Understanding the email marketing strategy is very important to run successful marketing campaigns for your business or industry.
It will help you to engage with your target audience, drive conversions, and nurture customer relationships effectively.
Here I will explore the essential steps and proven email marketing strategies.
Read on to explore,
12 Email Marketing Strategies
Since 1971 email has spread its dominion all over the world. In the continuation of the era, its usage is constantly changing from personal email to the marketing field.
As we look at the stats, businesses see, on average 10-12% conversion rate from email marketing campaigns.
Remembering this, the sales team and marketers ensures its use by creating different strategies.
But some basic steps help to nurture leads into the email funnel.
Small businesses can achieve remarkable marketing success by leveraging the power of email marketing strategies to nurture leads effectively.
Let's explore these basic steps of email marketing strategy to boost your small business marketing success.
1. Understand Email Marketing Strategy
Before we jump into the steps right away. I ask you, do you have a proper understanding of email marketing strategy?
Let me explain,
In a word, an email marketing strategy is a procedure for achieving marketing goals.
It might sound like a stereotype to you. No worries, read on further;
Email marketing is a direct marketing tool. It helps small businesses or start-ups to develop their new customer base, shares new products, drives sales pitches and updates.
Which actually helps to develop brand awareness of your businesses.
Now, everything has continuity, and the same goes for email marketing. So, in order to succeed in email campaigns, the procedure you plan and implement is strategy.
For this instance, you must make your strategy more realistic and actionable. Follow the rest of the steps to build a sophisticated email marketing strategy.
Learn how to create business email.
2. Understand your Target Audience
Identify your target audience and their explicit and implicit data.
Explicit data is the shared information of a persona by the contact or company.
And the implicit data is user behaviour.
This information will help you to determine -
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Who is your customer base,
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To whom to send targeted email
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And to whom not to send (Most significant: because sending emails to the people who don't opt-in to hear from you is SPAM).
Once you are sorted with these queries, you can start focusing on your goal.
3. Set an Email Marketing Goal
Think about where you want to reach before deciding which way to go.
The same goes to email marketing strategy– before crafting the strategy, determine what you want from this strategy.
Once you are sorted, you can start mapping your journey, focusing on your destination.
Here are some quick tips that will help you to set a goal efficiently,
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Set a SMART (Specific, Measurable, Achievable, Relatable, Time-bound) goal.
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Break your goal into small steps
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Write it down
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Track results of other strategies with the same goals
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Be motivated with your goal.
Convinced? Set your goal already? Let's hop on to move to the next step.
4. Create an Email Marketing Plan
It is the time to craft your strategy in a line. How to collect, make an approach, how will your email content, etc., need to be in concern.
Your email campaigns should be in a running blow like an email funnel.
Source: Digital Marketers World
In your email campaign, you will need to focus on nurturing your email clients into the funnel.
For example, from welcome emails to re-targeting marketing emails, companies create a more personalised and effective marketing strategy. This can help them to increase customer engagement and sales.
I will recommend you try it yourself once, according to your perspective. But make sure to avoid these email marketing mistakes that might doom your campaign.
If you are done, merge it with the strategies I mentioned further.
I hope this will help you enrich your crafted plan or let you learn some new strokes.
Let's merge.
5. Design Your Email
You have analysed your business, audience, and goal so far. Now, according to your analyses, design the UI/UX of your email.
In email UI (User Interface) stands for the visual element of an email a user might interact with. And UX (User Experience) allows visitors to interact with the elements inside the interface created easily.
To design your email, you will need to focus on some clauses. And I mentioned them beneath 👇
Use Email Template
There are numerous platforms that provide free email templates. You can try them and customise them as well, according to your needs.
According to G2, ActiveCampaign for Marketing is an excellent tool for generating free email templates.
Write Engaging Copy
You know the purpose of mailing your prospects. Now write the most engaging copy that attracts the receiver and take action.
While writing your email copy, make sure,
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The message is clear and concise. A not-too-long message that the receiver loses interest in the middle of your email and leaves without taking any action.
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Relatable. Do not use irrelevant converses.
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Personalize. The receiver loves to receive personalized emails.
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Actionable button. Your prospects can be lost here and there without any button or link.
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Visual. Visuals are the most engaging element in any copy.
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Add an unsubscribe link to the email. Because
36% of people mistakenly subscribe to channels.
Let's learn the 3 elements of engaging copy,
Write an Engaging Subject Line
While writing an engaging copy, the email subject lines are in the very first row of your email. So it should be click-worthy.
Your email copy makes sense only if the receiver clicks on the subject line.
So, keeping this in mind, I have arranged some quick tips you can apply to the email subject lines.
These are,
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Keep your subject line short
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Use Numbers and emojis
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Personalize your subject lines according to the need
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Keep an urgency tone and spark curiosity
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Use actionable keywords in the subject lines
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Attack on their interest by the subject lines
Lastly, remember to do "before and after testing" of the subject line to determine the best approach.
Personalize Message
Personalization is the process of mailing your recipients, addressing their name, location, or their behaviours.
It is the most powerful way to increase engagement. Because according to statistics, personalized emails have 5.9% open rates.
However, you have to do this with caution. Recipients' personal data can be sensitive sometimes.
So, be consistent and respectful while sending someone a customized message. Moreover, don't overdo it. It might lose their interest.
Use CTA
You wrote a friendly email. But did not include any CTA - calls to action. The recipient read and quit.
What's the point of mailing them?
So, place a CTA when you leave a curiosity or urgency towards the recipients. It will help them to float to your website, landing page, or wherever you want.
It is indeed a powerful element of designing an email.
Mobile Friendly Email
81% of recipients use a mobile device to open an email. Whereas only 21% of them open from tablets.
So, don't you think your email should be mobile-friendly?
Yes, of course.
Consider checking the UI of your email on mobile devices, tablets, and desktops before sending it.
6. Segment Your Subscribers
Suppose you arrange a webinar for a small business. Now, executing an effective email marketing campaign is the first approach to letting people know.
But whom to reach for this? Doctors? Teachers? Or small business owners?
Obviously, only small business owners and entrepreneurs from your subscriber list.
This assortment is actually segment subscribers. This is what you need to do before sending mail to the prospects.
Because as a writer, I will never appreciate a company mailing me to join a webinar on a generic and irrelevant topic. Isn't it obvious?
So, don't make this mistake and segment your email subscribers according to their information.
7. Schedule your Email
The whole email marketing journey lies in the process of putting yourself in the shoes of your recipients.
Imagine you are the prospect. When will you be available to open an email? Obviously, not at midnight, right?
Think about the behavior of your segmented subscribers and then schedule a time.
Statistics say people open email mostly right after starting their workday until evening.
You can follow these statistics for better conversion.
8. A/B Testing
A/B testing, or split testing, is a method of processing or testing different versions to determine which performs better.
Analysing A/B testing results allows you to determine the best approach and make informed decisions to enhance your strategies.
In the email marketing campaign, A/B testing is the must-follow email strategy.
You will try various types of content, design, time scheduling, etc. Here you need to measure which technique is working on your marketing campaign. And according to the analytics, you can modify and apply it.
9. Re-engage Inactive Subscribers
In effective email marketing campaigns, you will send bulk emails where the maximum of your prospects converts. And very few dropped out.
Arrange a re-engagement campaign and figure out the reason behind the dropping out prospects.
Perhaps your email didn't reach them, went to spam, didn't open, or anything can be why.
So, do not hesitate to reshoot a try. But also don't send mail too often. Cause statistics say 45.8% of people mark emails as spam filters due to overload emails from the same marketing campaign.
Even 43.9% of email marketers suggested sending a less frequent email.
But still, send emails to your inactive subscribers to create re-engagement campaigns in a perfect balance. It will help your next campaign run more successfully than the recent one.
10. Retarget Active Subscribers
You've re-engaged your inactive subscribers. What about your existing customers?
You must be thinking; they are already converted, so why do you need to target them again, right?
But it is also crucial in email marketing strategies to keep all of your subscribers from dropping out.
Send emails about your new product launches, offers, contests, etc., and marketing campaigns. It will develop your brand awareness and strengthen your loyal customer base.
Don't forget to note down re-targeting clauses in your email marketing strategy.
Related Read: Email Deliverability Best Practices to Success!
11. Automate your Email Marketing Process
How much time and effort do you need to send thousands of promotional emails manually? Obviously, numerous hard and fast hours.
Wouldn't it be nicer if you could automate the follow-up email process with an email tool?
Email marketing tools make the email marketing process more accessible than ever. With the help of automated email software, businesses can streamline effective email campaigns, target specific audiences, and ultimately boost sales.
Some marketing automation allows you to use their pre-built email template, like Zapier.
So, why would you not try and step ahead of your competitors?
We have arranged a list of email marketing automation software with reviews to keep you updated. You can justify them and apply one in your business.
12. Measure Performance
The last but not the minor step of a successful email marketing strategy is measuring the performance of your entire strategy.
Check your email marketing strategies' bounce rate, signup form performance, click-through rate, and traffic ratio.
The automation software you use will help you to measure automatically. So you don't need to worry about doing it manually.
That's all. Now harness your email marketing tips according to your business perspective. And thank me later. 😉
To create campaigns, you will need a website or a landing page to generate new customers and nurture them into the email funnel. So, to build your data-driven landing page,
FAQs on Email Marketing Strategy, Answered
1. What is Email Marketing Strategy?
An email marketing strategy is a systematic approach or plan of email marketing.
In other words, email marketing strategy is a set of procedures that marketers follow to approach their target audience to drive traffic to the website and increase sales.
2. Isn't Social Media Marketing Replacing Email Marketing?
No, social media marketing is not replacing email marketing channels. Both platforms have their own strategies.
Social media marketing is a platform to build relationships with potential customer loyalty. On the other hand, email marketing is to reach a large audience with targeted emails.
3. What is a Subscription Form
A subscription form is an effective path that website holders use to capture contact information from their target audiences.
Subscription forms help to collect visitors' information and create brand establishment. On the other hand, buying email lists is considered spam and illegal. In this regard, subscription forms allow your company to collect email lists legally.
3. How Can I Grow My Subscriber List?
To grow your subscriber list, you can run email campaigns considering offering incentives, discounts, or other values in exchange for email signup through your lead generation website.
Display the value on your small business website, landing page, or lead generation website with all the best practices.
I have aligned some good reads for you to learn more about the best practices and use cases for generating leads for your email marketing campaigns. Have a look,
Last Words on Email Marketing Strategy
Have you planned your effective email marketing strategy yet?
If not, it's time to do so because–
Email marketing offers an affordable way to reach your target audience and promote your business.
Take advantage of this excellent opportunity to grow your business. Let email marketing efforts drive you forward in today's competitive landscape.