Email marketing is one of the most effective methods of getting your brand message out and connecting with your target audience about your products and service. If you are considering using email marketing for your business, then it’s normal to feel a bit confused about where to get started.
Even though email has been a tried and tested marketing method for a long time, with statistics that show it has the highest ROI compared to other marketing methods like social media marketing, it’s also often associated with spam and crafting marketing emails in a way that encourages your recipients to actually open, read and engage with them is not always easy. Because of this, there are a few things to consider before you get started to help you make sure that you are getting the best results from your email marketing efforts.
Consider Working with an Expert
While there are many tools and platforms available to help you do your own email marketing successfully, for those who are just starting out, outsourcing email marketing or some aspects of it to an expert or a marketing agency might be a better idea.
Working with a professional who is experienced in all aspects of email marketing and knows what works better than you do can help you make the right decisions and get a bigger return on your investment in the end. LPN Media Group offer an email marketing service that may be beneficial for your business. Along with getting access to expert help and advice, working with a company like LNP Media Group can have further benefits for your business since they also offer a wide range of other marketing services that you can take advantage of such as digital marketing, print media, local journalism and more.
Choose the Right Email Marketing Platform
Whether you want to take the DIY route or do your email marketing with the help of a professional, there are several different email marketing platforms to choose from. Take your time to research your options and find a platform that is going to be the best fit for your business.
Remember that the email marketing platform you choose can have a huge impact on the effectiveness and the success of your campaign. Before you sign up for a platform, it’s a good idea to make a list of the features and capabilities that you are going to need to make sure that you get the most from your efforts.
Grow Your Email List Organically
One of the worst mistakes that you can make when you start out with an email marketing campaign is buying an email list or sending messages to people who have not given you their permission to contact them. While buying a list of ready-made emails can seem much more convenient in the short-term, the truth is that in the long run it is more likely to be a method that causes you to lose money as people who do not want to hear from you are less likely to engage.
Even worse, they might even mark your messages as spam which can cause serious damage to your sender reputation. When your sender reputation is damaged, this could ultimately mean that all or most of your marketing messages are automatically marked as spam, which might prevent people who would actually be interested in hearing you from seeing them.
So, use methods like a sign-up form on your website to only collect email addresses from people who are genuinely interested in being a part of your campaign.
Use Double-Opt In
While growing your email list organically is an important step, simply using an opt-in form on its own to collect email addresses may not be enough these days.
You will need to consider the fact that not everybody who is entering an email address into your sign-up form will have permission to do so. Anybody can put a random email address in and end up signing somebody who has no interest in hearing from you up to get your marketing messages.
To avoid this and make sure that you’re only sending emails to people who want to get them, consider using double opt-in. This involves sending a confirmation email to anybody who signs up using your form, with a link for them to click to confirm that they want to be added to your list.
Prioritize Data Protection
Another reason why you should not buy an email list is the data protection side of things. Often, email lists that are for sale have not been gathered using best practices and might include the email addresses of people who have not given their permission for any of this to happen.
Ultimately, this can land your business in serious hot water especially given the increase in data protection laws and regulations around the world such as the GDPR or General Data Protection Regulation. Aside from only sending emails to people who have given you permission to do so, there are various other data protection factors to consider.
These include only holding as much data as is necessary on your recipients and storing it securely. Recipients should also be given the option to opt-out at any time; including an opt-out link in each email that you send is the best way to do this.
Segment Your Email List
Once you have begun building your email list organically and the number of email addresses on it starts to grow, you might notice that some recipients are very different than others. Depending on the nature of your business you may have some products or services that some customers might be more interested in compared to others.
Since relevancy is hugely important to a successful email marketing campaign, one of the best things that you can do is segment your email list based on different factors such as age, gender, interests, or stage in the customer journey. This allows you to tailor different marketing emails to send to each list segment and ensure that each recipient is only receiving marketing messages that are personalized and actually interesting to them.
Ensure Mobile-Friendliness
While the content of each marketing email you send is important, it won’t get you very far if your recipients are unable to read it on their chosen device. When designing your marketing emails one of the most important things to ensure is that they are responsive. Just like your website, email recipients are going to get frustrated and probably not bother engaging with your emails if the text is too small or it doesn’t all fit on their screen.
Mobile friendliness isn’t just important for the overall design, either; you should also consider the character limits on subject lines for mobile, so that recipients can easily find out what your email is about as soon as they open their email app to check the new message. Sticking to the character limit for subject lines on mobile will make it easier for you to craft strong, enticing subject lines that can easily be understood on any device.
Today, email marketing is still one of the most effective ways to reach out to and engage with your customers and audience. Keep these tips in mind to have a successful first email campaign.