Email marketing campaign strategy and tips- 2023

Email is possibly one of the most medieval forms of email marketing campaign strategy but it still holds great power in terms of usage.

Now obviously, there are numerous ways of communicating with your customers and audience – live chat, connecting through social media, and more. But still, email rules the marketing channels with more than 4 billion users. Moreover, according to Campaign Monitor email marketing gathers an ROI of $38 for every dollar spent, which gives it a well-deserving place in every marketer’s list.

Email marketing beats out SEO, social media, and affiliate marketing by ranking itself as the most productive marketing channel. But, how is it possible for such an old technology to remain one of the most operative marketing strategies?

People still prefer to use email more than other platforms despite the rise in social aspects. It is evident in the data that most people are on email services and the number rises annually.

Additionally, you can retain the connections with email marketing, without worrying about the algorithm changes flop your reach.

This is why it is essential to create a successful email marketing campaign. But most people don’t know the right way to do it and this is a big problem.

This article will lead you through helpful tips and strategies for accomplishing impressive email marketing campaigns.

What is Email Marketing?

Email marketing is the sending of a series of emails to people in bulk numbers for promotional purposes. It generally targets sales or leads and may consist of advertisements.

It involves connecting with those customers or subscribers who have shared their email addresses with your service. After you have acquired their email address, with their consent you may send them various promotional emails to spread your business. This is an entirely repetitive procedure that lets you connect with many email subscribers as possible.

This marketing approach is very effective because a person choosing to share their information with you means that they are eager to know more about your business or blogs. Considering this, it is evident that the person is interested to purchase your products or services. This explains the high conversion rates with email marketing.

Email marketing is a persuasive advertising strategy and many businesses are applying it, so why not you?

No matter what your niche is, you can use this strategy to drive sales, inform clients and raise a community around your brand.

Modern email marketing has upgraded a lot from traditional mailing methods. It focuses on segmentation, consent and personalization. Although it may be a bit hefty, marketing automation will get the job done for you.

How Does Email Marketing Work?

Email marketing is quite spontaneous and often self-regulating. It is proving to be one of the top-performing arrangements.

In the basic form, productive email marketing campaigns need three important elements:

1. An Email List

You will require an active email list to pull off a promising email campaign. This list will have all the email contacts who are interested in getting marketing communications from your service.

You can build an email list in multiple ways. The easiest of them is creating lead magnets (offers) that your audience is attracted to by trading off their email addresses.

2. An Email Service Provider

An email service provider (ESP), also called an email marketing platform, is software that oversees your email list. It also assists in crafting and implementing automatic email marketing campaigns.

An ESP enables you to motorize actions set off by your audience’s behaviors. This way you can customize every interaction and boost conversion and engagement rates rapidly.

3. Clearly Defined Goals

Email marketing can guide you to achieve plenty of your business goals. For instance, you can use email marketing for:

• Driving sales
• Boosting brand awareness 
• Generating and nurturing leads
• Keeping customers engaged
• Increasing customer loyalty and lifetime value

In order to accomplish a successful email marketing campaign, you must orient your email list, ESP, and goals neatly. After that, you’re ready to get working.

The first task is to divide your email list corresponding to the subscriber’s actions or demographics.

Then, compose a single or series of emails targeting to convince your customers to do something – which should be your goal.

Finally, send the emails and track the campaign automatically using your ESP.

You may end up questioning if you could send your marketing email through the regular inbox provider rather than purchasing this additional email service.

Well yes, it is possible but there are chances that you might face a few issues with designing, limited email bandwidth and email deliverability. It is merely because Internet Service Providers (ISPs) are programmed for personal use only – not for email bashes. Therefore, when you send bulk emails through an ISP, they can get flagged by spam filters easily. Chances are, you may have your account disabled for dubious acts.

On the contrary, ESPs carry the required framework to secure analytic email deliverability rates.

Things to know before starting out on email marketing yourself

To start successful email marketing, you need to understand how your email should appear. Although, it is tough to attain higher conversion rates and click-throughs. You can apply a few measurable optimizations like the following.

• Title – Focus on creating a title that highlights the subject of your email as it is the first thing a user notices. With plenty of attempts, you can get more creative and experiment with different patterns.

Getting it right may take time, but keep working on various templates to see which engages more readers to open the email. Remember, opening rates increases with an engaging email subject.

• Email length – Emails differ from the usual website content and they should be very short and clear. So make sure you get the right set of words to convince the reader to open the link you enclose with it.
• Language – The simpler the language the better. Avoid using complex words and sentences as it might confuse the users.
• Include imagery – Create images that display your offers to draw more attention. But do use smaller images as they will be displayed by smartphone and tablet users too.
• Unsubscribe button – This feature will keep you away from landing in the spam folder as you are giving your subscribers a choice of action.
• Include a call to action – Make an easy and clear call procedure that the reader can access after they have gotten the idea of your offer. Include a link that can be accessible in a matter of seconds.
• Email authentication – This option is another safety measure to keep you secured from the spam filter. Moreover, your customers will entitle their trust in your brand because your email turns almost impossible to duplicate.
• Personal approach – Use an employee’s mailing address during the whole process. This way the recipient will feel more comfortable communicating with a person rather than the company. Therefore, evade sending emails as a company to raise your email click-through rates.
• Content relevancy – Ensure sending relevant content every time. Otherwise, applying other steps to confuse and deceive people will rapidly make you lose subscribers.
• Optimize the landing page – Make sure to optimize the landing pages visited from the mailing list. Negative conversion rates are expected if the page is invalid. Always ensure that the pages are easy to access.

Make the call-to-action button noticeable, and include more details that support the message in the email. Remember to include as few elements as possible; otherwise, the visitors may get distracted from the landing page.

By applying the following information, you too can make strategic email marketing. You can obtain better results by testing your elements more and more.

How does email marketing yourself?

Once you have your goals set and decided on a provider, it will be very simple for you to create an email marketing campaign. Follow the steps here:

1. Set a goal.

Start off by deciding what you want your email campaign to acquire for your business. A clear goal in mind will guide you through the entire procedure and help you take fundamental decisions. Here is a set of campaign goals that you will need:

• Driving website traffic
• Spurring online or in-person sales
• Promoting products or services
• Welcoming new members
• Sending news
• Requesting donations

2. Choose an email marketing service.

Think about what your business demands and what goals you have to search for a service that pairs up perfectly with those needs.

3. Build an email list.

The most time-consuming step is to build an email list but it is crucial. This list will configure your target audience and, therefore, it is always wise to grow it naturally rather than buying email lists. This will ensure your connectivity with people who are interested to get emails from you and engross in your content. You can source email addresses for your list from the following places:

• Existing email lists
• Email accounts
• Customer relationship management software
• Contact management systems
• E-commerce systems
• Requests for new emails via social media or your website

4. Segment your email list.

Segmenting the email list will enable you to send targeted emails focusing on the receiver’s particular interest or demographic information. The reader will engage with the email more as long as they find it relevant. Here are a few ways how you can segment your viewers:

• Geography
• Demographics
• Past purchases
• Buyer behavior
• Expressed interests
• Email Engagement

5. Create a campaign, and build your email.

Creating an email campaign is pretty direct if you’re using an email marketing platform where the specified steps will differ according to the provider. Most services supply templates and assist in placing the elements like CTAs and headers.

6. Use auto-responders.

An auto-responder will automate the email delivery. This feature activates through particular actions, such as a customer giving in their email address, or scheduled for timely sending. Auto-responders are employed to strengthen trust, generate leads, supply confirmation emails, deliver transactional emails and dispatch helpful information to customers.

Auto-responders help saves time and work by sending emails automatically and knowing if they should send a newsletter or a welcome email when triggered.

7. Enable tracking and analytics.

You have to participate actively with the analytics from your email campaigns. These will let you know how many customers are connecting with your emails, where you need to develop and more. There are numerous ways to personalize your analytics to reach the precise number you’re seeking. Here are a few things to monitor:

• Unique open rate. This number tells you how many recipients have opened your emails.
• Click-through rate. The click-through rate tracks the number of recipients who clicked one or more links attached to your email.
• Bounce rate. The bounce rate tracks how many times your emails are rejected by email servers. A high bounce rate shows that your email list is occupied with unproductive addresses.
• Unsubscribe rate. This shows the number of people who have requested to stop receiving your emails. If the unsubscribe rate reaches over 1% then you should reassess your content and bring more relevancy.

Types of email marketing

Emails may have various purposes. It can be promotional, informational, or have a distinct purpose to serve.

Promotional emails

Email marketing campaigns serve to promote special deals, new releases, gated content such as webinars and ebooks, and overall branding. 3-10 emails can be delivered periodically for a couple of days or weeks during a campaign.

Promotional email campaigns have clear call-to-action (CTA). This indicates the certain action you wish the readers can take, like purchasing something or visiting the website.

The frequency of such email marketing should be established from your business’s sales and marketing pattern. You can send multiple promotional emails during major sales occasions, like Black Friday, Year End Sale, and monthly clearances, within the 24-hour duration. Apart from that, promotional campaigns may be limited on a weekly basis during slower periods in the marketing calendar.

Informational emails

• Newsletters: Newsletter reports news related to your business.  It can inform new milestones acquired, new product potential, or can feature valuable content, for instance, a product’s analysis. A newsletter is sent weekly, bi-weekly or monthly. It helps preserve a logical touch with your email subscribers. 

But, the newsletters specifically don’t have to be about ‘news’ only. You can also focus on the letter aspect just like writing a one-on-one letter to your subscribers about something of their interest. 

Basically, a newsletter is a convenient way to share thoughts, insights and tips that focuses mostly on your audience’s delight.

• Announcements: Emails are an ideal scheme to notify customers of new releases, company announcements, amendments in service, etc. Email can often be the go-to channel for crucial messages.

For instance, if your website is facing an issue, or there’s a shipping delay, or your system/service is out of order, informing your contacts with an email is always a perfect way to manage communication. It is safe, and instant, and matches the formal tone for most important announcements.

Advantages and disadvantages of email marketing

Advantages of email marketing

Here are a few main benefits which you can get from email marketing:

• Building relationships with customers. It is very easy to make personal relationships with customers because email marketing is totally customizable. You can target every campaign for specific customers by using the information on their likes and dislikes, behavior, and demographics. This will get you a higher number of customer engagements.
  
  
• Boosting brand awareness. Customers will always keep your business in mind when they receive regular emails from you since your emails will be the first thing they see when logged in. Recruiting new customers is easy when you’re sending follow-up campaigns to someone who visits your site or buys a product.
  
• Promoting your content. Emails are a magnificent way to share your company’s latest news, updates, and new content. All the media options and various approaches to display content make emails more attractive. Comprise them with significant business news, links to videos and blog posts, or exclusive deals and coupons.
  
• Generating leads. With emails, you can convince customers to agree in receiving frequent email updates in replacement of getting something they value, such as discount codes and vouchers. This will help you reach new customers for your subscriber list.
  

• Marketing your products. Including your products in your emails is a simple way to market your products. It is a great way to share your regular emails with attachments of product information to remind your customers about your offers.
  
• Saving money. Email is quite affordable compared with the rest of the digital marketing options. You can easily look around for a plan that best fits your budget.
  
• Reaching a large audience. Almost everyone these days who is a part of the virtual world has an email address. This opens up more chances for you to present your business in front of millions of people. Just make sure you have a catchy headline that grabs their interest.

Cons of email marketing

Look out for a few possible downsides of email marketing before you start searching for a provider or a campaign.

• Getting marked as spam. Many marketing emails get marked as spam, due to the popularity of emails and customers go through “email fatigue”. This dismisses your emails into the spam folder and thus never seen or opened.
  
  
• Having trouble reaching the right audience. Target your campaigns well enough so that they don’t land in the spam box. If your message gets recognized by the recipient, then it is much more likely to be opened and read. Therefore, it is crucial to make groups and lists wisely among your contacts. If you share the same message with everyone, it may not possibly be appropriate for half of them, so that’s a waste of your time and effort.
  
  
• Limiting creativity options. Despite the email being completely customizable, there are certain compliance rules, contracts and template limits you have to comply with in order to achieve the highest chance of a successful campaign.

Benefits of email marketing

Emails play a vital role in the growing and managing of your business – from newsletters to order confirmations.

Email marketing helps you achieve 3 key objectives:

1. Conversions (selling your products and services)

You can send an email marketing campaign to your subscribers to drive sales for a new launch or promotion. Furthermore, you can test these techniques to amplify conversions.

• Customized discounts or special deals marking your subscribers’ birthdays or anniversaries, in welcome emails, and as a way to reconnect with your audience.
• Abandoned cart emails are activated when a visitor doesn’t check out after adding an item to the cart.

2. Brand awareness

Emails are one-to-one communication that connects you with someone directly. Not everyone is allowed into people’s inboxes these days. It is a designated spot reserved for favorite publications and brands.

Taking a spot in someone’s inbox will keep your brand set in the minds of your subscriber. A customized marketing email is more effective compared to a post on social media because it will ensure that someone has seen your message or not.

One crucial benefit of email marketing is its scalability. It means that you can send emails to a sizeable number of recipients at a fairly low expense.

3. Customer loyalty

Email is indeed a powerful strategy to create a community. It drives customer loyalty in all stages of the buyer journey, from lead nurturing to conversion as well as retention and onboarding. Moreover, email marketing is an essential tool to use along with sales CRM systems to simplify communication.

When to Use Email Marketing?

Email marketing is the ideal way to share information with people who are familiar with your brand. This means you have a line-up of customers, site visitors and stakeholders who are willing to subscribe and receive updates from you.

Before you begin

Use emails to accomplish the goals you’ve set in your annual marketing plan. Emails can also be used as part of a wide marketing campaign. You only need to ensure that your website is inadequate to support the campaign.

Develop your campaign around specific goals

Take sufficient time to design your campaign:

• Establish a substantial objective – such as generating a distinct number of demo requests, meetings, leads, or purchases.
• Characterize and target your audience. Emails can help you reach a mass audience but narrowing your target will let you speak about their needs directly.
• Highlight your good offers and captivating call-to-action earlier ahead in your message – readers are quick to flip through.
• Scheme a set of emails to build an ongoing campaign as multiple knocks can generate a response.
• Focus on satisfaction – be quick to deliver a call or email if your customer is expecting one, otherwise, they may lose interest.

Invest in good content

Most people don’t enjoy reading emails that give the vibe of an advertisement. Try offering relevant information to your recipients instead. To progress your content is an investment, but people will only open your message and read it when they find it relatable to their interests.

Choose the right technology

If this is your first time launching an email campaign, then you should use an email service provider (ESP) which is customarily a web-based service. Pick a renowned ESP to keep you flexible with the spam legislation and deliver messages to your targeted inboxes. You can increase your delivery rate using a good ESP. It will keep your email list neat, manage your opt-in and out process, as well as supply helpful feedback to refine your results.

Be respectful and follow industry practices

You will develop your chances of succeeding when you ensure to follow the accepted industry practices.

• Mail to your house list frequently – even business emails change promptly. The rate of bad addresses increases with the length of time gap between campaigns and those rebounds can trigger spam alerts.
• Be very clear to let your recipients opt-out easily from future communications.
• Make sure there’s an “opt-in” list if you are purchasing or renting a list.

Continually test, refine and improve

Be wise to test your campaign before launching it. If you assign a new list or ESP, assess your delivery and response rate beforehand. Run continuous trials and polish up headlines and copy, subject lines, design, landing pages, offers and delivery timings as well. You will be able to tweak all your campaigns during the process.

Conclusion

We hope our email marketing guide has been of great help to you. Clearly, with a few smart steps, you too can build a cycle in which your mailing list will enlarge continuously. As the market is changing rapidly, be sure to apply one of the abovementioned tools. They will make your tests, experiments, and optimization of your email strategy much easier and reel in the best performance.

We wish you good luck – and stay patient because you are going to love the results which are going to come after a while.