segments in your list.

Focus on creating value-driven and unique content. It will help to turn your subscribers into an engaged audience. Leverage and repurpose your current content on your blog as a foundation, but also include unique value-adds to nurture email subscribers.

Re-engage Inactive Subscribers.

An inactive subscriber is anyone on your email marketing list who has not opened or engaged with your email in the past six months!

As a business investing in email marketing, you have three options with inactive subscribers. You can choose to:

Ignore their inactivity and keep sending them emails.
Cull your list and remove all inactive subscribers.
Re-engage your inactive customers and get them back on your customer list.

Experienced marketers will attempt to re-engage inactive subscribers to win them back as customers.

The first step to winning these persons back as customers is to identify who they are. For instance, you need to segment your email marketing list to identify subscribers who have not opened or engaged with your email in the past six months.

Try to find out why they’re inactive. For example, you can create a unique campaign for these people by Sending them an email with an emotional or sensational subject line. Use emojis, humour, and mystery, and provide an irresistible offer or use FOMO (fear of missing out). Be sure to use the right content in your re-engagement email. Give them exclusive offers and discounts.

Remind them why they subscribed to your mailing list and what they could miss. Don’t skimp on your email design. Make it look as appealing as possible. Since this is a re-engagement campaign, you must get more personal and appeal to their emotions. But remember to give them more control and the final say to decide whether or not they wish to remain on your list.

Use Automation.

From all we discussed above, you undoubtedly realise that doing all these manually is not efficient. That is why a lot of savvy marketers and organisations rely on automation. Email marketing service providers such as MailChimp offer automated email marketing solutions that you can use to your advantage.

Integrate Email and Social Media.

Have you ever heard of the marketing rule of seven? The rule states that it takes an average of seven interactions with your brand before a purchase occurs. A marketer or business that integrates email with social media marketing can achieve that milestone sooner.

Using both tools in tandem can help you grow your audience faster. You do so by encouraging your social network followers to subscribe to your list and vice versa.

Some benefits of integrating both are:

Through their profiles on social networks, you can put faces to your email subscribers and re-target them.
Your social media fans and followers become members of your tightly-knit email community.
You can create exclusive social communities, groups, or lists for your special customers.
Increase the sharing of your emails and content on social media and generate more traffic on your website.

Most companies use an automated email system to send out their email campaigns and their lead nurturing emails. Share on X

Continue Getting New Emails.

Coming up with fresh topic ideas for your email campaigns is challenging. Keep providing valuable content through your email to ensure your emails don’t end up in spam.

Some ideas for your emails include breaking news, digest, newsletter, reminders, sneak previews, follow-ups, Thank-You messages, holiday greetings, free shipping info, limited edition, updates, coupon codes, raffle draws, requests for feedback, featured (staff, product/service or customer), Welcome, Welcome Back, etc.

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2. Your Content

Keep Your Subject Lines Short and Captivating.

According to HubSpot, with up to 77% of emails opened on mobile, it’s best to keep your email subject lines short and sweet. Use less than 50 characters to ensure that people scanning your emails on their mobile devices read your entire subject line without any part being cut off.

Your best bet for creating a good email subject line is to know your audience intimately and cater to their pain points. Here are some strategies for writing captivating subject lines to leverage:

Humour: Adding humour is a suitable way to create a captivating email subject line. People are more willing to buy when they are in a good mood.
Curiosity: Using a curiosity-based subject line makes your reader want to click to read your email. But be sure to deliver on what your subject line says. Otherwise, readers will see your message as clickbait and end up in spam.
Numbers: Using numbers in your subject line is intriguing. Using numbers and curiosity will make your readers stop scrolling through their inboxes and click your message.
Negativity: I know I said before that your message should be positive. But if you use negativity sparingly and strategically, it can also help improve your subject line.
Shock: Shocking headlines prompt people to open your messages. This strategy is very popular with tabloids because it works. But use it sparingly and strategically for the best results.

Create Strong Content

Microsoft founder Bill Gates wrote an essay in 1996 saying that “content is king.” Sadly, most online companies don’t have the luxury of running content behemoth sites like the Huffington Post or BuzzFeed, which churn out loads of content daily. You must create strong content to give your content a chance in the increasingly crowded online space. Only strong content can deliver positive results. Creating strong content requires using the right tools.

When you create great content using tools like this, you position yourself as an expert and increase your readership because Google and other search engines rank strong content high in their search result pages. People will want to read and share your content with friends and colleagues. Creating strong content allows you to repurpose and reuse the same content on multiple platforms.

Design Your Emails

To maximise the effectiveness of your email marketing campaigns, you need more than great content. You also need a great email design. Be sure to design your emails to be responsive. Responsive emails are emails optimised and mobile-ready. They look fantastic regardless of the device or screen resolution the recipient uses. Be concise and reduce your email’s length as much as possible while retaining your message’s essence.

Lots of email service providers have well-optimised email templates you can use to craft meaningful and exciting messages. Using these templates ensures a consistent design and frees you to focus on creative content rather than design. These are some things that help keep your emails out of spam folders.

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3. Personalisation

Personalisation involves targeting your email campaign to a specific subscriber by leveraging your data and information about the person. According to this article, 50% of marketing influencers have reported that message personalisation is the most effective email marketing.

Email list segmentation divides email subscribers into smaller lists based on set criteria. Share on X

While this is a powerful tool in your email marketing arsenal, you must exercise caution. Get personal, but you have to set boundaries. Remember that these emails are corporate messages that represent your brand. So do nothing stupid or creepy. You don’t want someone to report you to the authorities for the content of your email.

When personalising your emails, use your recipients’ names and purchase histories and encourage them to reply to your messages whenever appropriate. Sprinkle words like ‘you’ throughout your email. Show appreciation for their purchase by subscribing to and reading your emails. Things like these help to make your emails sound more personal rather than some vague mass mailing campaign. Personalisation makes your recipients feel as if you tailored the message for them.

4. Frequency

Avoid ‘over-sending’ your marketing messages too frequently. Otherwise, your recipients will get overwhelmed and move your message into their spam boxes. An excellent way to find the right frequency to send your email campaigns is to use a content calendar with marketing automation. It will help you determine the optimal frequency to send emails at the right time.

5. Calls-to-Action (CTA)

An email marketing call-to-action (CTA) is a button or hyperlinked line of text that directs your recipients to your desired URL. The point of a CTA is to drive consumers to take the desired action, e.g. to read your article or watch your product video, listen to your podcast, download your PDF, sign up for your newsletter or buy your product/service. Test different CTA’s to see which resonates with your target audience. Include a CTA button or link in each marketing campaign. Make sure that your CTA provides a sense of urgency to your emails.

The call to action (CTA) is the climax of your email message. Your vehicle for momentum transfer drives your subscribers to take the next step you desire for them. No message is complete without a CTA. Therefore, you must craft the perfect CTA that attracts your subscribers to click!

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6. Analyse

After hitting the send button on your email campaign, the next thing is to test, test, test! And more testing! Your email service provider will give you access to the tools you will use to monitor your subscribers’ activity when they receive your message. Measure and optimise the performance of your campaign.

Track your data and test your campaign’s performance. You need to perform an A/B test or split testing of your email’s various elements and features, such as button shape, size or colour, the design and format of your message, the font size and colour, the text alignment, and the use of images or emojis.

Run these tests and measure the results. Then, use it to optimise your future tactics.

Key Takeaways

To make your email marketing more effective, it is crucial to consider the types of emails you are sending to your contact list. Whether it’s promotional emails, transactional emails, confirmation emails, or cart abandonment emails, each type serves a specific purpose in engaging with potential customers and building customer loyalty.

Using email marketing tools like Constant Contact or Campaign Monitor can help you create personalized content and automate future campaigns on a regular basis. By segmenting your audience based on their preferences and behavior, you can tailor your email series to deliver the right message to the right people at the right time.

Remember to include a clear call to action button, provide valuable and educational content, and adhere to the CAN-SPAM Act guidelines to avoid spam complaints. By sending simple, personalised, and engaging emails, you can nurture strong relationships with loyal customers and increase your email marketing revenue.

Remember to experiment with different types of email campaigns, such as email newsletters, sales emails, follow-up emails, or exclusive discounts, to see what works best for your audience and drives higher engagement rates.

Conclusion

Email marketing helps you interact with your audience, promote your brand and increase sales. As we’ve seen from the above, it is still one of the most effective ways for your business to reach a global audience of people asking about your brand. It is far from dying but has lots of untapped potential. Start using the abovementioned strategies to make your marketing emails more effective.

Do you need help making your marketing emails more effective? Let’s talk! Contact us today. I’ll be glad to help.

Frequently Asked Questions (FAQs)

Q: How Can I Make My Email Marketing Better?

Personalise your emails by addressing the recipient by name.
Segment your email lists based on behaviours or preferences.
Use eye-catching subject lines to increase open rates.
Include a strong call to action to encourage engagement.

Q: How Do I Create a Successful Email Marketing?

Segment your email list to target specific audiences and personalise content.
Use an engaging subject line to increase open rates.
Create valuable and relevant content that provides solutions or information to your audience.
Test and analyse your email campaigns to optimise and improve performance.

Q: What Are the 7 Email Marketing Strategies?

Personalisation: Tailoring emails to individual recipients.
Mobile Optimisation: Ensuring emails are easily readable on mobile devices.
Segmentation: Dividing email lists into smaller, targeted groups.
Automation: Setting up automated email campaigns based on specific triggers.

Q: What Is the Most Effective Email Marketing Strategy?

Personalising email content based on customer data and behaviour.
Segmenting email lists to deliver targeted and relevant messages.
Implementing automated email campaigns to nurture leads and build relationships.
Test and analyse email performance to optimise strategy for maximum results.

Q: Why Is Email Marketing Important?

Email marketing is a cost-effective way to reach a large audience. It allows businesses to stay in touch with their customers and keep them engaged.

You can personalise your email marketing and target specific segments of your audience. It helps drive traffic to your website and generate sales.

Q: How Do You Create a Good Email Marketing Strategy?

Understand your audience and target market.
Personalise your emails to make them more engaging.
Use an attractive design and layout for your emails.
Track and analyse the performance of your email campaigns to make improvements.

Q: How Effective Is Email Marketing for Business?

Email marketing can have a high return on investment, with an average ROI of $42 for every $1 spent. It is a cost-effective way to reach a large audience, as most people have email accounts and check their emails regularly.

Email marketing allows for personalised messaging and targeting, leading to better engagement and conversion rates. It can be easily measured and tracked, allowing businesses to analyse the effectiveness of their campaigns and make data-driven decisions.

Q: How to Build a Successful Email Marketing Campaign?

Determine your target audience and segment your email list accordingly.
Create engaging and relevant content that provides value to your subscribers.
Use catchy subject lines and personalised messaging to increase open rates.
Track and analyse your email campaign results to make data-driven adjustments and improvements.

How to Make Your Email Marketing More Effective