Blog / 18th June 2021
Email marketing strategy tips to generate leads
Our friends over at Little Seed Group talk here about tips to make email work for your business.
Email marketing is a powerful tool to use in your digital marketing strategy. It is inevitable that your recipient has to take action on an email – whether that’s to open, leave unread, delete or click on a call to action when the newsletter has been opened. Because these actions are trackable, it is easy to measure the success of your email marketing campaigns.
It is also easier to reach customers through email than through social media. An email is highly likely to end up in your subscriber’s inbox, while a Facebook post may only reach 10% of your followers.
When done right, email marketing campaigns can increase brand awareness and build long-lasting customer relationships by keeping existing customers engaged with your brand between purchases.
But it’s also easy to get this wrong, or to fall by the wayside as email marketing, like all areas of digital marketing, is constantly changing. Adapting your strategy to suit new trends is essential so that your email subscribers come back for more, instead of hitting that dreaded ‘unsubscribe’ button.
Read on for actionable email marketing tips that will help you to generate leads and stay on your customers’ minds.
In this article, we will explain how to:
What do we mean by ‘sustainably’? This means targeting consumers who actually want to buy from your brand. Never, ever buy email lists from companies. Seeing as the people in these purchased email lists did not give you permission to contact them, this would be spam. It also violates Data Protection laws and the terms of use for many marketing automation companies.
Besides, you want to build a list of people who are genuinely interested in your business. You can do this by promoting your email list through your most popular marketing channels. Your website should always be the first priority, as once a customer is here, you know they are already interested in purchasing from you.
This could be embedded into the homepage or be a pop-up. You could entice first-time buyers to subscribe by offering an exclusive discount on their first purchase once they have subscribed. You can also ask for personal information such as their birth dates and interests to help you create tailored newsletters down the line.
Next, pitch your email newsletter on your social media channels. Those that are already following you have a level of loyalty and engagement with your brand, so are likely to be interested in receiving exclusive content and offers from you.
Most email databases can be integrated into your social media channels, like Facebook. You can create bespoke website landing pages across these channels, asking users to subscribe.
In addition to this, email database providers such as Mailchimp have mobile app subscriber landing pages. When you are out and about, you can open the landing page and quickly input someone’s details. So, when lockdown restrictions are lifted and we can start attending face-to-face networking events again, this provides a perfect opportunity to encourage other business professionals to sign up to your newsletter.
Finally, you could use paid advertisements to reach audiences that are similar to your own. For example, Facebook can analyse your Mailchimp subscriber list and create a similar audience based on shared interests.
This sounds really obvious, but it’s the first, most important thing to consider when crafting any sort of email to your subscribers.
Platforms like Mailchimp allow you to customize your ‘to’ and ‘from’ fields, for example including your customer’s first name in the subject line and body of the email. Small touches like this can make your emails feel much more personal.
Think of your email marketing strategy as a conversation with your customers. You can let them know you appreciate their custom after making a purchase or use your emails to get feedback. For example, you could send out surveys, or invite customers to leave a review on your website. The occasional update about what your business has been getting up to behind the scenes can help your brand seem more ‘human’.
This human element is key. Sending out emails too frequently on topics that aren’t relevant will appear spammy. If this doesn’t cause your subscribers to unsubscribe, it can land you in their spam folder. About 21% of emails sent by genuine email marketers end up in a spam folder. Make sure this isn’t you! If you were spamming an acquaintance with emails, they would likely block you. Treat each subscriber as having this one-on-one relationship with you, and don’t flood their inboxes.
The first thing that might come to mind when you hear ‘automation’ is robots, and impersonal, repetitive content. This is far from the truth. By using email automation software to trigger emails, you can be highly responsive to customer activity without spending hours and hours on this. You could use the following triggers to send personalised emails:
You could also explore other pathways to giving your customers more relevant content:
So, marketing automation platforms can help you to execute personalised email campaigns while saving you time. Little Seed Group is the only approved and certified Mailchimp Partner in North Yorkshire. Get in touch with us to find out how we can help you create brilliant email campaigns to help your business thrive.
A 2016 Ericsson Mobility study found that website loading delays can lead to a 38% increase in heart rate. This might seem dramatic, but the average person has an eight-second concentration span. So, you don’t have long to capture your subscribers’ attention.
Large media content, while being slow to load, can also land your email in the spam folder as large attachments are seen as a potential threat. The safest email size is less than 100KB. Ensure you always do the following to optimise your emails both for viewing and avoiding the spam filter:
Following these steps will ensure your emails lead to sales by building customer relationships and having emails play a crucial role in their customer journey. A successful email marketing strategy is personal, responsive, and designed with care.
Thank you to Ellen at Little Seed Group for sharing this article. You can find more advice from Little Seed Group here https://littleseedgroup.co.uk/blog/
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