Email marketing is arguably one of the most effective ways to reach your target audience. Generally, emails have a higher probability of being seen by the recipients because they show up directly in their inboxes. By comparison, social media posts or website updates will not get the same traction.
However, just because emails are more readily seen by people doesn’t mean that they will always be effective. A lot goes into sending out an email that will actually encourage people to perform the desired action, as opposed to simply closing it after one glance.
From subject lines to email content, every element needs to be designed so that it grabs the most attention. If you don’t have experience with email marketing, this might seem baffling to you. But don’t worry. This blog post is the ultimate guide to creating an effective email marketing campaign that’s creative and doesn’t break the bank.
Let’s take a look!
1. Start by deciding your target audience and desired action
To make a good email campaign, you’ll have to brainstorm a little bit. If you send out emails without being strategic about it, you’ll simply not reach the people who could potentially be interested in your product.
So, here is a list of questions you need to answer before you can start preparing your emails:
- Who is your target audience? (Remember that this audience may be different from your business’s official target audience. For instance, if you’re a children’s clothing store, your target audience is kids. But your email audience will be parents because kids don’t read emails.)
- What do you want your emails to achieve? (Do you want to sell more products? Announce a new product line? Invite people to an event?)
- What kind of tone do you want your email to highlight? (Is your email’s tone going to be urgent? Animated? Excited? Serious?)
- What do you want your recipient to do once they finish reading the email? (Do you want them to go to your website? Your social media page?)
2. Build an email list
Here are some tips for collecting emails:
- Ask people to sign up for your newsletter
- Run a social media giveaway that people have to sign up to enter into
- Collect emails when people place orders online
- Ask website visitors to sign up for exclusive deals and offers
- Keep a sign-up sheet at your store
When doing your email marketing, you can even segment your email list according to the number and kind of offers you have.
3. Add some eye-catching visuals to your email
Once you’ve answered the questions in the first strategy and built your email list, you’re ready to design your email. Now we all know that regular emails will not do the trick. You’ll need some colors and fun graphics to really grab your reader’s attention.
Before you start panicking, no, you don’t need to shell out tons of money to create an eye-catching email body. You can do it yourself with sites like PosterMyWall. Here you’ll find thousands of email header templates that you can customize in minutes.
When customizing your template, remember to include the following elements to really make your email stand out:
- Bright, contrasting colors that represent your brand (ideally use no more than two main colors so that you don’t overwhelm the reader)
- Some striking images, especially of the product or service you’re advertising
- Highlight the big offer – for example, “flat 50% off” should be in bold
- Don’t use big sentences or big words i.e., keep it simple and catchy
4. End the email with a clear call to action
A call to action allows your readers to do something with the information they just received. It’s important to add this because, in a few minutes, your reader will probably forget or discard the information they got. With the right call to action button, you can get them to click on your website or buy your product before they lose interest.
Always add your call to action at the end of the email. This gives people the opportunity to go through the entire email body before making a decision to buy stuff from you. You can add the call to action like a button that people can click on, for example, one that says “Shop now” or “Avail this discount today”.
5. It’s all in the subject line
The subject line is the first thing people will see when they get a notification about your email. It’s like a first impression – the factor that decides whether or not someone wants to make the effort of opening the email. Needless to say, you have to make it exciting.
Here are a few failsafe tips for writing the perfect subject line:
- Keep it limited to 4 to 5 words at most
- Get rid of filler words
- Make it value-based i.e., what will people gain by reading your email?
- The most important word will go in the very beginning
6. Use a reliable online service to send your emails
Sending emails manually is obviously a chore that all of us would want to avoid. Luckily, you can. Run entire email campaigns easily on sites like PosterMyWall. You can use image templates to add to your emails and then send them to your email list straight from the site. It’s a simple all-in-one solution that will save you lots of headaches. Their template collection also guarantees great results.
7. Be strategic about the timing of your emails
In your enthusiasm to advertise your products, you might start inching towards spamming your customers. And trust us, you don’t want that because you’ll get blocked immediately. To avoid this, schedule your emails strategically.
Before every campaign, decide how often each email will go out and how many follow-ups you wish to send. Ideally, you should not send more than 1 to 2 emails a week. And if you feel like you won’t be able to send out valuable content that often, you can even reduce it to twice in two weeks.
The exact timing will depend on your business, your audience, and the type of campaign. So do your research and send your emails out accordingly.
Final thoughts
If done right, email campaigns have the ability to take your business to new and unbelievable heights. The good news is that with the help of this guide, you can run a smooth and pain-free campaign and see incredible results in no time.