Effective Email Marketing – Where’s Your Campaign Headed?

Is Your Email Marketing Campaign Getting the Green Light?

Is Your Email Marketing Campaign getting the Green Light?

Where is your email marketing campaign actually going?

You’ve probably noticed that snail-mailboxes and email in-boxes differ in one very important respect – the former doesn’t typically come equipped with spam filters. Email can and often does get diverted into the dreaded junk folder, long before it can reach its intended destination. Or just as bad, it might get zapped into oblivion by a delete button. Those scenarios are bad news for email marketing campaigns.

Brand marketers know it’s imperative for the message to get through. Conversions are very hard to come by from within the trash or when erased from existence. Is there a secret for getting email delivered to customers and subscribers? Well, as they say, there are no easy answers. But there are ways to boost the odds of successful deliveries.

1. Create Obvious Value.

Subscribers and customers must see a clear-cut benefit in your email marketing content. Of course, what rings their bell depends on a variety of factors. It’s up to marketers to discover the hot buttons. So be bold. Test the waters to see what kind of content generates the liveliest engagement. Then repeat often. The results will speak loud and clear.

Unless you’ve gone the black-hat road of obtaining email addresses of people who haven’t actually signed up for your product (FYI your email marketing campaign is the most likely to fail) people have subscribed to your newsletter for a reason. You already have something valuable to them. That is the connection that needs nourishment.

2. Show Your Gratitude.

Responses take time and effort. So give email recipients a token of your esteem each time they engage with your brand. Discounts, thank-you notes, freebies, and perks all work wonderfully! Marketers must also acknowledge that, no matter how spectacular their product or message, they just won’t be everyone’s cup of tea. Some people just don’t have the time to read marketing email that day. Or maybe you’re sending too many messages without enough pretty pictures.

Therefore, provide a handy and obvious unsubscribe option in every message. Not only will you lower the ‘I’m being a pest’ factor, you’ll be lowering the wasted effort factor.

3. Get to Know Your Audience.

You can’t know what your email marketing recipients want unless you first know your audience. Since you likely won’t have time to invite each to a chat-em-up lunch, the next best maneuver is sending out feelers to company personnel. What are customers requesting and asking them about? Once you have that answer, you’ll be able to improve your aim and ensure more messages wind up in front of customer eyeballs instead of inside junk mail and delete folders.

This is where market research comes into play. If you’ve been keeping ahead of the curve, you’ll sit comfortably knowing exactly who your audience is and what exactly they want. So play your cards right on that one.

4. Subject Line is King.

Once upon a time, before computers and TV, newspapers were the media rulers. What sold a newspaper? Headlines (and later pictures). Moral of the story: people are filtering what they want to read based on the subject line. If you spend your time on one thing — write a good headline to keep your email out of the trash can.

Include your freebie, discount or gratitude in the subject.

5. Keep it Short. Keep it Neat. Keep it Quick.

You’ve written a killer subject line and people have clicked into your hand-crafted email marketing campaign. Congratulations. Now what?

Pictures are worth a thousand words. It’s the truest cliche around. Unless you’re a poet or selling a novel, people want to see awesome photography and art. So give them what they want. Take the time to provide some captivating content.

6. Keep your eye on the goal.  

By the way, why are you sending this email in the first place? That’s a question you’ll need to ask yourself when crafting your email marketing materials. What is the goal. What am I writing? What do I want my audience to do? What action should they take.

Include it all in the email in a clear call to action in the email (and likely the subject line too).

7. Track Your Email Marketing Metrics.

The only way to know what works and what doesn’t is to track and analyze the data. Whether you’re running Constant Contact, Mail Chimp or any other email marketing CMS, be sure to link your Google Analytics with your campaign to track every click, engagement and conversion. Sending out blind email blasts isn’t going to cut it. It’s crucial to know what works and what doesn’t that way you can adjust your campaigns based on concrete metrics.

Need Help?

Since 1949 Young Company has been providing quality marketing services for Southern California.  We are a full-service Ad Agency based out of Orange County, CA and offer complete digital marketing services including email marketing campaigns and services for a variety of clients.

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