Targeted email marketing can be a hugely effective way to get in touch with your customers. As with any marketing channel, though, there are things you can do to ensure your efforts have the greatest shot at success.
Let’s walk through the elements of a successful email marketing campaign so you can be sure that you’re on the right track.
Start with Goals
Every great email campaign starts with goal-setting. What is it that you’re hoping to achieve when you click send?
When you go to answer that question, it’s important to get specific. Generalities won’t help you identify what you really need to achieve your goals, and they’ll leave you scratching your head about the email campaign’s success when all is said and done.
Instead, aim for actionable goals. If you’re planning a campaign targeted at prospects offering them access to a free trial of your service, set a goal for the number of sign-ups you’d like to generate.
As you plan your campaign, make sure you keep email best practices in mind.
Segment Your List
Once you’ve got your email campaign goals in mind, it’s time to start segmenting. Segmenting ensures that each and every person on your list is only getting messaging that’s relevant to them.
The way you segment your list will vary based on what makes the most sense for your business. You can choose to segment by demographics (things like age, gender, location, or annual income) or by past behaviors (prospect, return customer, lapsed customer).
For example, if you run a brick-and-mortar business with locations in Cleveland, Cincinnati, and Columbus, you might want to segment by geography. This ensures that your Cleveland-based customers aren’t receiving messaging about the upcoming sale at your Columbus location.
Embrace Personalization
People want to feel recognized by the brands they interact with. They don’t want to receive an email that makes them feel like they’re just some other customer to you; they want to feel seen and understood as an individual.
That’s where personalization comes in. A part of that sense of personalization comes from segmenting your list. But successful email campaigns take it a step further. They include things like personalization tags, which allow you to use your customer’s name in the email, rather than relying on a generic greeting.
You’ve likely noticed this difference in your own inbox. You get one email to “Customer” or “Valued Member” versus an email to your name. Which one would you prefer to open? I know I’m always caught a little off guard when a targeted email message has my name in it, but I’m also impressed, and it makes me want to click in to see what else they know about me!
These may seem like small touches in the big picture of creating an entire email marketing campaign, but they can make a world of difference. Surveys suggest that consumers are 26% more likely to open an email if their name is included in the subject line.
For more on the components that make up a great marketing email, click here.
Include an Attention-Grabbing Subject Line & Killer Email Copy
Speaking of a subject line, you want to ensure your subject line is attention-grabbing. If it’s something generic that’s going to fade into the background, recipients may not click in to read what you have to offer.
Your subject line can range from to-the-point like “50% off Sale Now: Click in for Details” to something funny and witty that entices the user to read more.
Once you’ve captured your recipient’s attention with a great subject line, you’ll want the copy to entice them to take the next step, whatever that is. Make sure your email copy is short and to-the-point with a clear call to action. Think about the best emails you’ve received and what’s really persuaded you to act.
Plan for Mobile
In our on-the-go society, people are checking email on their mobile devices more than ever before. In fact, between 2010 and 2015, there was a 30% increase in email opens on mobile devices. If your email isn’t designed to be mobile-friendly, with the text and images spilling outside the bounds of readers’ phone screens, you’re likely going to lose their interest quickly.
This may require some testing on your end as many emails have to be built separately for desktop or mobile. Or, if you’re working with a marketing partner for your targeted email marketing , they can take care of this for you to ensure it’s seamless no matter where consumers are looking.
Measure Results
Once your email campaign is up and running, it’s important to keep track of results. Remember those goals you set in the beginning? Use them as a yardstick for understanding how your campaign is doing.
But in addition to tracking that specific goal, you should be looking at some standard email marketing KPIs “ things like open rate, clickthrough rate, and unsubscribe rate. These metrics help you to quantify your campaign’s success.
Strive for Constant Improvement
After you’ve crunched the numbers and seen how your campaign performed, it’s time to head back to the drawing board with this new information in mind. What worked? What didn’t? And what other tactics can you employ to generate a better response next time?
When you know where you stand currently, you can aim to move forward with your next campaign. And you continue to repeat that process over and over, getting smarter and garnering better results each and every time.
Targeted email marketing, when done properly, allows you to speak directly to your customers in a way that few other marketing channels do. Take advantage of this unique opportunity by incorporating these elements into each email campaign to ensure yourself the greatest results.
Want to learn what we can do to support you in your targeted email marketing efforts? Contact us today!
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