Email marketing is one of the most important marketing tools at your disposal. And yet, so often this is underutilized or used ineffectively. Too often, businesses neglect this incredibly valuable tool to reach a large percentage of their customer base in a way that no one can really live without. People delete social media platforms regularly from their phones, but no one is eliminating email! In fact, Hubspot noted one statistic that said, “78% of marketers said they’d rather give up social media than email marketing.”
According to Forbes, “Email marketing promises the highest ROI of all marketing channels – $42 back for every dollar you spend.” If that’s the case, then why don’t businesses spend more time and energy building great email campaigns that drive sales?
Not only does using email marketing have a fantastic ROI, when building your email list, you are capturing incredibly valuable customer data that allows you to reach your customers whenever you want! Only your website and your email list let you store your data and keep it. Social media platforms own your audience, not you. But with your email list, you own that data and can use it whenever you please and you can see a huge ROI!
Best Practices For Creating Engaging Emails:
- Email your customer base often. This really should be a minimum of once per week. You need to remind your customers that you exist and are there to offer them solutions to their problems. There is definitely a balance here. Quantity doesn’t equal quality. So, just make sure that you’re offering valuable information that your customers want, rather than sending an email just for the sake of ending an email.
- Build relationships and create value. If you’re dating someone, you don’t ask them to marry you on the first date (at least we hope you don’t). You have to build trust and establish a relationship. It’s the same with your email marketing and your marketing in general. You need to work to show that you bring value to the table, that you have what the customer is looking for, that you are a credible source of information. Once you have established that, then you can do your asking! Until then, wait!
- Test, test, test. Do you know what’s working and what’s not? The only way to know is to do testing. Try A/B testing with subject lines and see which one gets the better open rate. Are you adding buttons on your emails or just hyperlinks on words? Try a new layout. Try adding new design elements. In order to figure out what emails work best, you have to do some trial and error.
What If I’ve Neglected My Email List?
If you’ve been dormant with emailing your customers lately, that’s okay! You can begin a re-engagement campaign to get your old customers engaged again. Here’s an easy way to get you started.
- Email #1: Reintroduce yourself but then make it about how you’re here to serve them. This is not a time to tell the history of your company. A quick intro will suffice and quickly lead into how you’re here to serve your customers.
- Email #2: Show your audience how you can help them achieve their goal and why you’re the person to do so.
- Email #3: Ask what your customers need i.e. what type of content they’d like to see from you that will help them meet their goals, and ask them to reply directly to your email. This shows that you’re personable and are willing to spend the time to connect. Be sure you have someone operating your reply-to email! Just be cautious when writing emails to customers that you are always using DSHEA compliant language.
A word of caution: do not ask for a sale for a while if you’re trying to re-establish your relationship with your email list. You’re trying to establish your relationship and trust in this campaign. Give it about 60 days before you ask for a sale. You don’t want to come across too pushy or desperate.
Start Working Your List
Now is the time to start engaging your email list and building a larger one! This is a huge opportunity for your business to start utilizing its full potential. If you’d like tips on how to grow your email list, you can view our blog about building a larger list here.
