The best businesses in the world make it a point to integrate email marketing into their overall marketing strategy. It’s the easiest and most efficient method to convey your company’s message online to your customers. It might seem like an archaic prospect to consider in such a time when social media platforms are the most popular thing around nowadays but if an email marketing strategy is properly done, it can be quite an effective method to engage more customers and boost your company’s performance.
As much as it might seem that email marketing is losing relevance, it is actually more important to consider now than ever before. People check their emails quite regularly throughout the course of a day now, and that’s why email marketing retains its pertinence for ecommerce. Businesses would be better off trying to capitalize on it.
That being said, email marketing has to be handled properly in order to actually have an impact on the marketing strategy for a business. Here are some secrets to an effective email marketing strategy that will help you retain existing customers and engage future customers.
1. Start from Your Own Inbox
In order to become well aware of the effectiveness of emails, take a look at your own inbox first. Scroll through the inbox and make a note of the emails that catch your attention and why.
The next thing you should do is open these emails and see which of them you would feel more inclined to actually engage with.
Look at the emails which have content that is easier to understand, provides good readability and the structure overall is more interesting to you.
If you go through enough of the emails, you will get a fair enough idea as to what kind of content within emails makes them more effective. This can provide you great help when you’re formulating your own.
2. Make a Strong First Impression
When you look at the emails, you will understand which emails are more effective at engaging people.
Many people don’t open their emails right away and that’s especially the case when the emails are coming from unknown sources. They open up the email in the preview pane just to see what the email is all about.
You need to include the most relevant information that can be seen in the review pane by the recipients. Make good use of the email subject line to grab the attention of the recipients.
Here are a couple of things you can use in order to encourage them to read on further:
- Flattery: Flattery works more than you expect it to, provided it is done right. For instance if you go for a subject line that goes something like “Your brilliant photographs”, you’re not exactly trying to sell your business in the email subject but you’re flattering the recipient and it might encourage them to open up the email. Follow it up with a quick introduction of your company and you’re pretty much good to go as far as first impressions are concerned.
- Another thing you can do is make sure that the content structure in your email contains the highest quality content right from the beginning of your email marketing campaign. You want your recipients to engage with your business and become your customers for a long period of time and providing them with the best content from the very start will ensure that you have their attention.
3. Focus on the Human Element
For an efficient email marketing campaign make it a point to humanize the emails you’re sending out, this takes priority above all else.
The content and the tone within your email should be composed like you’re talking to another human being on an individual basis. The language you use within your email should be easily readable, friendly and approachable.
Good quality content doesn’t mean you should fill up the email with fancy words and technical jargon. Your focus should be on presenting relevant information in the most relatable manner possible.
4. Keep Image Sizes Low
When you are adding images to the email, you might feel inclined to shove in the highest resolution images that you can find but that’s never really going to be helpful.
Everybody makes use of different devices to open their email, some use different browsers and if the resolution is too high, the settings of the browsers can create problems in how the images are displayed. Just keep the images up to a maximum of 72 dpi.
That’s not too high a resolution that email providers will block it and it’s still high enough to look good on any browser with any setting.
5. Keep the Fonts Simple
Never – repeat – never go overboard with the fonts in your emails.
It is irrelevant how important it is for you to have a certain custom font to be used for your brand because it reflects your brand’s image.
If you use custom fonts, there’s a high chance it can be disastrous for your email marketing campaign. Many of the recipients might not have the same custom fonts that you have installed and the result would be that their browsers will not show the text properly.
That’s why it is better to make use of the more conventional fonts like Georgia, Calibri, Times New Roman or Arial. If you absolutely MUST add some fancy font, you should add it as an image rather than in text form.
6. Feedback is Important
Within your email marketing campaign, make sure that you allow your recipients the ability to give you feedback on the emails you’re sending them and the business as a whole.
It shows them that you’re human, you know you can make mistakes and you’re always willing to improve won what you’re offering right now.
The feedback you get will help to curate your content even better and make it more effective for your email marketing strategy moving forward.
In Conclusion
The most effective email marketing strategies are simple and to the point. The information they convey is relevant and the content structure is friendly and approachable.
Follow the tips provided above and you will realize the true value of email marketing and why it is relevant in this day and age.
