4 Keys To Take Your Email Marketing Campaign from Good To Great
Nearly every business finds that e-mail marketing is an essential tactic for connecting with current and prospective customers. Despite newfangled MarComm tools that have emerged, e-mail is still the primary way marketers communicate with customers on a regular basis.
Of course, there are bad ways and better ways to carry out e-mail marketing. Focusing on a few guidelines will increase the odds that your e-mail marketing campaigns will achieve the results you’re seeking.
A targeted e-mail list
Great content means little if your e-mails aren’t reaching the right people to generate responses and leads. It’s preferable to target a smaller group of carefully selected names than to bombard a wide swath of people with content that’s irrelevant to them.
There’s no “silver bullet” way to build a strong list, and the best ones are built brick by brick. Begin with the information you and your salespeople already have on your customers and prospects. Augment that with leads from trade shows, industry meetings, inquiries that come through your website, and social media connections such as LinkedIn. To conform with opt-in best practices, make sure your contacts are aware that they’ll be receiving periodic e-communications from you.
Avoid purchasing an e-mail database from a third-party source. Often they’re loaded with informational landmines – data that’s out of date or simply wrong. Deploying to a purchased list risks negatively impacting your sender reputation and doing serious harm to your e-mail deliverability rates.
Interesting, compelling content
Messages that aren’t directly useful to your recipients will fall flat. Those recipients will also be less inclined to open future e-mails from you. Practical, actionable content is key, so put yourself in your customers’ shoes to assess whether the content you’re delivering is pertinent to their needs.
New or enhanced products … new technological capabilities … “how-to” tips that help people do their jobs or live their lives better: Presented concisely, this is the kind of content that tends to perform best in e-mail marketing.
Try experimenting with different e-mail messages for different categories of people, too. What excites a design engineer could be much different from what animates a purchasing manager.
A positive user experience
Typically, a recipient spends less than a minute perusing your e-mail, so you have limited time to make a positive, lasting impression.
Your e-mail should be fast-loading and formatted in a way that’s “easy on the eyes.” Present the content logically and ensure that the key points are clear.
When in doubt, go with cleaner, more streamlined formatting and visuals; nine times out of ten, it’ll be the better choice.
You may find that new design elements like videos or GIFs can help offset short attention spans. But make sure to use them to help convey your message and not just be a distraction.
A meaningful call-to-action
Too many e-mail campaigns lack a call-to-action that’s specific or strong enough. Without one, it’s too easy for a recipient to wander off after consuming your content, and you’ve lost a potential sale. Including multiple CTAs can work well, sprinkled throughout your content near the top, in the middle and at the bottom of your e-mail.
If you’re looking for assistance on developing new e-mail marketing campaigns for your products or services, we’re ready to help. Call us at 800-457-1099.
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