Picture this: you’re a small business owner with big dreams. You have a fantastic product and service to offer, but you struggle to get the word out to your audience. You know email marketing could be the answer, but your message might get lost among so many businesses flooding your prospects’ inboxes. Or worse, your email might just go straight to their spam folders.
Don’t worry! In this blog post, we’ll help you create an email marketing campaign that captivates your audience while reaching your marketing goals.. With these 7 tips, you can stand out in the crowd and make your customers remember (and LOVE!) you back.
1. Define Your Goal
The first step is to always know where you want to go. What do you want to achieve with your emails? Do you want to drive more traffic to your website, increase sales, or simply awareness? Defining your goal will give you a clear direction and purpose, determine your target audience, and measure your success.
When setting your goal, be specific and realistic. If you want to increase sales with email marketing, set a specific sales target and a deadline. If you’d like to increase traffic to your website, decide how much traffic you want and how you will measure it.
Once you’ve defined your goal, you can start crafting your email content with a specific objective in mind. This will ensure that your messaging, tone, and CTAs align with your goals. By tracking your results and analysing your data, you can adjust your strategy as needed to continuously improve your campaigns and reach your target goals.
2. Build a Quality Email List
Not all email addresses are created equal. Just because you have leads signing up doesn’t mean that they are already qualified leads.
You’ll want to focus on collecting email addresses of people who are genuinely interested in your services, and one way to get them is by offering lead magnets. A lead magnet is an incentive you offer for your website visitors or social media followers in exchange for their emails. This could be a free eBook, template, webinar, or other valuable resources that are relevant to your target audience.
If you’ve already created a buyer persona, look back at the pain points and problems they’re facing and create a lead magnet that addresses those issues. Remember to make it unique, high-quality, and informative to make your audience want to give you their email addresses.
Once you’re done, promote it on your website or social media to attract quality leads. Make sure to have a simple, clear opt-in form to make the process seamless. Building a quality email list will take time and effort, but it’ll be worth it in the long run!
If you don’t have enough time to build and manage your email lists, In The Willow can help.
3. Use a Professional Email Service
For startups, sending emails with a personal email account or through a web server might be tempting as it seems to be a simpler, more cost-effective option, but this is not always the case. Here are the top reasons why you should use using a professional email service.
- Deliverability: Personal email accounts might not have the necessary features to ensure that your emails will be delivered to all of your subscribers. On the other hand, professional email services have dedicated servers and connections with email providers to ensure that your emails will be delivered.
- Reputation: Sending emails through your personal email or web server could damage your brand as these are often associated with spam, making it harder to get your emails sent and delivered in the future.
- Design: Professional email services have templates and design features to create visually-attractive emails optimized for different devices. They also have features like email automation or analytics to make it easier for you to send out emails and track your success. Professional email services like MailChimp offer tools and resources so you could send effective marketing campaigns, without having to do everything manually.
FUN FACT: In The Willow is now Mailchimp-certified – let’s give your emails a boost!
4. Create a Compelling Subject Line
The subject line is the most critical component of your email. It’s the first thing your subscribers will see upon receiving your email, and will play a significant role in whether they will open your email or not.
Aim to make your subject lines short, snappy, and relevant to your email content. Avoid using generic or “spammy” subject lines that don’t provide real value to your subscribers. Make your subject line clear as to what your email is about and how it can benefit your reader.
One effective technique is to use personalization in your email subject lines. When you include your recipient’s name, you’ll create a more engaging subject line that will directly speak to them. You may consider using numbers and emojis to make it stand out but don’t overdo it or it could end up as spam.
5. Create Valuable Content
Keep in mind that your subscribers are busy people, so make sure that your email content will be worth their time. Creating valuable content is similar to creating lead magnets – start by understanding your audience. What are their wants and needs? How can your service solve their problems, or achieve their goals?
Make sure that your content will also be actionable – give your readers something they can do right away. You could redirect them to a helpful blog post, or offer a discount code for your products or service.
Using images and videos could also help make your email content engaging and visually appealing. Tell your brand’s story with high-quality images, but make sure to optimize it to load quickly and save your readers’ time.
6. Optimize for Mobile Devices
People often check their emails on the go, so if your email doesn’t display well on a mobile screen, chances are your readers could simply delete or ignore your emails altogether.
To optimize your emails for mobile screens, make sure to keep your design simple and readable. Use a single-column layout if possible, use a clear font and font size, and avoid adding too many images and videos that may take too long to load on mobile.
Ensure that your email is also responsive – it should adjust its size and layout to fit your reader’s screen. There are many mobile screen sizes out there, so keeping it responsive ensures that your content is accessible regardless of the type of device they’re on.
Finally, test your emails before sending them out, This will help you identify any design or readability issues before it’s too late.
7. Test and Analyse
All marketing plans you execute must be measurable, that includes your emails too. Testing and analyzing can help you understand what worked best, what didn’t, and what strategies could you consider for your next campaigns.
By doing A/B tests – trying out different subject lines, content, and send times, you’ll eventually learn what resonates with your audience and plan your future campaigns according to it.
Most analytics tools can also give valuable insights, such as open rates, click-through rates (CTR), and subscriber engagement. With these data, you can identify trends and areas for improvement and get closer to your target goals with each campaign.
And that’s it! With these tips, we hope you can create successful email campaigns that convert and resonates with your target audience.
But if you’re still feeling overwhelmed, or don’t have the time to implement these tips, you can consider working with a small business coach to help plan your campaigns and free up your time to focus on other parts of your business. Talk to us and boost your email campaigns today.