Email marketing may have gotten a bum rap in recent years, but it is still considered to be on the most effective forms of online marketing. The key to getting the most out of an email campaign can be divided into three easy steps.
Email Marketing Steps
Let’s take a look at each one and how you can use these tips to help build a phenomenal email marketing campaign that will get your message across and increase your sales.
Step 1 – Building Your List. Your email campaign will only be effective if you’ve got a great list of targeted customers. One of the best ways to build your list is to focus on two main methods of signing up new customers. Offer the ability to sign up when a customer makes a purchase to get repeat buyers. Purchase targeted leads as a means of attracting new customers.
One of the most important phases of building your list is utilizing permission marketing. This will help you fight back against any spam complaints, but it also ensures that the people who are on your list are interested in being on there. There is no point in having an email list that numbers thousands of subscribers if more than 80% of them are not legitimate.
This is referred to as double opt in sign ups. What that means is that in order to receive your emails, the customer has to sign up first, and then confirm their addition to your list. Many marketers make the mistake of thinking this is too much work for a customer, but again, wouldn’t you rather have leads that are interested and ready to learn more?
Step 2 – Crafting Your Message. While it would be nice if we could just send out emails that say, “hey, check it out” that is not the case in email marketing. You will need to focus on sending out mails that are valuable to the reader, as well as promotional. Whether that means offering a newsletter with free tips, or simply giving your subscribers special deals, you need to keep them in mind.
Take the time to format your email message properly and if necessary, use a service like Constant Contact that will handle formatting for you. It is far more important to have a professional looking email than it is to save a few dollars.
Step 3 – The Landing Page. Although you are already selling to your customers in your email, you will need to direct them to a page that lays it all out in easy to understand terms. This is called a landing page. You should have one for each campaign that you do and it should be hyper focused on your special offer, or the product you are promoting.
You may need to test different versions of your landing page to find the one that will be the most effective. Utilize free tools like Google Analytics for a better idea of how your readers are reacting to the page and the types of click through ratios you are getting. Without this information, you are literally operating in the dark.
These three easy steps will help you create the best possible email marketing campaign that will get the best possible results.