Effective Email Marketing campaigns
Within the marketing strategy of a brand or company, email marketing is much more than a distribution channel. In fact, the newsletter campaigns represent a fundamental piece responsible for reinforcing your content strategy and connecting it with the other areas of your online marketing plan.
But, in addition, there are other added benefits to the use of email marketing strategies, such as:
✓ You can reach a global audience.
✓ It allows you to send totally personalized and segmented messages.
✓ The investment is minimal.
✓ The results are measurable.
✓ It is a very powerful web traffic source.
✓ It is one of the most efficient ways to attract customers and induce conversions.
How to prepare an email marketing strategy?
The first two steps are the basis of any action you are going to undertake. A good email marketing strategy has to go hand in hand with the right tool and, before moving on to action, you must have specific objectives to know where you are going and what you want to achieve:
Capture new subscribers?
Loyalty to your customers?
Increase web traffic?
etc.
Now, once you have defined your objectives and you have the right tool at hand, there comes another key point in this strategy, that of capturing subscribers and start filling your list.
In this stage, the generalized strategy (and very little care) would be limited to create a subscription form, place it on the website or in the place from where we want to capture those leads and, once we have a certain volume of accumulated emails, Every time there is something to say, a newsletter campaign is sent to everyone equally and ready. Do not?
This is, without doubt, a huge mistake and it would not be the right strategy if we really want to get good results. What to do to avoid falling into the same trap? Let's find out ...
Segmentation: The key to success in email marketing
To avoid the generalized error described, it is as simple as avoiding sending shipments, yes, lightly. You need to plan well each of your actions and segment and optimize your contact list.
What is segmentation?
Within email marketing specifically, segmentation refers to the categorization of your lists of data in groups based on the information that you have collected or that you collect from subscribers (sex, age, geographical location, interests, behavior ...) with the objective of offering them a "made to measure" content.
Although you can sell a single product or service, your customers / subscribers do not always have the same characteristics, so offering them the same content would be much less likely to succeed than delivering one that is perfectly adapted to their specific characteristics and needs.
Starting from a good segmentation, it will be much easier for us:
Know our target audience very well.
Loyalty to our subscribers.
Optimize our actions and "go to the point".
Improve our results
What to take into account when segmenting?
As in everything, each case is a world but when it comes to grouping the contacts you can take into account a series of main criteria:
► Demographic data: Sex, age, location, income, marital status ...
► The behavior: Interaction with the campaigns themselves, with a website, with a purchase process ...
► Interests: Specific preferences on products or services.
► The activity: The frequency or the assiduousness with which subscribers interact (or not) with campaigns.
And you will think, why are we putting so much emphasis on segmentation if what I was looking for were specific email marketing strategies and examples? As we have seen, if we want the results of our email marketing strategies to improve, segmenting is a key step and from which we should start.
Once you have your lists well segmented, the ideal and most effective would be to prepare email campaigns aimed at each segment. This is where we would arrive at the crux of the matter.
Email Marketing campaign ideas
- The initial cleaning
Yes, you read it right. An initial cleaning, before launching with any other type of campaign, can help very notably in the following your results are much better.
If you have a good email marketing tool, such as Mailchimp, Mailrelay or Infusionsoft, for example, you will have access to the results and statistics of your campaigns.
Thanks to them, you can analyze two very specific metrics for this strategy that will allow you to detect which users show a behavior that does not benefit you at all:
Bounces: (When an email does not reach the recipient's inbox).
The "no openings": (When an email arrives in the recipient's inbox but does not open).
Once detected and segmented users that show this particular behavior, prepare a campaign aimed exclusively at them and, in it, give them the ability to unsubscribe from your list openly and without any commitment.
Do not be afraid to "invite" your less (or none) active subscribers to unsubscribe from your list. After all, they were not giving you anything. Of course, do not dismiss outright. Try to use a sense of humor or a closer wink to avoid that the subscriber may feel offended.
Often, with this type of email, they serve as a wake-up call and subscribers show interest again. But, in any case, remember: What good is it to have thousands of subscribers if they do not open your emails? You are not interested in having a database with subscribers not interested in your product.
- The welcome email
This type of email is the key to start generating trust with your subscribers and it is very important that your content and form are appropriate.
Remember that, if you have obtained a new subscriber, you have the advantage that this user has a prior interest in what you have offered and you have to take advantage of it!
Of course, users who have subscribed to your list may not know you (or not enough). It would be good to introduce yourself and talk a little about yourself and your brand to start building that trust we are looking for. You can take advantage of this shipment to show who you are, what you do and, most importantly, how you can help the user.
Take note of some other extra tips you can apply in this welcome email:
Thanks for that subscription
Present yourself!
Share some content from your blog or other useful resource
Offer some extra incentive
Generate expectation
- Share blog updates
This Email Marketing campaign is more common but not less effective.
You can use your emails as an extension of your blog and each time you have new content, let your subscribers know and give them access from the comfort of your email. It is a good way to prevent your subscribers from forgetting about you and, if you also offer them a valuable content adapted to their characteristics, you will reinforce the reasons for which they wanted to subscribe.
Remember, you have your previous interest and that's why they wanted to be part of your list. Take advantage of it, prepare a content of powerful value and give them reasons to want to remain committed to you.
- Announce the launch or improvement of a product / service
Notifying your subscribers of the launch of a new product or service of your brand is a very good way to keep them up to date with everything you offer as a brand.
If you use this strategy before that novelty is implemented or made public officially, you can generate excitement around it and make it even more attractive.
Another option you can consider is to give your subscribers the opportunity to exclusively access this new product or service before anyone else. In most cases, this is very well received and increases the value of being part of your list.
- Take a survey
This can be one of the most effective emails you send. You can use it to gather more information from your subscribers, adding even more value to your database and allowing you to create new segments.
This type of strategy can serve you to:
Find out what are the most specific tastes or interests of your audience to optimize your lists.
Check the degree of satisfaction of your customers with the service offered and use it to improve
Get new ideas for your business that, in addition, are adapted to the tastes of the consumer so they are more likely to achieve satisfactory results.
You have many options besides those that we have just seen. The key is to know very well the audience you are addressing and generate good content.
Take your time to create a good hook capable of attracting subscribers, segment your list well based on the specific characteristics of these subscribers, prepare a truly valuable content for your audience and plan email campaign shipments without leaving anything to chance.