Being an entrepreneur is a matter of juggling with the numerous aspects of business simultaneously. But what makes it worse is that you don’t have the option to go wrong anywhere as one small mistake can have a huge impact on your profits.
In this article we get you sorted on one such aspect of your business: Email Marketing.
Email Marketing is today’s answer to the problem of reaching out to your customer’s as well as getting the right feedback about your services.
But if you think it’s as simple as creating a mailing list of your customers and sending out bulk emails then you are wrong. In the present times you need a best and reliable email marketing service to take care of the organization, segmentation, testing and analytics of email marketing.
If you have just 5 minutes to spare we will walk you through the A-Z of Email Marketing.
Why Email Marketing?
Even in the era of Social media, Email Marketing still remains the most sought after digital marketing strategy.
Why?
About 99% of email users check their emails everyday and as many as 20 times a day!!! Moreover the average click through rate (3.71%) and average open rates (22.86%) are much higher than that of the social media engagements which is just 0.6%.
Apart from the huge conversion rates (you can earn about $31 for every dollar spent), email marketing also gives you more control over your mailing list than social media accounts which can be hacked or suspended any time.
So the statistics clearly suggest that email gives you more reach to your prospective customers and hence deserves a key place in your marketing strategy.
A Step-by-Step Guide
Choose an Email Marketing Service provider
Partnering with an email marketing service provider is the best way to reap the benefits of your email campaigns. They do not just help send bulk emails but also look after all the aspects including segmentation of lists and automated email sending. They also help a great deal in testing and tracking the reach of your emails.
Since there is a vast sea of services available like Pabbly, Active Campaign, Constant Contact to name a few, it could be confusing for a beginner. Here are some tips to keep in mind while looking for an email marketing service
- Easy drag-&-drop editor to create engaging e-newsletters
- Personalized and targeted automation
- Help improve open rates and click-through rates
- Make managing contact list easy by segmenting your mailing list
Create your Mailing list
Thisis the most crucial step where you decide who are the people most likely to be your customers and targeting them specifically.
We recommend not to fall into shortcuts like buying email lists or collecting emails from business cards etc.
A better way is to send out opt-in forms or subscribe forms via your website and the people who fill them out are the ones interested in your products or offers. This way you have their permission to send emails and thus, your newsletters won’t end up in their Spam folders.
Pabbly lets you easily create a list of upto 5000 subscribers.
Segment and automate your contact list
Segmentation of your mailing list is an efficient way of breaking down and segregating the list into smaller groups based on their preferences. This way you can send only certain mails to each group which might interest them and hence, increasing your conversion rates.
Automation
Once, you have segmented your list now you can set up automation through ‘autoresponder’.
An autoresponder is a series of emails sent to the subscriber either based on their actions or on a time-interval basis.
For example, first you can send a welcome message, then if they visit your website, an email with new offers and discounts can be sent automatically. In case they make a purchase, mails recommending similar products can be sent or a review of the purchased product can be requested.
Convert Kit is a great option if you are looking for powerful automation tools.
Design reusable Email templates
The look and feel of your newsletters talk a lot about its responsiveness and impacts the click-through rates greatly. Here are few pointers to help you:
- Welcome Email is very crucial as it is the first message sent to a new subscriber and thus creates a first impression. Use a warm greeting and explain in minimum words about your products and services and the offers they can expect in the future.
- It would be of help if you choose a service provider that comes with a large number of professional looking templates.
- Make sure to choose clean, minimal but eye-catching templates and personalize it with your Business logo and colours matching your website’s theme. You can also link the image of your business logo to your website to make it more responsive.
Check out our reviews on Constant Contact which includes many branded and industrial customizable templates.
- Also, choose a template that looks good and is responsive across all kinds of devices like desktop, tablet, mobile etc.
Test your Emails
This step can be a big game-changer in your email campaigning must not be rushed through. Always make different variants of each mail and test them out with the help of your email marketing service provider for their open-rates and click through rates.
One such testing method is A/B testing or Split Testing.
Here, you can make two or more variants of the same emails with different subject lines, content, templates or even the time of sending. Then your service provider sends it to a small sample of subscribers from your list and tests each variant. The one that performs the best in terms of high open and click-through rates is then sent to the entire mailing list.
AWeber has a powerful A/B testing tool in case you are looking for one.
Track your results
Your job doesn’t not end after sending out emails. On the contrary, monitoring and tracking your campaign closely is very important. This is where your choice of service provider matters the most. Use the one that gives in-depth analytics on open rates, click-through rates and unsubscribe rates.
This way you can plan well and make informed decisions regarding your future campaigns.
GetResponse is very useful if tracking and reporting is your priority.
Tips & Tricks to combine Email Marketing with for SEO Efforts
SEO is very important to bring you to the top of Search Engine result pages and hence, making your brand more visible and boosting your position in the industry. Combining your SEO efforts with email marketing can work miracles for your company. Let’s see how to do this:
Personalization
For ensuring better customer relations it is very important to send them relevant content through emails. This is where email segmentation will help and ensure that each of your mails are sent to those people who are genuinely interested and are more likely to be converted into customers.
Use CTAs
Call-to-action (CTA) is another integral part of targeted email marketing. This involves asking and directing your customers to perform particular actions such as sharing on social media by adding social media buttons. This way you will direct more traffic to your website, hence improving SEO ranking.
On-site engagement and optimization
Targeting qualified visitors and attracting them to your site will lead to them spending more time with various contents and elements of your website. Not only does this longer engagement increase conversion rates but also are beneficial for SEO Efforts.
Use high-performing Newsletters in blog posts
If you find a particular newsletter with high-quality content doing well in the analytics, you might even repurpose it by republishing the same content on your site as well as a blog. This will let you reap the SEO benefits that come along with the content.
Collect more reviews
Statistically speaking more than 86% customers read reviews before trusting on a brand. Positive reviews will thus attract more customers to your company.
In your email campaigns you can send mails containing CTAs asking the readers to write positive reviews on third-party review websites. You may even ask them to use certain keywords, which in the long run will also boost your SEO Ranking. Check for best Digital marketing services & tools to boost your SERPs
Wrapping Up
Email Marketing strategies, if employed smartly, come with huge returns. Delivering personalized content, segmentation and tracking performance are key to these strategies.
They not only give your brand an exposure to potential customers but also drive more qualified visitors to your website thus improving your SEO rankings.
