Every day millions of emails zip across servers to reach the intended people. Some emails are official, some spam, but most are for marketing purposes. However, only some of these marketing emails are ever opened. It is because not much thought is put into designing them. As a result, the recipient deletes them without sparing a second thought. If your company’s marketing emails are receiving the same treatment, it is a clear indication your email management strategy is lacking. Today’s aim is to learn how to build a rigorous email management strategy such that the opening and conversion rates improve. But before we move on, here is a small tidbit of information – for every $1 spent on B2C email marketing, a business can earn around $50 by implementing a winning email marketing strategy.
What is Email Marketing?
Email marketing is one of the most critical tools to create a link between the company, brand, or business and its customers. Essentially, it is a form of marketing whereby you make the people on your email list aware of promotions, discounts, new products or services, etc. Some emails aim to keep the customers or prospects engaged, while others aim to enlighten the audience about your brand value.
What is Email Management Strategy?
A company cannot keep sending emails left, right, and center to the people on its mailing list. This will only aggravate the recipients and turn them against your brand. That is why you need to have a clear plan of action, and this plan is called the email management strategy.
Marketing professionals use email management strategies to achieve their marketing goals by identifying, implementing, and evaluating email marketing procedures. This action plan allows businesses to contact prospects and customers directly for brand promotion without becoming intrusive.
Building A Rigorous Email Management Strategy
Wanting to build an effective email management strategy and actually building one are two very different things, but fortunately, the former leads to the latter.
1. Design Your Emails
A simply written email will fail to have the desired impact on the recipient. If you wish the customer or prospect to take action, it should have a proper layout, attractive images, readable font, etc. The color combinations should be soothing or resonate with your brand. The good news is that many email marketing tools available over the internet will give you thousands of responsive templates to work with. Use these pre-designed ones and customize them to suit your brand image. Remember, the aim is to keep the email clean (it should not be cluttered), clear so that the message is front & center, and professional. Have a proper place for the text, images, links, and CTA. Do mention your social media handles to let the audience know they can reach you on multiple platforms.
2. Keep It Simple
There is no need to use big words or flowery language to attract your customers and prospects. Sometimes the essence of the message gets lost in words that are difficult to understand. Aim to keep the content of the email clear and precise. Nobody has the time to go through lengthy emails and understand their purpose. An email should be quick to read and assimilate. Also, refrain from using many images because they will divert the attention from the text. Keep things simple and easy to understand, but not to the extent of sounding abrupt. It is necessary to strike the right balance. Be kind and courteous, and let your words convey how much you value the reader.
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3. The Subject Should Be Short and Catchy
Most emails are deleted before they are opened. It is because of two reasons. One, the subject line is too long, and second, it is boring. The subject should clearly indicate the content of the email. You need to come up with creative email subject lines. It should be catchy, to the point, and grammatically correct for the reader. Do not write the subject line in capital letters because it makes your brand look too loud or overbearing. Limit it to just 6 to 10 words. Crafting a catchy subject line is a skill. It is better to brainstorm it beforehand instead of using just about anything so the emails can go out in time. They say first, and last impressions are important. Well! The subject line is the “first impression” of what to expect in the email. So you want it to be impactful, and that is why you must take time to use the right set of words.
4. Audience Segmentation Is Necessary
Usually, everybody is not in a different frame of mind. Similarly, they are also at different levels in their sales journey. As a result, you cannot send identical mail to everyone and be done with it.
You need to divide them into manageable groups that have several commonalities. This is audience segmentation. You can’t just segment them according to gender, age, and location. Today, segmentation is all about drilling down to things like customer likes and dislikes, their past behavior patterns, their culture, etc. Hence, aim to create common groups that have common unique characteristics. Identify your core segments and build your email marketing campaign keeping them in mind.
5. Personalized Content
Now it comes to delivering personalized content to everyone. After all, you have to make the audience feel important. If your brand does not do that, even the audience will not spare you a second thought. So it all drills down to giving them a tailor-made experience. The good news is that you no longer need to keep rewording the same email tirelessly. Instead, you can use AI writing software to generate unique email copies. This software will assist your human content writer to generate unique copies faster and more efficiently.
6. Easy To Locate CTAs That Are Optimized
The purpose of sending marketing emails is to entice the recipient to complete an action. This is why the email should have a clear Call To Action button. Graphics and pictures should not draw away attention from it. All elements of the email should progressively highlight the CTA. The other thing is that it needs to be optimized for all devices. Your audience does not use the same device. Some access their mail over a laptop or desktop, others on smartphones and tablets, etc. Therefore, the CTA should be equally responsive to all of them.
7. Optimize Content for Mobile Users
Emails not optimized for mobile users get deleted half the time. That’s like failing to connect with half of the target audience, which means a significant loss of sales. Your marketing emails have to cater to that section of people using smartphones. Optimize your emails for mobiles to make your marketing campaign more effective. You can achieve this target by using a responsive design on all devices, keeping the emails short, and A/B testing them before sending them out. Don’t make the folly of assuming your emails look good on all manner of devices. It is better to test them out and be sure of the fact. Else all efforts will be futile.
8. Leverage Social Media
A strong email list is essential to the marketing campaign. It should cover as diverse a population as possible because your customers are also among them.
But, what many people don’t know is that they can leverage their social media pages to grow their subscribers or email lists. To do that, you will have to create a landing page for all your social media accounts like Facebook, Instagram, YouTube, Twitter, etc. Next, take pains to share premium content on all these handles. Incentivize subscribing to your email list using special one-time deals or discounts. You can also choose to hold giveaways, quizzes, contests, spin the wheel, and so on, where people have to fill in their basic details. Another effective way to grow the email lists is by hosting online webinars and asking people to sign up for them. The sole purpose of these activities is to make your mailing list. The more people on it, the better your chances of increasing your sales.
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9. Know When to Send Emails
A vital thing that every company, business, and organization must be sensitive to is knowing when to send an email. You can’t just send it any time and as many times as you want. It will irritate the recipient and develop negative feelings against the business in their mind. Be mindful of the time zones. Nobody likes to hear a ping of email received when they are in deep slumber or busy at work in the office. It may add to the work a bit more, but when building your email list, ask the audience what a good time to contact them is. This one small question has the power to ward off a big problem. Once you get this bit of data, pay heed to it. Schedule the emails such that every recipient receives them at a time they have pointed out. Also, there has to be a reason to reach out to your mailing list. Make every contact with the customer count. Keep it meaningful. Reach out to them when you have something to tell or something to offer.
10. Do Follow-ups
Follow-ups and remainder emails are very effective in marketing. We often like something, add it to the cart, and then get distracted by something else. Then life gets in the way, or we decide to complete the purchase later and forget about it. Reminders about products in the cart and how many of the said products are remaining act as a gentle push to complete the purchase. Similarly, follow-ups about the purchase experience and the product endear the customer to the brand. These marketing efforts should also be a part of your well-thought-out marketing strategy.
11. Track The Metrics
Lastly, track the key metrics. You might say, what’s new in that? I already do it. Well! The crucial thing here is to track the RIGHT metrics. Often, we make the mistake of choosing the wrong parameters and then wonder why things are not moving as per plan. So, what you want to focus on are things like click-through rate or open email rate, bounce rate, new sign-ups, unsubscribing rate, the email list growth rate, and so on. Together these metrics will tell you how successful your email marketing strategy is working. Doing a root cause analysis of the unfavorable metrics will give you a chance to tweak and refine your email management strategy for a better outcome.
12. Target Inactive Subscribers
Just because the subscriber is inactive and takes no action on your emails does not mean they are a lost cause. Do remember, there was a reason they subscribed? You have just not cracked what clicks with them. So, generate a list of all inactive subscribers and target them with unique options. You may have to try a bunch of things, but once you know what works for them, you have a new set of customers to engage with. Re-engagement emails are important and should be taken as such. These emails are your last-ditch effort in getting a set of people interested and involved, so take time to get them right.
Brainstorm And Plan
Working out the mail management strategy or email marketing strategy is a collaborative effort. It involves a bunch of people. Hence, their input should be a part of the decision-making and planning process. A dynamic team works better than an involved individual.
Takeaway About Crafting a Rigorous Email Management Strategy
There is no precise mantra to achieve an instant hit with your email management strategy. It is all a matter of trial and error and testing to see what works and what doesn’t. In fact, what works for one, may not work for another. Hence, it is a continuous effort that calls for ongoing analysis and adjustments. Nonetheless, the results of this hard work can be seen in the growing sales numbers. Therefore, figure out what works for your business or hire professional who can help you with building a foolproof strategy.
Growth Hackers is an award-winning email marketing agency helping businesses from all over the world grow. There is no fluff with Growth Hackers. We help entrepreneurs and business owners build a rigorous email management strategy, increase their productivity, generate qualified leads, optimize their conversion rate, gather and analyze data analytics, acquire and retain users and increase sales. We go further than brand awareness and exposure. We make sure that the strategies we implement move the needle so your business grow, strive and succeed. If you too want your business to reach new heights, contact Growth Hackers today so we can discuss about your brand and create a custom growth plan for you. You’re just one click away to skyrocket your business.
