Today I'm delighted to welcome guest author Nick Harley with advanced tips on email marketing.
For most readers of my blog, it's “taken as read” that building a list and keeping in touch with subscribers is an important part of your online marketing.
So you will find Nick bringing you more advanced ideas to enhance this essential strategy.
Over to Nick….
How To Get More From Your Email Marketing
Over the last few years, it seems that conversations about email marketing have taken something of a backseat to newer and more exciting topics in the realm of digital marketing. This might lead some to believe that email marketing is a dying trend, but the numbers tell a different story.
Most marketers (89%) still say that email is their top source of leads, and according to research from Salesforce, it is still one of the top sources for analytics data. When you look at numbers like these, you see that email marketing is not going anywhere. It can still be a valuable component of any digital marketing strategy, especially once you use email checkers to clean your lists and get your emails into inboxes. You just need to know how to get the most from your efforts.
With newer digital marketing concepts taking up more of the conversation, this has led some to neglect their efforts in email marketing. You hear about it less, so you might not give this part of your strategy the attention it needs. In this post, we are going to take a look at email marketing campaigns, and discuss some ideas that can help to get your efforts back on track.
Integrate Social Media
Social media and email might seem like different ends on the digital marketing spectrum, but they are two strategies that can work well together. Even if you are having success with your email marketing or your social media strategy, combining the two will have some significant benefits.
- By integrating social media in with your emails, it can increase the reach of your campaign. There are a lot of people that can become aware of your business through social media, and your emails can encourage this kind of growth.
- You can increase your subscribers list through social media and it gives existing subscribers more options for connecting with your business.
One of the first ways to take advantage of this boost to your email campaign is to add social media icons to your emails. It may seem obvious, but it is the first step in enhancing your emails and expanding their reach. Just make sure the icons are in a place with good visibility. They won’t have much of an effect if they don’t get noticed.
You could also add snippets to your emails with the “retweet this” link attached. Find tweets that can fit in well with the message of some of your emails, and you can get subscribers to retweet. This can be good for getting subscribers to promote your message on Twitter.
Brainstorm more social media-centered ideas that can help your email marketing. For example, you could launch an effort to gain more email subscribers through a variety of social media channels. Additionally, you could add an opt-in form for your email list on your social media pages.
Use Social Proof
Social proof can be a powerful tool across a broad range of digital marketing strategies. If people see that a lot of other people are doing something, they also want to do it. If people see that a company has tons of satisfied customers, they assume that they will also be satisfied.
With email marketing, one of the best ways to do this is to advertise the number of subscribers on your email list. When a potential subscriber sees that there are already tens of thousands of current subscribers, it sends a signal that there is some value to being on the list with all of these other people.
You could also encourage subscribers to write reviews, and try to write emails that will generate conversations among your audience. If you can get people talking, it will get more people interested in your brand.
Grow Your List
One thing about email marketing is that you have to make regular efforts to grow your subscriber list. You don’t want to just build a good list of subscribers and rest on that. You need to keep growing that list, and you need to make sure to send out emails regularly.
When it comes to building your list of email subscribers, there are several methods you could try. One of the most common ways is to add a button on various pages of the website that leads visitors to a sign-up form. More commonly, you employ one of the many services that add a form to pop up when people navigate to certain pages on the website.
As we mentioned before, social media can offer some great opportunities for growing your email list. You can not only simply add a sign-up form to some of your social media pages, but can also target social media users in a campaign to grow your list of subscribers.
Add links and calls to action in your different social media posts, or add these elements to blog posts and pages on your website. If you make YouTube videos, you should add links in the description that can link people to your email sign-up page.
Your current subscribers can be a resource in gaining new subscribers. Encourage them to refer friends to your business and your email list. Incentivize this behavior by offering some kind of reward for getting people to sign-up. Even a small discount can be a great motivator among your current subscriber list.
If straightforward referrals are not working, you could even ask your subscribers to forward your emails. Run an email campaign with a promo that offers a discount for forwarding the email to a certain number of friends.
Use Automated Messages
Automation has become an important part of email marketing. You can use automation in a number of ways, but you still want to ensure that it comes across in a way that seems personalized.
As an example, you should have an automated email set to go out whenever you get a new subscriber. You can select a number of other events that will trigger an automated email, but you want it to at least appear as though it is coming from a real person.
One way to personalize an email is to use the person’s name in the greeting. You also want to customize the text of the email based on the event that triggered it. In other words, you don’t want it to be a generic “thank you” email.
Another good idea is to allow the recipient to reply to the email. Most of these emails come with a “do not reply” text. This is a dead giveaway that it is not a real person sending the email. Connect the automated emails to a real address that somebody uses. When people reply, read the replies and respond.
Make It Easy To Unsubscribe
This might seem like it runs counter to the logic of growing your email marketing efforts, but it is a common courtesy that your subscribers will appreciate.
To start, it helps to build trust with your audience. By making it easy to unsubscribe, it can prevent issues that may arise when people have a hard time unsubscribing. If people have difficulty unsubscribing, they might go to social media to complain. Then, this can cause other people to think twice before joining your email list.
Email marketing has been around for a while, and for some people that might make it seem like it has less value than other, newer digital marketing strategies. The truth is that email marketing is still one of the most effective ways to connect with an audience. When it is done right, it offers one of the best ROIs for your marketing dollars.
About The Author
Nick Harley is the Senior Content Specialist for NeverBounce, the leading real-time email verification and cleaning service. With a background in journalism, public relations, and social media, Harley is interested in helping organizations and brands understand the importance of storytelling and the channels where those stories are delivered.
Conclusion
Thanks to Nick for those advanced tips on how to get the most out of your email marketing campaign. I'd love to hear YOUR experiences and thoughts in the comments below.
