Research continues to suggest year on year that consumers enjoy and even look forward to connecting with brands via email. In fact, according to oberlo.com, global email users amounted to 3.9 billion users in 2019 and this figure is expected to grow to 4.3 billion by the year 2023. That’s more than half the world!
So what does this mean from a business ROI (Return On Investment) standpoint? Should email marketing still be a part of your marketing strategy? Yes, because despite it being an older digital marketing tool, email marketing is powerful and still serves as an effective way to reach and engage your ideal target audience. To give you an idea of average ROI, the median email marketing ROI is 122% according to lyfemarketing.com, which is 4x higher when compared to other digital marketing channels.
Email is not dead, with welcome email open rates being particularly high, 82.21% to be exact! These emails are your secret conversion weapon! Include any useful information that you would like your audience to know about when you send out a welcome email.
What is an email marketing campaign?
An email marketing campaign consists of a series of carefully crafted emails that are used to effectively communicate with current and potential subscribers. Email campaigns can be used to grab and hold the attention of customers with the ultimate goal being to get them to engage with your product, i.e; buy something.
Email campaigns can be and are often used as part of an inbound marketing strategy, which is designed to meet customers wherever they are at in the buyer’s journey. Since not everyone is ready to buy, email marketing can be used as an important channel to nurture those leads.
Email campaigns are also great for staying top of mind and providing ongoing communication about sales, new products and other updates to current customers.
How To Run Your Own E-mail Marketing Campaign
- Identify the goal for the campaign
- Do you want to clean up your list?
- Launch a new product?
- Follow up with a customer due to an abandoned cart?
- Stay top of mind?
Set expected metrics for this goal so that you can refer back to them to determine if the email campaign was a success or not.
- Keep the buyer persona in mind
You want the buyer persona to fulfil the goal that you have set, so ask yourself:
- Through which channel did they subscribe?
- What do they care about?
- How can I provide value through this campaign?
- Put together a targeted email list
Use CRM (Customer Relationship Management) along with your buyer persona to determine how to build a segment.
Also, decide if all recipients will receive the email at the same time or if there be certain criteria that they have to meet before being added to the campaign.
- Decide on the duration of the campaign
The campaign might be seasonal which in that case, would only require one or two emails to be sent out. Or it might be to build a long term, nurturing campaign. Whichever you choose, make sure that the right message is delivered at the right time for the right length of time.
- Plan email touchpoints
The email campaign should include some touchpoints with customers along the way that span across its lifetime. These touchpoints could be followups based on actions that each recipient takes. Plan these and decide on the message and CTA (call to action) for each one.
- Write captivating subject lines
Make use of this precious real estate by writing copy that encourages customers to click the email and read further. Do this by:
- Making them curious
- Offering value
- Using personalisation
- Asking an open-ended question
- Create brand assets
Having brand assets to go with your email campaign matters according to impactbnd.com, and increases click-through rates, so use visuals to support your campaign.
- Include CTAs (calls to action)
Key takeaway! Don’t provide too many options. Limit CTA’s to one per email. Also, be clear and concise with your CTA messaging. The simpler the better.
- Give subscribers a way to opt-out
It’s good business practise to provide your customers with a way to opt-out of the email campaign if they no longer wish to continue receiving your emails. If you don’t, it will affect your metrics and will increase the likelihood of subscribers marking your emails as spam.
- Keep an eye on your metrics
As the campaign runs, pay attention to open rates and click rates to determine if the campaign is going well or not. Then once the campaign has ended, use the data to understand what needs to change and stay the same in order to lead more effective campaigns going forward.
