The evolution of email over the past couple decades has aggressively changed the way we not only communicate as individuals but how we conduct business.
Today, small and large businesses use email marketing to communicate with existing customers and hopeful prospects. Statistics show that many companies are able to generate $36 for every dollar they spend on email marketing.
From your home office or corner office, you can grow your business with emails. As tempting as it may seem in the social media age to go straight to Facebook or Twitter, most people still use email daily.
The majority of marketers also use professional search engine optimization (SEO) and email marketing in some capacity. Your content will rank higher in search engines if you use best SEO practices, but only email marketing allows you to reach your potential audience directly.
Both strategies are effective, but they are different. Some marketers, however, might be surprised to use them simultaneously. You can use each to help the other, and vice versa. Think of these tools as one tool to get the most out of them.
Every day, over 304 billion emails are sent and received, and no postage is required. When used correctly, strategic email marketing campaigns can provide a significant return on investment. The following tips will help you incorporate email marketing into your marketing strategy in order to grow your business.
Is Email Marketing Still Effective Today?
Yes, without a doubt.
Experts in marketing will tell you that email may not be the most flashy marketing strategy, but there’s a reason it’s still so popular today. Major companies like Amazon, Walmart and Kohl’s know just how valuable promotional emails are.
It’s for this reason that these companies spend millions of dollars on email campaigns every year.
Email is not outdated as many people believe. The truth is that email marketing is one of the most effective methods of reaching customers. Many studies have shown that email marketing is still more effective than any other social media channel at engaging and converting users.
Digital marketing agencies in California and across the nation reach customers online through omnichannel marketing, multichannel marketing, or single-channel marketing. Agencies use multiple channels to communicate with customers, such as websites, blogs, email, social media, and more, using multichannel or single-channel marketing.
Whatever your product or service, we all want the same thing from our emails – conversions. As such, there are a few best practices you can utilize in any industry to improve the response rate and conversion rates you are seeing from your marketing emails.
Automating and segmenting email generation can further boost ROI by making email marketing even more efficient, reaching a wider range of demographics.
Quality email marketing can quickly build your brand and audience.
How to Increase Engagement With Email Marketing
The key to getting results is to implement the right strategies for your organization, regardless of whether you operate a startup or an established business.
We’ll discuss a few email marketing strategies for increasing customer engagement.
1. Determine who you want to reach
Customers expect personalized offers tailored to their specific needs in the digital age. Due to their busy schedules, many customers are unwilling to engage with generic emails that won’t assist them in making informed decisions.
When you define your target audience, you can create email campaigns that appeal to your specific customers. Simply put, your target audience is the people who are likely to buy or need your products or services. It is important to spend time exploring the interests, motivations, pain points, and preferences of your target audience before you define it.
If you want to learn more about your target audience, here are a few questions to consider:
- Where do they live?
- What is their income?
- Are they using any of your products or services?
- What is their education level?
- Which challenges do they face?
- How do they find content online?
Building strong customer relationships and effective communication strategies starts with defining your target audience. You can also use other channels to gain email subscribers, which you can segment based on your understanding of your target groups.
2. Provide valuable content
The goal of any business is to increase sales. It doesn’t mean, however, that your email messages should be all about creating revenue at the expense of providing value.
Every day, customers receive emails from dozens of companies. An average person receives 121 emails per day.
Due to the poor quality of the content, many of the emails have low conversion rates.
Web conversion experts will tell you that providing high-quality content that is tailored to your audience is the best way to add value to your emails.
Content in an email should tell a story and demonstrate how your company can solve the reader’s problems. Ensure that the subject lines are eye-catching and that the content is free from clutter. Also, keep the industry jargon to a minimum and avoid complex terms that the average reader won’t understand.
Content plays a big role in winning conversions. A key component of online marketing strategies is conversion rate optimization (CRO). All types of digital marketing campaigns, including email marketing, Adwords campaigns, social media publications, web page optimization on e-commerce sites and landing pages, pop-ups, and SEO campaigns, measure conversion rates.
It is essential for conversion rate optimization strategies to track conversions to determine what strategies you should use to increase the number of visitors to your CTAs (calls to action) and increase the number of conversions to complete the desired actions.
Marketing professionals should monitor key metrics in web analytics tools (like Google Analytics) to determine their average conversion rate and set campaign benchmarks and conversion goals.
3. Use an email automation service
From secure invoicing solutions to email automation services, automated software solutions can be a great time-saver. Accounting and budgeting are crucial functions to integrate with your email service, including sending payment reminders and automatically charging credit cards.
Constant Contact, MailChimp, and ConvertKit are just a few of the solutions on the market that can save you time with email automation.
Each subscriber’s email can take hours to compose and format. Using an automated email service, you can create email campaigns that can send the right message at the right time.
Additionally, an automated email can offer subscribers customized email experiences. Not only that, but email automation can be a powerful tool for scalable marketing campaigns.
Learning good email practices will grow your business and your audience.
4. Establish a marketing email plan
A marketing email plan should be in place before your first marketing email is sent. It provides you with a chance to consider the results you wish to achieve. The marketing plan provides you with guidance.
A good email marketing plan includes these elements:
- An email marketing tool list
- The types of emails that should be included in your campaign
- Schedule
- Tips for building your email list
It takes focus and commitment to developing marketing strategies and plans, which is why some email marketers skip this step. Without an actionable plan, it is nearly impossible to achieve marketing success.
5. Assess marketing metrics and KPIs
The benefits of email marketing are numerous. Maybe you want to generate more leads and grow your subscriber list. Perhaps you want to convert leads into customers.
No matter what your goals are, you must know how to measure the success of your email marketing campaigns. The effectiveness of marketing strategies cannot be determined without clear metrics and KPIs.
Email marketing KPIs include:
- Clickthrough Rate
- Conversion Rate
- Bounce Rate
- Open Rate
4 Best Email Marketing Campaigns Types for Small Businesses
- Email Newsletters
The most popular and most common email marketing campaigns are email newsletters. Sending a newsletter to your customers can provide them with useful knowledge and tools.
By creating engaging content, including thought leadership, how-tos, and announcements about new services and products, you can add value to your subscribers’ inboxes. Ask yourself whether your newsletter helps build a relationship with subscribers, increases retention and engagement, and strengthens subscriber loyalty.
- Acquisition Emails
Small businesses can benefit from acquisition emails when they are able to acquire customers who have opted to receive them but have not converted yet. Your subscribers can see the value of becoming a customer if you create attractive offers and informative content.
Using acquisition emails is a great way to move leads through the conversion funnel faster, grow your business, drive more revenue, and target users who have expressed interest in your business.
- Retention Emails
Businesses with experience in email marketing can use retention emails to boost their business. You can keep the lines of communication open for your small business by sending a message asking for feedback or offering an offer to subscribers who haven’t interacted with your campaigns or business lately.
A retention email campaign can be a very useful tool for keeping the customers you have worked hard to gain.
- Promotional Emails
Sending promotional emails is a great way to drive sales, signups, and new product offerings for your small business. You should include offers in your promotional emails that entice and encourage your target to purchase a new product or service.
Your promotional emails can reward engaged subscribers with exclusive offers, drive new product or service sales, and cross-sell products to your existing customers.
Final Thoughts on Email Marketing
The use of email for marketing is one of the most effective ways to reach customers worldwide. Learning the best strategies to engage your customers will take time, but once you master email marketing, your company will surely reap the benefits. Apply these tips to your business today so that you can maximize your influence and visibility.
When it comes to finding cutting-edge digital marketing in Calabasas CA, you need an agency that will represent your business as your true partner. As an entrepreneur, you are good at what you do, and a digital marketing agency provides the tools for your voice to be heard across the world wide web.
ABOUT AVITA GROUP
Avita Group is a digital marketing firm based in Calabasas, California. We specialize in organic Search Engine Optimization (SEO), Pay Per Click (PPC) campaign management, Online Reputation Management (ORM), website creation and conversion optimization.
The Avita Group team boasts a collective experience of over 25 years in the industry and has worked with a variety of multi-million dollar companies to help them improve their ROI, build better brand awareness, and mitigate negative online reviews and results.
Contact us today for a free consultation.