The best email marketing strategy should be adaptive – constantly changing to best suit the needs of your target audience.
Email marketing is one of the most important ways a business can interact with its current and future customers. It is inexpensive, has a high ROI, and allows for direct and tailored communication in a way no other marketing means can.
To have the best impact possible, marketers must first create a plan of action based on their target persona, gather an email list, write communications, and prepare to measure their results. Marketers can ensure their emails have the highest ROI possible by having a well-thought-through, adaptable plan.
Steps to take for a strong email marketing strategy
These are some key steps to take if you want your email strategy to find success.
Define your target audience.
To create an effective email campaign, whether it consists of a single email or several, is to define your audience. Marketers must understand who reads their emails to target their language and content accordingly. Marketers should start their campaign planning with a well-researched persona. Personas make it easy to work around pain points and tailor campaigns for optimal results.
Define your email marketing goals.
One of the first things you need to do as an email marketer is define short-term and long-term goals for your campaign. To do this, first gather some context – what are the average metrics for your industry? What response can you expect based on current and past campaigns? Defined goals will let you determine reasonable and attainable goals. By setting yourself attainable benchmarks, you’ll be able to understand your successes and failures within the broader context of other marketing activities.
Build a healthy email list
Not all email lists are made equal. A healthy email list is crucial for garnering higher metrics and better success. Your list represents your target audience. You want your receivership to be interested in your content and products – the more is not necessarily the merrier.
One great tip to help build a strong email list is to use lead magnets. Attract potential customers to give you their email by offering free content. This content should be relevant to your product and industry and offer value to your potential customers. Valuable content will keep recipients opening and engaging with your emails. Lead magnets can include:
- Ebooks
- Whitepapers
- Infographics
- Reports or studies
- Webinars
Pick a type of email campaign
There are several types of email campaigns marketers can run, each with benefits and drawbacks. Marketers can send newsletters, drip campaigns, announcements, and new content. The best email campaign will depend on a few factors: the campaign goal, target audience, and product offering. Marketers should use different types of campaigns for each of their goals to optimize their results.
Make an email schedule.
The next step in building an email marketing strategy is to decide on a timeline and build a schedule. Deciding how often correspondents will go out is essential in preventing ad fatigue and optimizing reach. By creating a consistent schedule at the outset, subscribers will know what to expect, helping to build trust.
Gather data and analyze metrics
Finally, understanding which metrics are important to your business and campaign goals is essential. By collecting and analyzing data, marketers can adjust their email marketing strategy for even greater success. Being meticulous with metrics also lets marketers more effectively make minor adjustments, creating a tailored and engaging experience for your recipients. Different metrics will be more important to different businesses, so work to understand which data is most important to your goals and focus your energy there.
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