There are lots of things that you can guarantee almost everyone in the world has these days and one of those things is access to an email address. As such, email marketing is now an incredibly effective way to promote your products and services to potential customers whilst also ensuring client retention. 
That being said, for a lot of people effective email marketing can be very hard to master. Does this sound like you? Are you getting little to no response to your email efforts whilst people say your correspondence got lost in their inbox or spam? Are people not clicking through on emails that they do receive? If so, we’re here to help with this breakdown of how to succeed at email marketing. 

Who should you email? 

The first thing to consider when you run email marketing campaigns is who you should be sending these emails to. Rule number one is to never buy email addresses. These owners haven’t explicitly agreed to receive relevant content from you and as such, they may well not be interested in what you are actually selling. Not to mention, you may not even be able to send emails in the first place, given that a lot of email marketing platforms do not permit the use of purchased lists. 
 
This could sound like bad news at first, but the reality is by following this rule you can improve your open and click-through rates. If you only email people that have specifically opted to hear from you and your business, then you can guarantee when you send an email, it will be received by people who are genuinely interested in what you’re sending out. 
 
Another benefit is that you could save money for your business as a lot of email marketing platforms charge per email, so if you are only sending emails to those interested in receiving them, your conversion rate will be better for what you are spending. 
 
If you follow this rule, your chances of driving traffic to your website and generating sales as a result will increase. 
 

How do you stand out? 

Email marketing is a commonly used thing and as a result, consumers are often sent numerous emails promoting services, products, or new businesses every day. Amongst all of this competition, how do you actually stand out? 
 
You will need to use a short and click-enticing subject line to ensure that people aren’t just immediately deleting or ignoring your email. It should use exciting language to convey a message that will resonate with your buyers. It’s important that you don’t ramble on - you’ll have plenty of chances to clarify points in the body of the email so reduce the subject line to about 60 characters (no more than 9 words) and try not to use more than one suitable emoji or punctuation mark. 
 
You should also review your subject line for words or phrases that could mean your email is immediately marked as spam. These include the likes of ‘save’, ‘free’, ‘cash’, and many more. And when it comes to sending emails in the future, don’t keep using the same subject line. Make sure you keep things fresh so that customers will continue to be enticed by what it is you and your business have to offer. 
 

A/B testing 

A/B testing can be a very effective way to make sure that when you engage with any kind of marketing, it is the most valuable marketing possible. It essentially means that you are promoting your work using two separate campaigns, but where only one element of these campaigns is changed. This type of marketing is used frequently on social media sites like Facebook where people will promote a product using two separate images, or with different descriptions or links, etc. It allows businesses to see which type of marketing is the most effective for them when it comes to promoting more work in the future. 
 
The same kind of marketing techniques can be used on different email platforms. Most will allow you to send test emails to a small proportion of your database, with some of the test emails containing one subject line and the rest containing another. After sending these, you can analyse the results and determine which subject line is more effective for generating clicks. You can also do this with other aspects of the email, such as the design, copy, and call to action button, so that eventually, every time you send a message out, you know that it’s an email which will drive a significant amount of traffic to your website. 
 

Generating clicks through emails 

It’s one thing to have an email with a subject line that makes people want to read it, it’s another thing having those readers actually click onto your website as a result. There are a few steps you should follow that will ensure you are generating a sufficient number of clicks: 

1. Keep it concise 

People checking their emails are usually busy so will only allot time for a quick scan. Make sure that your email is straight to the point rather than having a huge body of copy that nobody is going to read through. Large blocks of text can also trigger spam filters. 
 

2. Include a clear call-to-action button 

Don’t make the customer work to find where they need to click to be taken to your website. Ensure your link is very clear so that it can be spotted easily, even by the quickest of scanners. 
 

3. Draft emails with mobile users in mind 

Around 47% of people now look at their emails on their phone, as such, whenever you prepare an email, you need to make sure that you are doing so with mobile users in mind
 

4. Send out a test 

You should always send a test email to yourself to check that everything is working and fits exactly where you want it to. Once you’ve checked everything, then you should be okay to send out your email to your database. 
 

5. Track responsiveness 

As with any marketing initiative, it’s of paramount importance that you track the performance of your emails. This means you can properly see what is working and what isn’t, allowing you to refine your subject line and the content of your emails going forward. 
 

Final thoughts 

An effective email marketing strategy can do wonders for your business, so it’s important that you are making use of this to the fullest degree. Of course, if you really want to make the most of email marketing, it helps to have a brilliant website for your database to click through to – the last thing you want is to lose potential customers at the final stage after all your hard work getting them there. 
 
If you are in need of a new, professional website design, we can help. At it’seeze, we specialise in bespoke websites for all manner of industries, ensuring that your customers are met with an eye-catching design and a seamless user experience whenever they visit your site. Our websites also integrate easily with Mailchimp, allowing you to collect email addresses and grow your database effortlessly and in full compliance with the latest data privacy laws. To find out more, get in touch and we’ll be happy to discuss this further with you. 
 
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