Among all the digital channels, email marketing proved to convert the most. However, running a random email campaign is not sufficient to achieve good conversion results of whether a vitrine site or an online shop. An effective campaign must be well prepared taking into consideration several aspects. Here are 5 steps to follow to excel in an email marketing strategy.
1-Knowing your target: Before promoting your services, products, or content via a newsletter, it is important to draw a profile of your targets. If needed, segment your audience according to different criteria like gender, countries, etc. Knowing who they are makes it easy for you to identify what interest them and curate the content of your newsletter accordingly. Lets say you want to promote a free shipping offer on beauty products specifically for Lebanon, the segmentation allows you to communicate your message directly to women in this specific country.
2-Scheduling of the newsletter: Once the targeting and topics have been figured out, it will be easier to decide on the appropriate timing to send the campaign. According to several studies, it has been noticed that Wednesdays and Thursdays (Check the graph) have the highest open rates. As for one of the most common questions asked how many times per month should we send a newsletter? heres the answer: Anything less than once a month is not enough because people will forget about you. And anything more than 3 to 4 times per month will be considered as annoying and will result in several people unsubscribing. Whatever days and times you choose to send your newsletters, make sure to stay consistent.
3-Creating a branded template: To be able to operate with email marketing in a fast and effective way, you will need to refer to specific tools like Mailchimp. Such tools will save you a lot of time in setting up your newsletters, track your emails performances and give you the freedom to be as creative as you want. Email marketing tools allow you to customize the design of the newsletter and put your fingerprints with your own branding. A consistent design allows subscribers to directly identify your brand.
4-Preparing a landing page: it is a fact that email marketing has the highest average of conversion rate among other online marketing channels like social media and SEO, but this doesnt mean your job ends by creating and sending the newsletter. After all, conversions usually happen on your website. Therefore, it is important to optimize the page users land on from the email. The landing page must communicate in details the message you included in the email and should contain an explicit call-to-action guiding the visitors to the next step.
5-Gathering subscribers: This step is considered by many as the most complicated one of all. Now that you chose your target, you will have to fill the email list with matching users. To achieve that, you will have to refer to other methods. Most of the web agencies and online marketers use social media to attract people and collect email addresses. Sometimes, this strategy is accompanied by other methods like online advertising or a manual search for potential customers.
Now that all is set to start you campaigns, bear in mind to keep an eye on the performances registered. Are the topics used generating engagements? Are the emails producing conversions? If not, why? Benefit from the results to analyze your campaigns, and optimizing them, if needed.