Well the movie sucked, let’s hope your campaign won’t
“How to get Best Results From Your Email Marketing Campaign?” “What makes email marketing effective?” “Which tools should I use for starting email marketing?“
Questions, straight out of “all time classic” Quora.
Reading these calls for help and seeing the demand for email marketing consultation, were some of the reasons why I decided to share my thoughts on this subject.
The other more important reason is some data I came upon the other day, that made me realise even more the value emails can produce for your overall marketing campaign.
It’s super effective and inexpensive as opposed to other channels,
like Facebook. – Savvas Zortikis CEO, Viral Loops
The data that follow are mostly bits and pieces which we will make more sense later on.
Sources: emailmonday, THE RADICATI GROUP INC, campaign monitor, DEMAND METRIC, envatotuts+
So if you were looking for the best ways to maximise your opens, reads, and clicks, you are at the right place.
Even if email marketing is something that scares you please do not panic, I will be your very own personal consultant for today.
I SAID NO PANIC DAMMET.
Just follow my lead and become an email marketing pro in no time. Honestly, now, have I ever disappointed you?
Mom if you are reading this, please just don’t.
Tools, processes & tips are some of the things I will provide you with so that your email marketing campaigns meet the best possible success.
Here we go!
List building first, then the rest is email marketing planning
It is my firm belief that many people don’t really consider list building a part of the actual email marketing process.
They focus more on how the email should be and tools rather than if the recipients are the ones they should aim for.
Many business owners even resort to buying an email list. I am not a person that would support such a move.
Your email marketing efforts will meet utter failure.
Although I have previously elaborated on List building itself, I will summarise the key points just for you. And I will do it Pro bono. (Someone oughs me… *cough*)
1. Make your signup popup/opt-in forms hard to avoid and visually attractive
This is not something really complex to do.
Mailchimp, Aweber, SumoMe & Appocalypsis are just some of the countless tools you can use to make perfect sign up forms on your website.
Set up your account, make magical forms and integrate them to your site.
As simple as that. I would strongly suggest going for Mailchimp: effective and user friendly.
2. Take full advantage of social media features.
Social media offer unique profiling features for Businesses who wish to use specific platforms. For example facebook offers CTA buttons.
You can use it to make people sign up or lead them to a landing page on your site, which will be your lead generation source.
Show to people exclusive content, freebies and anything similar to that. Tell them they can make them theirs but they have to give you their email first.
3. Run contest & Giveaways
One of these cases that something is easier done than said. Run a contest or a giveaway. Anyone can enter but the only thing they have to do is register using their email.
Growth-booster: If you want to generate even more emails from people participating use Viral Loops.
The all-in-one viral marketing platform to launch your referral programs, sweepstakes, competitions and pre-launch campaigns. I am sure a taste will convince you.
4. Make it tempting for people to give you their email with discounts or exclusive newsletter content.
5. Virtual Universities & Webinars are the new thing. Organise some and see these emails coming.
So what do I send to my qualitative leads?
So what should you keep in mind, apart from the fact that GrowthRocks has always been there when you needed help?
I am so funny I know.
So what and when to send to your email list, as well as how it should look like is something that we will see to in this section.
1. Make it personal
Although this might sound a little bit strange to some of you, there is absolutely nothing wrong with it.
“I am a big corporation, how do I even make my email marketing personal?”
The thing is that you just put people from within to represent the company. An Alias if you would prefer. That is what we do at GrowthRocks at least.
Most of our newsletters and announcements are sent by our Content Marketing veteran Apostle, or our CEO Theodore Moulos. (From: Apostle at GrowthRocks e.t.c)
If you remember the email marketing statistics from the beginning the majority of recipients decide whether they will open their email from the “From” description.
Let me ask you this: Would you be more comfortable to open an email from a big ass company or a “friend”?
2. Reflect your brand
Every business should have its own voice and why not a face. This means that once the people read the email they can understand immediately the company it came from.
This can be achieved with simple things such as including your company’s colours & logo in the header.
Another thing, a little bit more advanced email marketing, would be to have your own personal voice. Humorous, strict or sarcastic. Build your brand in a way that the people associate a specific tone and way of writing with you.
3. Go mobile or Go home!
No matter what you have to make sure that your email marketing campaign is mobile optimised.
If it is not, you might as well embrace FAILURE with open arms.
If your emails aren’t mobile-friendly, you could be missing out on the opportunity to engage your subscribers and drive results. – Kim Stiglitz, Director of Content Marketing, Campaign Monitor
Between me and you, I don’t think that you had to read this much needed data through emailmonday, to understand the value of mobile friendliness.
For people like us, who are constantly on the go, our phones are our getaway through various parts of the day.
Reading my emails is one of the first things to do every time I check my phone.
4. Apply the 3 Cs
Clean design, clever copy, clear message.
And the best is that I came up with the 3 C’s.
Sweet right?
Your design should be as sleek as possible. Not too much would describe best what it needs to be.
When it comes to design I am more of a minimalist kind of guy.
Less does not necessarily mean weakness in delivering, in fact, it strengthens your content efforts and helps them fully showcase.
As for your actual message keep is short and simple. Be as clear as possible, but always make sure to add a commercial touch.
It is your time to shine and let all your sarcastic/ roasting humour loose in maximum 3-4 sentences.
A cool CTA for the cherry on top and you are ready to conquer the internet.
Could you ever say no to this? If yes how could you?
5. Use “Power” words
These words are one of the sweetest ways to captivate someone who reads your email. Including one of these in the subject and then scattering them across the main body is strongly advised.
What this words will mainly help you achieve is, sparking curiosity and triggering the emotion.
Although there is a whole bunch of them here are my 20 top favourite ones.
6. Be relevant and create value
Today it’s important to be present, be relevant and add value.” – Nick Besbeas
The former CMO of Linkedin has spoken and there are not many things to add here.
Always have something in your email that your audience can use one way or other.
Let’s say that you have “product A”. People don’t want to hear about the features of your product in their email (thank god we have landing pages for that), he wants to hear how he can actually benefit from “product A”.
Email marketing tools: Survival kit!
AND THE BEST IS THAT THEY ARE ALL FREE. ALMOST. (passes by in small fonts at the bottom of the screen while you watch your commercials)
Ok sorry, good things in life don’t all come for free, but don’t be a b%tch. Plenty of tools with amazing free features to go around.
Yup, that is right, free goodies for you to master email marketing.
Code it like a boss with Litmus
Although Litmus, has an exquisite paid plan, its free features are a diamond in the rough. The tools have won me over for mainly two of each factions Scope & Communities.
Scope the sneakiest little tool out there. Remember all the times you got an email and said, damn this is inspiration staff.
Well, now you are given the chance to inspect its code and steal…like an artist!
The community is just what you need to answer all your email marketing curiosities. Just think of Quora designed only for email marketing related issues.
Nail it with the best email provider Mailchimp
F.Y.I. Mailchimp is not paying me to include it in my every article.
But as you can understand whenever an email marketing subject arises, Mailchimp has to be included.
Mailchimp:
- Let’s you make your own HTML templates
- Is user-friendly
- Offers multiple email lists supports
- Can be fully integrated into almost any platform
- Offers amazing analytics and reports for your campaigns
All these, of course, are included in the free package.
A/B Test the shit out of your campaigns
Well, this is a little something for our more hardcore readers. Being a growth hacker means that a big part of your processes is A/B testing.
Experimentation overcomes skills when it comes to growth hacking. So the same applies in this case.
A/B testing various email formats is the only way to be perfect.
A/B Testing Duration Calculator, will put much-needed timeframes for you so that you know when the curtain is down for an experiment and the other starts.
Your Daily email marketing inspiration
Sometimes what we need is just a little push. Subscribing to newsletters of other is one option, but that takes a lot of time.
Here is a shortcut, at least it is for me. That shortcut is reallygoodemails.
Thousands of templates of actual emails as well as a blog with a lot of email marketing related posts.
Just click and explore for yourself.
Putting an end to my endless mumble-jumble
That is pretty much my “email marketing performance” survival kit. Things to keep in mind before the email, while writing it and after sending it.
Be sure what is your beliefs and company culture fully resonates in these emails.
Don’t overdo it but at the same time put funky touches through visuals and copywriting that will captivate even the most demanding people.
As always feel free to comment on anything discussed in this article as well as reach me in any of the social media provided.
