Although it might not get as much attention as search engine optimisation or pay per click ads, email marketing is a great way to grow your business. Here are 6 email marketing tips that will improve your business in the year ahead.
Note: Make sure that any email marketing you do complies with data protection rules.
Segment your email list
You'll already know that your customers aren't all the same. So why are you sending them all the same marketing emails?
By segmenting your email marketing list, you can target your emails more effectively, boosting your chances of getting good open and click through rates.
There is a huge number of ways you can segment your email marketing list, starting with things as basic as age or gender, to more complex things such as job role or purchase history.
This guide from HubSpot is packed with ideas about how to segment your email list.
You should also make sure you're using a tool which supports segmentation, like email marketing from GoDaddy.
Say goodbye to inactive list members
A bigger email list isn't necessarily a better email list. Sometimes people's need change, and while your marketing emails may have been relevant to someone when they signed up, that doesn't mean that they're still relevant months or even years later.
So identify people who haven't opened your emails in a while. You'll probably want to focus on people who haven't interacted with your mails in six months to a year.
You don't have to remove these people from your mailing list straight away - you can send an email checking if they still want to hear from you (you might even want to include an offer or incentive to get them to buy from you again).
But if they don't reconnect with you, don't hesitate to remove them from your list.
Personalize your email messages
If this isn't something you're doing already, 2019 is the year to start. Why? Well, research by the DMA shows that 75% of email marketing revenue is generated by personalised emails.
So stop starting your emails with "Dear customer" and start using people's names instead.
By combining personalization with segmentation, you can really make your emails stand ut in people's inboxes.
This guide has tips on how to successfully use email personalization.
Make sure your special offers are special
Be honest with yourself - would you really open an email that was offering a 5% discount on products? You wouldn't, would you? So why are you offering low discounts to your customers?
Even 10% might not be enough to spur your customers into action, so you might have to consider going up to 20%, or maybe even higher.
Of course, you don't have to just guess at what kind of discount your customers will react to - you can always try out different levels of discounts over a series of emails to see which gets people to take actions.
And you don't have to limit your special offers to discounts. You could try things like free delivery, or "spend over £50 and get a free gift".
Experiment to find what works best with your target audience.
Work on your calls to action
The call to action is probably the most important part of any email you send. Why? Because that's the moment you'll either convince (or fail to convince) people to click through to your website.
Your calls to action should be clear, relevant and define how someone will benefit by making that click.
You also need to make sure they are clear and clickable no matter what device someone is using to view your email.
You can go in depth on what makes a good email call to action in this guide.
Split test your emails
How can you tell if one call to action is better than another? Or what subject line works best?
The answer is split testing your emails. The idea is simple - you divide your email list in two and send one half one version of your email and the other half a slightly different version. By comparing which performs better, you can identify what kind of call to action or subject line or whatever works best.
One of the most important things when split testing emails is making sure you only change one thing, otherwise you won't be able to tell which change it was that's responsible for any difference in open and click through rates.
You can learn about getting started with split testing in this guide.
Summing up
Email marketing remains a very powerful tool for businesses of all sizes, so make sure you're constantly working to improve the emails you send.
