Email marketing is a terrific way to drive traffic to your site. But you need to make sure you do it right.
The last thing you want to do is waste all the time you put into building a subscriber list. Understanding the best ways to leverage email marketing will make sure you don't. At the same time, you want to avoid making mistakes that will lose you subscribers.
It's a delicate balancing act.
These seven tips to help you get the most out of your email marketing strategy. And the result of using them? More traffic to your website.
Recommended reading: Why You Need to Build an Email List For Your Business Right Now
Give your readers value
To you, email marketing campaigns are there for one reason, and one reason only: driving conversions. When you look at the tracking data after sending out an email campaign, you want to see:
High open and click-through rates
Increased traffic to your website
Repeat visitors.
None of that matters to your subscribers. Why? Because they only want value in return for giving you their email address. There a few ways you can give them this. Such as exciting content, or discounts on products.
If your emails are a pure sales pitch, your subscribers won't hang around for long.
You need to make them meet in the middle and give you and your subscribers value. The video below explains how to make your emails sell your business in the right way:
[youtube https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mXnp96w9mW0&w=560&h=315]
Write subject lines that convert
Most people decide whether to open an email or send it to trash bin based on the subject line. Excessive hyperbole or too much of a sales-y vibe can turn subscribers off. Why? Because they feel like all they're getting from you is sales brochures or cheap clickbait.
The subject line needs to show the value of what people will get if they open your email. Let's use the example of a website about making cheese. You can write a subject line talking about a new article on cheese making mistakes to avoid.
This demonstrates value and will catch the reader's eye. Whereas a generic hype headline like “Cheesemakers will not want to miss this!!” will have the opposite effect.
Using software like Headline Analyzer helps you to write better subject lines. Adding this to your business will help increase your open-rate, giving you emails that convert.
Don?t send too many emails
If subscribers feel you're bombarding them with emails, they'll unsubscribe. Keep an eye on your tracking data. If you see either of these things:
Open and click-through rates are dropping over time
Unsubscribe requests are increasing over time
It's a good sign that you're doing too much.
So how do you decide how many emails to send?
It's based on what product or services you're offering. An evergreen industry, like tech, needs lots of emails. A seasonal industry, like Halloween, will send most emails at peak time.
It also depends on the intention of your email. Your customers will be less receptive to sales-centered emails than offer based ones.
The video underneath has guidance on how many emails you can send per day:
[youtube https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ok4VUCT6m8A]
Segment your subscribers
This is a vital step. Why? Because sending mass emails puts them in front of disinterested readers. Segmentation lets you target the right people who will care.
Let's say you run an entertainment website covering television, movies, music, and art. If some of your subscribers only care about music, they don't want emails on television, movies, and art.
Email marketing software lets you segment your subscribers. A tool like Moosend lets you create targeted campaigns. You can segment based on things like:
Age
Location
Gender
Interests
Or anything else you have data on.
This means you can send your emails to the right people. When used right, email has the best ROI of any marketing type. Using segmentation allows you to send the right emails.
Send your emails at the right time
Email marketers often rush their campaigns out as soon as they're ready. I don't have any time for this.
What if a big chunk of your subscriber base is at work? Sleeping. Or otherwise occupied? If any of these things are true, it's not a good time to send your emails.
Why? Because by the time they see it, they'll have plenty of other emails to go through. This means yours may wind up on the back burner or never opened at all.
Use the data you have about your customers to find out what time you get the highest open-rate. Also consider also your demographic – all the things from your segmentation. Then send your emails when your subscribers want to read them.
Use a real person?s name
Brand awareness is critical. But people often take it too far by using their website's address or brand name as the sender name.
Subscribers like feeling as if they're interacting with humans. That can't happen if there's no human in your emails for them to connect with. A reluctance to use real names also gives the impression you're not reader-oriented.
Instead, use actual human names as the sender of your emails. You can even make a name up if you're worried about your privacy. The critical point is you need your subscribers to feel like there's a human on the other end.
Email marketing is crucial to your business. Apply these tips and you'll increase your open-rate, and grow the traffic to your website. Which will help your business make more money.
