Email marketing campaigns are still one of the primary drivers of both customer acquisition and retention. Read more on which basic principles you need to take into account when you set up your next email marketing campaign.
Don’t leave people hanging – use auto-responders
Ok, It happened, a new subscriber just opted in. An automatic email is sent to them to confirm they do want to join your mailing list. However, other priorities steal your new subscriber’s attention. The best thing to do in this situation is to set up e-mail automation to reminds people they opted in your mailing list a while ago (2-5-10 days ago, for example). Don’t forget to include there some extra-incentive: bonus materials, limited offers for subscribers only, vouchers, etc. Depending on the interaction with the call-to-action buttons and specific product pictures in your email you can follow up with an extra email a few days after they clicked through. Just to give them the extra push towards that purchase of your awesome products.
People love clear, concise & witty subject lines
Write no more or less than 30 to 50 characters (spacing included). Fail to respect this rule and email services or mobile devices will sabotage your content straight away by cutting off from your subject lines. Use the subject line to create anticipation and stimulate curiosity, while also giving your subscribers some indication of what they should expect to find when they open the newsletter.
The consistency triangle: subject – content – landing page
Whatever the subject of the email marketing campaign, make sure you are consistent with the main idea, the looks and feel you want to communicate along with this trio. The look and feel of the newsletter should match the one from the landing page you use. As Dwayne Johnson (The Rock himself) once said: “Success isn’t always about greatness. It’s about consistency“.
Segment your audiences
Here are several types of users: team member, (bronze/silver/gold) member, subscriber, user, the customer. It is definitely helpful in case you have offers that are addressed just to a type of user or to keep the ex-customers engaged with your brand or up to date with exclusive offers.
Get personal with your community
Opening an email from one of your favorite brands is a unique feeling for the user and really easy thing for you to do. Attention-grabbing from your subscribers is guaranteed! And don’t worry, there are plenty of email marketing tools that can provide the option to configure each campaign so that it automatically imports fields such first name, last name, city or many others. Our favorite email marketing & automation platforms are Campaign Monitor and Mailchimp.
Keep Call-To-Actions in the first 50% of the email
If the main call-to-action is located in the lower half of your newsletter, you risk losing as many as 70% of possible clicks. And speaking of this, your call-to-action should be repeated at least 3 times throughout your email, in different formats and places.
Clean Your Mailing List Regularly
Quality over quantity. That should be the email marketing motto. Some of the subscribers might not opt-out of the mailing lists, yet still, never open your newsletters. This translates into low open rates and engagement rates and is eventually making your reports look bad since you are not analyzing the campaign’s influence towards your loyal audience. Easily solve this problem by simply removing people from your list who do not engage in any way with your campaigns over a given amount of time.
Track your email marketing efforts
Don’t forget to use tracking tools to check which newsletters and landing pages are performing best. This way you can always top up your own game and only send content that your audience is actually enjoying.
Finally, we are strong believers in building a direct brand-to-fan connection & community. That is, of course, independently from the ones built on social media. While you have no guarantee over social media’s authority long term, you do have over your own product and your own community. Keep your brand friends close!
Do you need any help with the setup of your newsletter automatization campaigns? We are here to help you out!
Also, have a look at our other handy marketing tips.
