Should you opt in to Email marketing?
There's always buzz about the latest and greatest marketing platform that could change the way we conduct our social and content marketing with the onus being on social media marketing. Currently, you don’t hear of too many people touting email marketing as the way to market smarter. You may wonder if email marketing is worth the effort anymore. You’re not alone in thinking that. Email marketing is a discreet but dependable marketing channel.
Here are just two points to illustrate the many benefits of email marketing
Email marketing helps with customer acquisition 40 times more than Facebook and Twitter combined
People want to read marketing emails.
Yes, you can rub your eyes and read that again. Even though it seems like people want to watch videos on their mobile devices, emails are still a hot favourite!
Your target audience may choose to go on a social media detox for a day or a week, but they would never not check their email every day.
Also, not every customer will have a presence on the social media platforms or marketing channels you target, but they will most certainly have an email ID.
Email marketing is a reliant and robust way to increase brand awareness and improve communication.
The benefits of email marketing are many. First off, let’s start with what an email marketing campaign is. This is one or a few emails sent to opted-in subscribers during a certain time period. There may be a unifying theme or may be a series of emails triggered by an action initiated by the reader. For instance, they sign up for a workshop and get a reminder email, a thank you email and discount code email.
An email campaign can take many forms: a newsletter, promotional emails, lead acquisition emails or simply direct the reader to certain landing pages.
Even though it involves more planning and work than most other marketing channels, email marketing has many and varied advantages. Here's why it should remain or become an integral part of your content marketing strategy:
A personal hello
People check their inboxes with intent, maybe they’re checking for a bill or an interview call back. Though your email marketing campaign will be competing with much more important priorities in their life, effective subject lines is how you can get those clicks. You want to aim for click-worthy and not clickbait-y subject lines. If your content is misaligned with what was promised in the subject line, people can and will find that unsubscribe link fast.
Unlike social media where engagement with a post is visible, the receiver of your email marketing campaign can't see who else you're talking to. So it feels like you’re addressing them directly. You can add to this connectedness by creating personalized emails. Flodesk has custom data fields for this.
Tip: Always check what tricks and features your email marketing software offers and implement it into your email marketing campaigns over time, with strategy in mind.
Let your character shine without a character count
When marketing on social channels, there are character counts, image specifications, and the least favourite bit: ever-changing algorithms (sigh). However, with email marketing you can play around with no prerequisites. You can craft valuable content without constraints on the length, or sound as brief as you want. Either way, the reader isn’t taking the message in through one ear and throwing it out the other. Also, the message can live in their inbox for them to come back to. This is unlike social media, where the news feed refreshes itself without warning if the potential customer isn't intentionally visiting your page.
There are national and international email regulations of course, but your creativity can shine brighter without having to compete with social media posts, cat videos, or paid ads.
It's an investment!
Email marketing tends to have higher return of investment (ROI). However, this would come down to how you plan your email marketing strategy. A successful email campaign would bring in good revenue for every click that converts into a sale. For small business owners, email marketing is the near-perfect tool to nurture leads and make your business grow without budget constraints.
The people who opt in to your email subscription list have chosen to hear from you. This means their interests fall in your scope of business or service. That is your target audience building right there, without you having to hunt them down.
Set it, and go get it!
Leverage the power of marketing automation to drive your marketing efforts. Enhance your customer’s buying journey by sending automated emails if someone abandons a purchase in their cart, or offer a special discount to customers who hit a baseline of purchases. This way, your email marketing campaigns can get you leads, boost sales, get more traffic to your website while you stream your energy into other parts of your business.
Glow first, grow later
Speaking of opted-in subscribers, don’t fixate on the length of your email list. Growing a subscription list takes time. Do not resort to purchased lists: this is buying email lists and contacting people who never signed up for your emails. Your email marketing campaign can spam and cost you subscribers faster than you can gain them.
Speaking of gaining subscribers, don't be shy to ask people to sign up to your email list whenever you can.
See what I did there?
Digital marketing expert Ann Handley includes the following snippet her in her newsletters:
Many e-commerce businesses grow their email marketing list by asking new customers to subscribe to their emails for a discount on their first purchase. Some people do it with the intent to opt out later, but if the first email is entertaining or makes an impact, the reader won't hurry to the unsubscribe link.
To make your email campaigns valuable to the reader, give them helpful and relevant content. They should have learnt something new about you, your business, your field or anything in general. This builds their trust in your business goals. So when you have a sale, or new product, your engaged subscribers are more likely to become loyal customers.
If a few readers unsubscribe, don't fret about it. It isn't an insult to you or your business. On the bright side, it helps you get higher stats on the campaign performance because there are now fewer non-engagers on your list. Re-engagement email campaigns are one way to clean up your list and retain those subscribers who truly want to keep receiving your email marketing campaigns. It can be a humbling, yet essential, exercise.
If you're worried about churning out engaging content on a regular basis, outsource your email marketing. In fact, I outsource my weekly marketing emails to another freelancer. We have a shared content calendar where we both throw in ideas, and work off of that. The tone of content of your email campaigns relies on brand voice, which is housed by brand strategy.
Divide and conquer your email marketing campaigns
Depending on your business plans, you might want to take advantage of email segmentation. This is one of a few ways to make email marketing work for you. You divide your entire email list into smaller groups. For example, say you are a travel blogger who sends email marketing campaigns, you can ask people for their interests when they sign up, and then send emails depending on whether they're into solo travel, romantic getaways, or travel hacks. Your emails can link to the relevant blog post and therefore drive traffic to your website. Though people are coming to your website via different email marketing campaigns, they're all landing up at the same place and boosting website traffic.
In the case of a business that has a product or service, you'd use a similar approach to improve sales with potential customers across different segments. Flodesk has a helpful article on how to use email segmentation.
Tip: Send an email thanking or rewarding customer loyalty with a discount code that only the email subscriber is privy to.
There is no one formula to create a successful email marketing campaign. For small business owners, there is a fair amount of content planning involved, but email marketing is a domain where you are in full control of your marketing goals.
Let the ideas flow with Flodesk
I use Flodesk to set up my email marketing campaigns. You can too for 50% off! This is my Flodesk affiliate link via which you get a discount and I get a small commission at no extra charge to you.
