As you are most aware email marketing can be a highly effective marketing strategy that consists of sending emails to visitors and customers, feeding them information about your business, services and products. Effective marketing emails can convert visitors into customers, and turn one-time buyers into loyal, long term fans if executed correctly, and that is where this guide comes in handy.
This guide is for those who have collected a list of contact and are ready to dive into the world of email marketing.
This is a long and somewhat detailed guide, so I’ve decided to break it down into a short series of posts.
Define Your Audience
Email marketing is being used by just about everyone from SME’s to Corporate Entities, and there are hundreds of ways email marketing can be used, however this also means that people are being bombarded by emails every single day, and when people have had enough the unsubscribe link gets clicked and they get removed from the email list. This leads to that company losing a subscriber that could have been converted into a customer if treated correctly. This is why working out what your audience wants and needs should be the main aspect of your strategy because that is where it all starts.
The goal here is all about providing people with the information, products and resources that they are interested in. By understanding who your target market is, you can increase engagement and conversion rates of your campaigns dramatically.
The main thing to keep in mind is every subscriber on your email list is different, which is why it would be a mistake to send identical emails to your entire list. Emails relevant to the recipient tend to drive 18 times more revenue when compared to general emails. So taking a targeted approach definitely makes a difference.
So how do you really go about sending the right message? Well, the short answer is to segment your current email list into smaller groups. This allows you to target your smaller more precise lists with more relevant content and, in turn, help to increase conversions.
Relevant Content
Tying in with defining your audience, it may seem like including relevant content in your email marketing campaigns would be a no-brainer, but even after you have segmented your list it can still be difficult to know what the best information is to share.
In email marketing many systems allow you to gather data about your viewers. Some information such as open rates, click-through rates, location and purchase history are only a few of many pieces of information that you can leverage to use in your list segmentation to provide viewers with the correct information. In the case of ecommerce, where you have an online store selling products, emails can be one of your biggest tools to utilize and is the best example to use to get an understanding of how the process works. Here are some of the types of emails you can send depending on the situation of the viewer:
Welcome
These types of emails are commonly sent to new subscribers when they submit their information through something such as a subscription form. These emails usually include information about your business and values so you start to build a relationship with them.
Boosting engagement
These are usually sent after a visitor has been welcomed, these can include promotional material for your business such as promoting a service or trying to make an initial sale of a product.
Nurturing existing subscribers and customers
These types of email normally follow a purchase. They can include information or as related products, by providing something they’ll value. For example, if they have purchased something in the past, then give them relevant products.
Re-engagement
Commonly used for subscribers who haven’t been particularly active in a certain period of time. In relation to ecommerce systems, these emails can be used if a visitor has added products to their cart with partial information, such as their email address and then they leave the site or close the tab, this is often called an abandoned cart.
