Effective email marketing strategies for better results
And before the end, a bunch of short but sweet email marketing tips to help you get the most out of your email marketing strategy.
Segment your audience
Segmentation helps to divide your list into parts (segments) and concentrate marketing efforts on the target audience and deliver emails that matter. Each segment is a group of buyers with the same type of requests and reactions to the product. You can segment by:
- Activity
- Preference
- Life cycle
- Age and gender
- Location
Personalize your messages
Having segmented your list, create personalized messages for each group.
Personalization is an approach where emails are made with the target audience in mind. It’s a very important principle of email marketing. Without it, your mailings will likely miss the mark and look too general or worse, like spam. It makes no sense to send the same emails to your entire audience because people have different interests. It’s much better to divide users into several groups and offer useful content to each of them. For example, if you have a cosmetics store and know what kind of skin your customers have, there’s no point in sending people with dry skin tips on oily skin care.
Write click-worthy subject lines
The subject line is a sort of headline in the case of emails. It performs the same function as a headline: mainly attracts attention and tells what the whole thing is about. So you can apply the headlines rules to emails’ subject lines. For example, the 4U headlines technique states that four elements should be present in the title: uniqueness, usefulness, ultra-specificity and urgency.
Still, in emails, the context is slightly different because they imply a more personalized level of relationship with the reader. Read more about subject lines and tips on how to write good email subject lines that get opened.
Test copy, design, and buttons
Sometimes small changes can be a decisive factor that affect the email marketing performance. A/B tests are a powerful tool that helps you use solid data to tailor your campaigns to your audience’s preferences. Not sure which layout to use to make an informed decision? Conduct an A/B test.
Send two emails with different layouts to two groups of subscribers (10% +10%). Then evaluate which option won depending on your metrics (for example, which got more clicks). Send the winner email to the other 80% of your list.
The rule of thumb of A/B testing is to test one thing at a time and focus on the key elements at first: in the case of emails, that would be the subject line, calls to action, and images. Read more about A/B testing.
Automate email campaigns when possible
Automation is one of the most popular reasons to use email service providers. Automation helps email marketers delegate routine tasks and free their time for other activities. You can set up transactional and triggered mailings in response to certain events like order placement or newsletter subscription.
You can also set up more advanced email sequences like re-engagement campaigns or create even more sophisticated branched sequences. Read more about email automation.
Include clear calls to action
Calls to action help users to purchase, download, subscribe, sign up. Your mailings’ CTR largely depends on how convincing and clear your CTAs are. There are several ways you can create effective CTAs:
- Make the call clear. Tell users what they will get and be as specific as possible.
- Talk about benefits. Emphasize the benefits of your offer.
- Offer immediate results. It’s great when users click on buttons and immediately get something useful.
- Use the fear of missing out. Add an element of urgency to your offer.
- Use the idea of scarcity. Introduce limited product series, short-term promotions, temporary bonuses.
Send mobile-friendly emails
When designing an email, keep in mind that mobile email clients are the most popular email reading environment. Mobile’s share is 44.7%, with webmail at 36.3%, and desktop at 19.1%.
It means that you need to structure the emails in a special way:
- Place the most important elements in the center of layouts as most users scroll the page with their thumbs.
- Choose bigger fonts.
- Position the CTAs so that the user can see them without scrolling.
- Do not make emails too lengthy.
It’s good to know that in ESPs’ email builders, you can not only adapt emails for mobile but make separate mobile versions.