Email marketing is one of the most effective ways to build your brand, find new leads, and increase your outreach.
That’s why businesses and individuals sent about 281 billion daily emails in 2018. But only 19.7% of those emails were opened.
To see your emails opened and engaged with, your emails need to be created with care, attention to detail, and personal touch.
This is where email marketing software comes in. Email marketing software allows marketers to send out large groups of emails at once while also keeping the messages personalized and relevant for the intended audience. Marketers use the featured templates, A/B testing, and integration with their CRM solutions to produce effective outreach emails.
Email marketing software can be a useful tool, but only when used properly. Continue reading to learn more about how to use email marketing software to maximize your outreach efforts.
Step #1: Set Your Goals and Target Groups
Email marketing can be used for a variety of purposes — to build brand awareness, to run a backlink campaign, to engage with your subscribers, and to boost sales. The first step to designing thoughtful emails is to determine what your goals are. Do you want to get more backlinks to boost your organic marketing strategy? Do you want your customers to know about upcoming flash sales? Do you want to tell your subscribers an interesting story to boost your brand’s perception? Setting your goals is the foundation for all of your email campaigns.
Not only do you have to set your goals, but you must also identify your target group. Most of the time, your emails will be sent to current customers and those who have already opted-in to receive your emails. In this case, you already know their names, their purchasing history, their interests, and their relationship to your business (especially when you integrate your email marketing software with your CRM). Email marketing software allows you to break your target audiences into segmented lists and run personalized emails. This keeps your emails relevant for each of your customers.
Step #2: Creating Powerful Subject Lines and Email Content
With your goals and target audiences in mind, it’s time to start creating emails. Always start with your audience and their interests. Personal names in the greeting are more effective than a general “Hey there!” When emails are not addressed to an individual, they often feel spammy and are less likely to be opened.
Instead, greet the recipient by name and open with a line about what the recipient is interested in, such as “I was reading through your blog on [subject] and thought it offered amazing insights on [topic].” This shows that you have taken the time to familiarize yourself with their content and line of work. Once you show that you took time to get to know the recipient, you can lead into what you are offering (a guest post, a special offer, etc.) Remember — the email should not be about what you want but what value you are offering them!
In the B2C space, an email can open with “Hey [name], You recently [purchased/looked at]. Here are similar products that other customers like you loved.” With email marketing software, emails like this can be automated and tracked.
Step #3: Test What Works
Email marketing solutions feature A/B testing to analyze which factors influence open and click-through rates. You can test your emails’ subject lines, greetings, content, images, and call-to-actions to determine what your audience responds to most.
A/B testing can be meticulous at times. Determine what is most important to test first. If you have low open rates, chances are your subject lines aren’t landing well with your readers. Test different versions of your subject lines to see what can be improved. If you are seeing solid open rates, but are not seeing click-throughs, test your call-to-actions and headlines.
Remember to also examine when your audience opens their email and the frequency of email communication they are comfortable with. B2B companies tend to keep their emails under 3 per month, whereas B2C companies send out more. Gather the data on what keeps your audience engaged without being in their inbox too much (and annoying your readers).
Step #4: Keep At It to Increase Outreach
Email marketing takes time and resources. The most important thing is to design an email that your audience actually wants to read. With email marketing software, you can send beautiful, personalized, and tested emails that your audience will appreciate.
If you’re looking for support or wanting help increasing the volume of you content, reach out and let’s have a chat about your strategy and needs.
David is the Founder and Director of article-writing.co, the fastest-growing content creation agency in North America. He has transformed companies by offering high-quality content that has impacted their SEO ranking, revitalized websites with engaging and industry-relevant blogs and website copy, and championed successful email campaign copy.
