5 Email Marketing tips

At TLC, we work with a number of different digital marketing strategies and platforms, but one of the main marketing strategies we always recommend to our clients is email marketing. Email marketing is one of the most cost-effective and efficient ways to reach your audience and sell your services / products. In fact, according to Mailchimp, “a 2015 study by the DMA found that for every $1 spent, email has an average $38 return on investment (ROI).” This means that “when shoppers are ready to buy something, they often look for emails from their favourite stores/ services to do so.” However, just like with any digital marketing platform, it is important to make sure you are using your email marketing to its fullest potential. That being said, today we are chatting about 5 email marketing tips that will help you build an effective strategy for success. BONUS: We included some simple bonus tips at the end to help you and your email marketing thrive!

Create an Email Marketing strategy

As we discussed in the past, creating a strategy is an important first step in any business endeavour and email marketing is no different. Think of your strategy like a road map to success, one that you can come back to anytime you feel uninspired or a little lost. Here are 4 things to keep in mind when creating an email marketing strategy:

Know Your Audience

Just like with a social media strategy, having a clear audience in mind is important in order to connect and effectively communicate your goal and messaging. In addition, knowing who you are speaking to will help you come up with ideas in terms of what to write about and how to reach your desired clients.

Sign-up Sources

Figure out the “location” where you want your audience to come from. For example, is it predominantly from your website or social media? Or is it both? Depending on that, make sure you create a sign up sheet and advertise it as much as possible, so you can drive traffic to your mailing list! Helpful tip: Think of your marketing strategy holistically, like an ecosystem. This way, all of your marketing platforms are interconnected and work together to get you the most amount of engagement from your audience.

Segment Your Subscribers

Segmenting your audience into groups helps to narrow down the interests of your subscribers and, in turn, specialize and curate your content to specific clients. This way you can create and send more relevant and personalized emails to your recipients, which will make them feel more connected to your brand. Segments are especially great for announcing events and special products/ services. For example, if you are a photographer and you are planning a day of family mini sessions, your family segment is the most relevant subscriber group to send an email campaign to and engage with.

Create a Content Library

We know how hard it is to stay inspired and motivated, especially in your marketing. A great way to keep track of your ideas (whenever they may strike) is to keep a list of them in a content library. We always recommend having a content library for all of your marketing platforms, but because email marketing is very specific, it’s a good idea to have a separate library specific to its content. Some suggestions for your content library may include:

• Upcoming events or sales

• Recaps of what’s been happening

• Helpful tips for your clients

• New features or offers

• Information about you, your brand, and business (people love to get to know you!)

Helpful tip: feel free to recycle some of your existing content. Go through your social media and/ blog archives and reuse your content. Just always make sure it’s up-to-date, relevant, and true to your brand.

Have a Consistent Schedule

Just like with all your other marketing tools, keeping a consistent schedule helps you stay on top of things. Also, keeping a constant and consistent line of communication with your audience ensures that they stay connected and engaged with your brand. Content schedules will vary based on your industry. In fact, Keap states that, “it all depends on your objectives, or your product or service, or your business need. So while there is no chiseled-in-stone answer, don’t fret” because the beauty of email marketing is that you can play around with what works for you! Whatever the frequency, always be consistent in your timing and messaging.

Helpful Tip: make sure you have a “welcome” email set up for all of your new subscribers. It helps to offer a freebie to entice new readers to subscribe!

Create Visual Appealing Content & Design

Making sure your email design is appealing is crucial in order to captivate your audience. However, also ensuring that your emails are optimized for your readers is also important for reader retention. According to Mailchimp, “incorporating design principles that prioritize readability, such as using clear fonts, concise copy, and strategic spacing, can enhance the overall user experience. Responsiveness is key, and designing emails that foster accessibility and engagement” will be most successful.

Most platforms enable designs and customization so that your emails are beautiful, visually engaging, and attractive to your readers. Additionally, adding customized and original images and /or videos adds to your audience’s experience and helps to optimize your readership.

Helpful Tip: Personalize your subject lines with each recipient's name, this way your reader will feel a stronger connection to your brand and be more likely to keep reading!

Measure Your Performance

You’ve created a beautiful email campaign and send it out to your subscribers, but now what? Good news, most email marketing platforms have analytic tools to help you keep track of your email performances which, in turn, can help you with your future strategy. As with any other digital marketing tool, tracking your analytics for your emailing is important in order to help you refine your marketing strategy. For example, if you used a call to action prompt in your campaign and asked your readers to check out your website, your analytics will clearly indicate how many of click-throughs you received from your email. Those analytics can help guide your next campaign in terms of your calls to action or content.

Helpful Tip: Creating engaging and compelling calls to action are crucial for boosting click-through rates. According to Mailchimp, “your CTAs should be clear, concise, and aligned with the desired action, whether it’s making a purchase, signing up for a webinar, or downloading a resource.”

BONUS TIPS!

If you are just starting your email marketing journey, we know it can seem very overwhelming. So we included some bonus email marketing tips to help you stay focused and inspired:

• Make your subscribers feel special - do this through segmentation & customization. Everyone loves to feel like a VIP!

• Keep your content relevant, useful, and true to your brand - your email list is meant to get you more clients and customers, but it’s also there to build trust between your audience and your brand.

• Showcase your personality and make sure your vibe is consistent with your brand and all your other digital marketing!

• Make your emails short & sweet - leave the essays for your blog!

• INSPIRE your audience - after all, you were meant to shine!

We hope all of these tips and tricks help. If you want to chat more, just give us a shout here!