All e-commerce businesses and professional blogs should use the power of Email Marketing to drive their campaigns. Building your email lists is an important aspect of your marketing plan. With e-mail, you get to engage your customers and build a trusting relationship. Every day billions of emails are sent and read. If you want to win at the email game then you need to have the right strategy to employ in your campaigns. Here’s how.

Table of Contents

1. Write expert copy

A subpar copy will leave your email campaign dead in the water with a low click-through rate. The fix? Hire copywriters that are experts in their field that are capable of writing dazzling copy for your marketing emails. Consider the frequency at which consumers receive emails daily. In order for your emails to stand out in their inbox from a sea of other emails, your copy must be clever and draw them in. Your copy needs to engage, persuade and entice them to follow your Call-to-Action (CTA).

You want to keep your copy concise and succinct, ensuring it is easy to scan and digest the information.

To really take your copy to the next level add a personal touch. Statistics show that marketers that consistently add a personalised touch to the email copy see an increase in revenue with their existing customers.

2. Have a beautiful responsive design

While dazzling copy will engage your customers your design also needs to be aesthetically pleasing and functional making it easy for readers to scan your email quickly. Why? Two reasons, people have short attention spans and they are busy. If they can quickly peruse your email and get the gist of what you are offering they are more likely to engage. If they feel overwhelmed by a barrage of information they are more likely to switch to the next email without reading yours.

Make your email design clean and simple. Here are a few tips to use in your design:

Utilise blank space: this makes it easy for your readers to scan the page for pertinent information and can help products to stand out.
Utilise a simple grid pattern that showcases the products as the main focus and is easier to follow.
Use email templates that speak to your brand or design your own.
Make sure your design is optimised for Mobile users: most users typically check their emails on their phones or other mobile devices. Ensure your design is completely responsive and optimised for mobile and desktop use.

Remember, the emails within your marketing campaign are an extension of your brand and thus they should look and feel that way. If you want to make your email campaigns more memorable ensure that their design is fitting with your company’s branding.

3. A/B testing

Use the A/B testing technique to conduct research into which emails work best with your customers. You want to measure customer engagement and response. A/B Testing is great for improving your CTR and your rate of conversion.

To conduct you’re A/B Test start by choosing an area to test, for example, open rates, click-through rate, call-to-action clicks, etc. Next, you will create two emails. Email A and Email B, each email will differ slightly to test which version of the email achieves the best results.

For example, if you wanted to focus a new email campaign on improving the Open Rates of your emails. The best thing to do would be to focus your A/B Testing on the Subject Lines of your email because the open rate depends solely on the subject line of the email. A great subject line will determine the click/open rate.

The A/B Test for Open Rates:

Email A has the subject line: Hey [NAME]! Here’s 50% off!

Email B has the subject line: Massive Deals, Huge Savings this WEEKEND ONLY!

Send Email A to 50% of your mailing lists and send Email B to the other 50%. After the test, you simply check our analytics and add up the results of each email to see which of your subject lines resulted in more opens.

This test is a great way to see what email tactics work best with your customers and can help you to plan out future email campaign strategies.

4. The single opt-in vs the double opt-in

This speaks more to the tactics you use to build your email lists. Since we are talking about ways to running effective and winning strategies let’s say you are focusing on building a new and very specific list by offering a free product (your lead magnet) as an opt-in.

You need to decide whether to use the single opt-in where a user signs up with their email to receive your free product and receives it right away. Or the double opt-in where they sign up for your free product, receive an email requesting that they confirm their subscription to your mailing list and then receive their free product.

Here are the advantages of using the Single vs the Double opt-in:

The Double Opt-in Ensures Responsiveness and Engagement:

If the end user followed your lead magnet to receive the quality free product opted to enter in their email address and continued to follow through by checking their email and confirming their subscription this shows a high level of responsiveness to your product and brand. The end user is fully engaged and feels that your offering is worth it.

The Double Opt-in creates a quality Email list:

You receive quality over quantity because you know that the end user that decided to opt-in did it because they are fully engaged in your brand’s message and the quality you have created. You get to weed out anyone that simply decided to opt-in for the free product only.

Single Opt-in grows your Email List much faster:

Of course, when building an email list growth is the number 1 thing you are after. A single opt-in ensures that this happens fast. However, you want to constantly check user engagement in your emails and prune your list of any emails that aren’t participating in your campaigns.

Single Opt-in reinforces new subscribers to your list:

Getting instant access to anything is a plus for anyone. Giving your new customers instant access to that free product they supplied their email for builds trust. Again, you run the risk with receiving users that are not responsive. The ones that simply signed up for that free product you offered by won’t open any other emails from you, resulting in low responsiveness and engagement. You want to mitigate this and nurture your email list so it can work for you.

Nurture your list with a single opt-in by always responding quickly:

Once they opt-in and receive their free product, send a follow up welcome email. Use their name in your emails to make it more personable. Continue to provide value they need and want.

5. Create a catchy subject line

Your subject line is the first thing that your users will see when they open their inbox. If you aren’t hooking them right away then you will have low open rates and lose responsiveness and engagement.

In order to improve your overall email marketing campaign, ensure high open rates, you need to spend a lot of time and effort in creating click-worthy subject lines.

Your subject line is your elevator pitch for your brand and the promotion you are offering. You have one chance and you can’t blow it.

Aim to create mystery and intrigue with your subject lines. Use great copy and show your users what is in it for them if they click. Grab their attention with witty puns or promotional offerings. Put yourself in their shoes. Would you click on the email? If not, then get back to the drawing board and rework that subject line!

6. Use automation

Automation is crucial to running winning email campaigns. Most email marketing systems include automation. Users want what they want at lightning speeds. If you’ve successfully cultivated an email list, with high open rates, user responsiveness and engagement then automation will help to keep that relationship happy.

If a user sends you an email or hits the reply button, you want to have automated emails set up to assure them that you will be available to answer their questions in due course.

Automation can also further enhance your users’ experience. You can do this by automating messages to give news about new products. Use automation to improve your services by asking for customer reviews, sending out user surveys and so much more.

Using automation makes your life easier and helps to enhance your email marketing campaigns for your customers.

Conclusion

No matter how Social Media continues to expand, email marketing remains king when wanting to create lasting relationships with your customers. It remains a titan in digital marketing and if utilised correctly can help to boost revenue and sales conversions. With these 6 tips, you are well on your way to running amazing campaigns.