Email marketing is the most direct and effective way of connecting with your prospects, nurture them and consistently convert them to be your customers. Setting up an email marketing funnel requires different marketing strategies that help you win over your leads and generate sales.
Let’s find out the basics,
What is Email Marketing?
Email marketing is the highly effective digital marketing strategy of sending emails to prospects and customers. Effective marketing emails convert prospects into customers that turns to loyal and long-term customers.
The Importance of Email Marketing
Despite the rise of social media and unsolicited spam email remains the most effective way to nurture leads and boost customer loyalty.
There are many reasons you should make email marketing one of your top priorities, here are they;
1. Email is the best communication channel. At least 95% of consumers check their email on a daily basis. That can’t be said of any other communication channel.
2. You own your list. On any social media platform, your account (along with all your fans and posts) could be suspended or deleted at any time, for any reason, without notice. However, you own your email list. No one can take those leads away from you.
3. Email just converts better. People who buy products marketed through email spend 135% more than those who do not receive email offers. In fact, email marketing has an ROI (returns on investment) of 4400%. And if you are wondering if social media converts even better, think again: the average order value of an email is at least three times higher than that of social media.
Email is simply the best way to make sales online.
How-To Start Email Marketing
Email marketing is made up of several moving stones altogether, but that doesn’t mean it has to be complicated. Here’s how it breaks down…
1. Start with Your List: The bottom line is that you can’t send out email marketing campaigns if you have no one to send them to. And the other thing to remember is that email marketing won’t work if you don’t have the right people on your list.
A good lead generation software empowers businesses to create stunning multiple campaigns in a matter of minutes with zero coding skills required.
Then, using highly advanced targeting rules, you can display these campaigns to the right people at just the right time in their customer journey.
2. Add an Email Service Provider: An email service provider (ESP) lets you segment your audience, organize your list, and distribute email campaigns to your audience. You can also track the results to improve future campaigns.
A good ESP should integrate with your other marketing tools so you can turn everything on autopilot as you grow your leads.
After those two steps, it’s just a matter of refining your lists and you’re messaging so you’re reaching your audience and really connecting with them. Plus, you’ll be able to set up some automation in your email service which will make things much easier for you.
Growing Your Email List
What most people do when they want to build an email list is to put an option form on their website and hope that people sign up. Unfortunately, this strategy usually doesn’t work very well.
To grow your email list, you need to attract people with a compelling offer. You need a lead magnet.
What is a Lead Magnet?
A lead magnet is something awesome that you give away for free in exchange for an email address. It doesn’t have to cost you anything to create; most lead magnets are digital materials like PDFs, MP3 audio files, or videos that you can create yourself at minimal or no cost.
It can be absolutely anything you want, so long as it provides value to your visitors for free.
How to Create an Option Form that Converts
The purpose of your Option form is to convey the big benefit of your lead magnet, so your website visitors subscribe to your email newsletters in exchange for getting the lead magnet.
To create a CTA form that converts, it needs to have the following components:
- Enticing headline: Make sure your headline clearly describes the big benefit of your lead magnet.
- Helpful description: Is your description brief, clear and to the point? Use bullet points to help the reader’s eye quickly scan what they will get.
- Attractive visuals: Include an image of the lead magnet if you can (like a mock-up of your eBook). A photo of a person looking towards the Option form is also a great way to boost conversions. We’ve got a great list of visual content creation tools that can help you create amazing visuals.
- Simple form: Don’t try to ask for more than a first name and email address. Asking for too much information too soon will kill your conversions.
- Compelling subscribe button: Make sure to use a contrasting colour for your subscribe button, so that it really pops out on the page. Also, use non-generic email copy that compels people to click right away.
What is Email List Segmentation?
Email list segmentation is the process of breaking your subscribers into smaller groups based on specific criteria so that you can send them more personalized and relevant emails.
Rather than blasting every email to your entire email list, segmentation lets you send certain emails only to those subscribers you think will be the most interested in that content, resulting in higher conversions.
Why Segment Your Email Marketing List?
Segmenting your list is proven to increase your email open rates, boost your CTAs, and decrease your unsubscribe rates. That’s why smart email marketers use segmentation to drastically improve the effectiveness of their email campaigns.
There are many different ways to slice and dice your list into segments. Here are a few ways to get you started:
- New subscribers: send new subscribers a welcome email or a welcome series.
- Preferences: subscribers who want to hear about blog posts vs. those who only want sale notifications.
- Interests: subscribers who like classical music vs. those who like pop.
- Location: notify subscribers who live in the area about your local event.
- Open rate: reward your more engaged subscribers with a special offer just for them.
- Inactivity: remind subscribers who haven’t engaged for a while of the next step you want them to take.
- Lead magnet: send targeted emails based on the topic of the lead magnet that they opted-in for.
- Shopping Cart Abandonment: remind subscribers who put items in their cart that they haven’t checked out yet.
How do I build a strategy following email marketing best practices?
This guide is a great way to build the best email marketing strategy and we encourage you to follow it! We also have a great post on how to run a successful email marketing campaign that you should definitely check out. Here’s what you’ll find:
- Set a goal for your email campaign
- Decide on the types of email you’ll send
- Choose your audience segments
- Select the right technology
- Create eye-catching Options
- Plan emails and follow-ups
- Craft the perfect subject line
- Write your email marketing copy
- Design your email
- Test and track your email campaign
How often should I send marketing emails?
There’s no hard, fast rule when talking about how often to send marketing emails, so we recommend that you ask your subscribers how often they want to hear from you. You can also do some A/B testing to see what frequency has the best performance.
Generally, you’ll want to reach out to newer subscribers more often since they’re just getting to know you. But, beyond that just send out emails on the schedule you’ve established and no more.
What email metrics should I track?
The top 3 metrics to track for email marketing are:
- Deliverability. Your email deliverability rate is the number of emails that made it successfully to the target recipient’s inbox.
- Open Rate. The open rate shows the number of recipients who opened your email.
- Click-Through Rate. The click-through rate shows the percentage of subscribers who clicked a link in your email (usually to a landing page on your website).
Sending email newsletters, Is a good option or not?
Absolutely! More than 83% of business-to-business (B2B) marketers send email newsletters as part of their content marketing strategy. Email marketing is a very cost-effective way for brands to communicate with their customers and email newsletters are an essential piece of any email marketing strategy.
Takeaway from this guide
As you are building your email list, make sure that you learn the basics well before diving into the email marketing journey. From creating your email list to creating customized content for your prospects lends a great deal to success. Make sure to keep your email copy on point to engage subscribers and keep them reading.
Raushan Bhardwaj is a SEO Professional Blogger and having More than 4 Years of Experience in Digital Marketing Space and helped various businesses to improve their Online Presence.