email marketing 101.
The world of email marketing can feel overwhelming, both for you as a business owner or marketeer, and for the consumer you are trying to connect with. Every day, consumers are bashed around the head with marketing messages and information, both in the digital world and in the physical world, therefore it can be hard to cut through the noise and form strong connections.
If done badly, email marketing can actually hinder, not help you connect with your customers but have no fear, here are my top tips on how to build your email marketing list and ensure your email are engaging for your audience:
utilise lead magnets.
Email marketing done well can be a great way to form strong relationships with your customers or prospects, understand what content they do/do not engage with and show them the value of the service or products that you provide. But how do you actually capture their information to begin with?
Introducing Lead Magnets – a free item or service that is given away for the purpose of gathering contact details. This doesn’t mean you need to give away free products, lead magnets can we whitepapers, free consultations, discounts, competitions and more. Ultimately, your lead magnet needs to be something your target audience would want and go through the hassle of giving you their details to get.
optimise your sign-up form.
Make sure you think about where your sign-up form should be located. Naturally, businesses include their sign-up form on their website, but should it be on your blog after each article? Should it be in your email signature? Think about where in your marketing communications you can include the form that would generate interest with your audience.
In addition, consider the copy you use for your form. Is it simply titled ‘Newsletter’ with the relevant data boxes and a ‘subscribe button’, or does it mention the value they get from signing up and have an engaging call to action?
keep your content exclusive.
More often than not I see businesses simply sharing their blog content in their email marketing communications, and whilst it’s fine to repurpose your content for different channels, you need to remember that if they have signed up to your newsletter, they are looking for something exclusive that they couldn’t have had otherwise.
For example, if you sell a product then competitions, pre-orders, limited editions and discounts are great ways to provide value to your subscribers. If you provide a service, then consider exclusive white papers, subscriber only events and webinars and free consultations.
include links throughout.
When building your email, remember to hyperlink throughout the email. Your logo, images, text, CTA buttons and more should all be linking to relevant places. Whilst you can see how people engage with your email, you don’t know how everyone’s brains work therefore if you miss the opportunity to link an image and that is where your ideal customer clicks, you are missing an opportunity.
keep email design on brand.
Your email marketing is a reflection of your brand, therefore to ensure your email stands out in an inbox full of spam, follow the following steps:
Ensure it sits in-line with your brand identity (logo/colours/fonts/tone of voice)
Make sure you personalise the text. This is possibly one of the most important steps to take when creating an email, you need to ensure your data is clean so that you can pull in the relevant personalisation tokens to ensure your email looks like it was created specifically for your customer. Something as simple as addressing it to their first name and having their company name in the copy has such an impact.
If you need any marketing advice, please get in touch!
