With global email users reaching a whopping 4 billion in 2020, the potential of tapping into the world of email marketing is immense for businesses across the globe. This figure is expected to reach 4.6 billion by 2025. Also, email marketing generates an average ROI of $42. No wonder 87% of B2B marketers consider email as one of the top free organic distribution channels!
Best Email Marketing Practices to Boost your Business
Email marketing undoubtedly is one of the best strategies that you can leverage to boost your business and stay ahead of your competitors. After all, 73% of millennials look forward to communicating with businesses through emails. Simply put, email marketing if done right can help you generate sales and revenue for your business like never before.
Here’s a look at a few of the many techniques that you can use to make the most out of your email marketing campaign:
1. Make the Signup Process Smooth
The first step towards the success of your email marketing campaign is bringing customers on board. From making the sign-up process easy to giving visitors a reason to sign-up, there are plenty of ways that you can use to increase your sign-ups. In short, a simple and straightforward sign-up form will entice visitors to give your website a chance by signing up. For instance, see how Reddit keeps its sign-up form simple and easy to fill in. All they are asking the visitors is their email address.
Also, using popup forms can make the whole signing-up process seamless for visitors. Popups give visitors the option to instantly sign-up on a website without having to leave the homepage.
Also, since popups appear on full screen and blur out the content in the background, the chances of visitors getting distracted and abandoning the sign-up form midway reduces. Here’s a sign-up popup from gangsta group.com. They have not only kept the sign-up popup form minimalistic and eye-catching but are also enticing visitors to sign-up with an incentive of a superb Black Friday deal.
Really good emails also nail their sign-up popup form with its quirky content and visually appealing orange background that makes it the center of attraction for visitors.
2. Send Emails That Resonate with Your Subscribers
After sign-up, the real work starts when you have to send emails to your subscribers. It is important to make your email worth reading. Simply put, your subscribers should not feel disappointed by your email. From compelling subject lines to a copy that clicks, your email should entice your subscribers to open and click-through it. Remember, 47% of email recipients open an email based solely on the subject line. Also, effective email copy accounts for a 26% higher open rate for 45% of small businesses. Therefore, make sure the subject line is precise and to the point and the copy is compelling and worth the subscriber’s time. Take a look at Uncommon Goods straightforward subject line that tells subscribers exactly what the email copy is all about.
Also, isn’t their email copy for the Christmas holiday top-notch? Take a look at how they have made good use of images and whitespace. Also, the free shipping incentive for signing up is another cherry on the cake.
3. Keep Your Emails Fresh and Appealing
Make sure you keep your content unique. While sending promotional emails once in a while is fine, do not make it a habit. Instead, send out interesting newsletters. You can also inform your subscribers about new products and services through your marketing emails. Take some inspiration from Canva’s newsletter where they are explaining to their subscribers how to make a card with friends and family through their variety of templates.
Also, see how they are going with the flow by helping people create customized zoom backgrounds for various occasions. With social distancing and Zoom calls becoming the new normal because of Covid-19, Canva knows how to send the right email at the right time.
4. Personalization Is the Key
80% of consumers prefer purchasing from brands that provide a personalized experience. Also, 90% of consumers in the U.S look forward to personal relevant messages from brands. Hence, personalizing your email campaign can increase your click-through and open rates considerably. So, instead of annoying your subscribers with generic emails, you must work on personalization. From addressing subscribers with their first name to sending product recommendations based on their browsing history, there are a lot of personalization strategies that can help you improve your customer’s experience. Judy’s does a great job with their email personalization by reaching out to their customer by checking his/her browsing history through cookies.
Also, look how Epic has used personalization by addressing the subscriber with his name in the email copy:
Further, sending emails by using a real person’s name in the “from” address is another great tactic of email personalization. After all, 68% of Americans open an email by looking at the sender’s name. In other words, sending emails from a real person doesn’t only give emails a familiar touch, but also increases the credibility and effectiveness of the email.
In addition, making use of your subscriber’s important dates such as their birthdays and anniversaries can also take your personalization strategy to the next level. Subscribers will undoubtedly engage with your email, thereby increasing your conversions and revenue. You can do it the way Pizza Hut does by wishing their customer a happy birthday through a quirky birthday email. Also, note how they are trying to make a sale without being obvious by giving free cinnamon sticks as a birthday gift on the customer’s next order.
5. Work Towards Email Segmentation
Segmentation helps marketers generate 760% more in revenue. That’s the reason 84% of marketers worldwide are already leveraging segmentation in their email campaigns. Here are a few of the many segmentation criteria that you can use to ace your email marketing campaign.
Demography
Age, gender, location, and income are such demographic data that you can use to segment your subscriber list and target them accordingly. For instance, if you run an e-commerce website, you can segment your subscribers based on gender and send them emails targeting their specific interests. You can get this data by sending out surveys/quizzes to your subscribers. You can also offer incentives to your customers to gain response to your surveys/quizzes. Take some cue from Herman Miller’s survey email:
Geography
Geographic location is a critical aspect of email segmentation. From where a customer shops frequently to the time zone they belong to, sending emails targeted specifically to a person is surely going to drive your email campaigns to success by increasing the click-through and conversion rates.
Previous Purchases
The purchase history of customers also plays a vital role in email segmentation. You can send recommendation emails for products similar to their previous purchases. Further, you can send them emails by perceiving their future requirements.
For instance, if your customer previously purchased a product that requires refilling or renewal, you can calculate when he/she will run out of that product and send him/her an email after a few months suggesting to reorder/refill the product. Here’s how Rockin’ Wellness does it like a pro:
6. Opt for Mobile Optimization of Emails
Mobile devices account for 60% of email opens. Also, mobile-friendly emails are the second most widely used strategy adopted by marketers to enhance their email marketing performance. Hence, if you haven’t optimized your emails for mobile, you will surely lose a large chunk of your customers. You can create mobile-friendly emails by keeping your subject line short. While the desktop version of an email shows 60 characters of a subject line, the mobile version just displays 25 characters of the same. So, as mentioned already, you must keep your subject line short and to the point. Further, the pre-header text also plays a great role in creating mobile-friendly emails. Preheader texts are the initial line of your email copy that gives readers an overview of your email. Here’s how preheader texts look like on mobile:
See how in the first email, Godiva has used the preheader text to inform their subscribers about the free shipping on select items.
Also, you must keep your email copy brief and place your call-to-actions (CTAs) at the top. It will increase your email’s clickability. Check this email from Godiva and see how perfectly they have put the “shop now” CTA at the top:
7. Consider Automating Your Emails
Email automation can take a lot of work off your shoulders. All you need to do is set up an automation campaign and you are done. From welcome and follow-up emails to order confirmation and re-engagement emails, automation can easily help you streamline your communication with your subscribers without you having to invest time in it. And with so much time in hand, you can create stellar email content that clicks and converts. No wonder it is the third most used strategy by email marketers to accelerate their email performance!
While an automated welcome email from HubSpot looks like this:
An automated follow-up email from ReturnPath is designed this way:
8. Leverage A/B Testing
Once you are done with all the above strategies, you must A/B test your email campaign. After all, businesses that use A/B testing for their every email campaign witness an increase of 37% more revenue than those businesses who never opt for A/B tests.
A/B tests let you send two different variations of your email campaign to two subsets of your subscribers, thereby giving you an overview of which campaign garnered higher results. This, in turn, can help you understand which campaign will perform better, thereby making it easy for you to implement the best version of your campaign on a larger level. From subject lines and email copies to CTAs and preheader texts, these are few of the many elements of an email that you can A/B test.
Wrap Up
From personalization and segmentation to automation and mobile optimization, email marketing can prove to be a game-changer for your business.
In a nutshell, by using the techniques mentioned above, you can easily streamline your email marketing strategy and take your business to new heights. So, go ahead and give your business the head start it needs through an impeccable email marketing campaign.
