Marketers know that they can increase leads, conversions, and sales with email, but finding the right formula to make your emails effective can be frustrating. Here are a few tips to help you make the most of your email marketing efforts.
Customers who are at different points in the buyers’ journey need different kinds of information. For example, in the awareness stage, a customer is facing a challenge or problem that they’re looking to solve. In this stage, you can use your email content to help them identify their problem.Later, when the customer is in the decision-making stage, you can provide them with information and options that let them know why your business is best suited to handle their problem by offering them reviews, product demonstrations, and testimonials.
When using email software, you can automate your emails to go out when a potential customer takes a certain action. For example, when they add their email address to your mailing list, you can automatically send them a welcome email offering more information. Or if a customer abandons their cart before they buy, you can automatically send out an email reminding them to complete their purchase or contact you with questions.
Never underestimate the power of personalizing emails!Nearly three-quarters of marketers say customer engagement is increased by personalization. People are more likely to open and engage with your emails if they feel like they’re coming from a friend. At the very least, you can personalize an email with the customer’s first name, but you can go as far as recommending a product to them based on the actions they take. Dynamic content is becoming more advanced as technology gets better, so use it to your advantage.
Most email marketing software will give you the opportunity to segment your audience by certain demographics. This feature can be particularly powerful because customers of different demographics may not respond to the same things. An email message shouldn’t be one-size-fits-all.For an obvious example, a clothing store may target their marketing emails based on gender, sending women’s clothing advertisements to females and men’s clothing advertisements to males. When people sign up for your email list, ask a few questions about them. Then, when crafting your emails, think about gender, age, location, interests, and previous purchasing behavior.
Every email you send should have a strong call to action.Maybe it’s to head to your website to learn more, or perhaps you’d like your reader to get in contact with a member of your customer service team. No matter what it is you’d like them to do, make sure it’s clear, concise, and actionable.The easier it is for your customer to do something, the more likely it is they’ll do it! Bold your call to action and give your readers instructions on what to do next.
The best way to learn what strategies work best is to split test your emails. Try sending out two nearly identical emails to the same audience, with one thing altered. For example, you may test the same email with two different subject lines to see which one gets the most opens. Or maybe you’ll try two slightly different calls to action to see which one gets people to click. You could even test which days of the week and which times of day people open your emails more. Email software tracks the analytics so you can see exactly which campaign was more successful. Through split testing, you can learn more about what makes your audience tick.