It's important to realise that email marketing isn't a simple 'opt-in'. You need to provide value for your customers.
Email marketing is an effective and valuable business strategy. Surprised? You’re not alone. Many people assume now that with all the different online platforms available to business owners - and potential customers - that email is somehow becoming a little old-fashioned.
The fact is, email marketing holds its own valuable niche, with substantial returns - if done well! And this is partly for the very reason that there are so many other avenues vying for your customers’ attention. There remains something extremely effective about your messaging coming directly into someone’s personal inbox. Email marketing at its best helps you find, engage, and retain new customers. So if your business is needing a boost, listen up!
There are four main types of email marketing campaigns. A brief overview here will help you figure out which one might be a good fit:
- Email newsletters: Engaging content, ‘how-to’s’, and information about new products and services helps build a relationship with newsletter recipients.
- Acquisition emails: Attractive offers and interesting content help to target users who have expressed some interest in what you do, but who have not yet become customers.
- Retention emails: Keep communication alive with your valued customers through sending messages requesting feedback, or offering some particular value to subscribers who haven’t interacted with your business in a while.
- Promotional emails: Reward subscribers who are already engaged, through making exclusive offers and revealing early information on new services and products.
It’s important to realise that email marketing isn’t a simple ‘opt-in’. You need to provide value for your customers: what’s in it for them? They are essentially giving you something by providing you with their email address; and in return, you need to provide them with something valuable - an offer or some sort, or, a ‘lead magnet’. Good examples of lead magnets could be whitepaper or an eBook; a discount or coupon code; a free trial or sample; or an informative sheet of tips or hacks.
To help achieve buy-in with your offer of the ‘lead magnet’, you need a good opt-in form, one which efficiently collects the subscriber’s details, and clearly outlines the offer at hand. It needs to have an enticing headline, a clear description of the offer, compelling visuals, and an easy form to fill out with an obvious subscriber button.
Where to put the opt-in form on your website? This is an important question, and it depends on the set-up of your website and where your client will land. You could use a separate landing page, a floating bar or sidebar, a splash page, or links on your article and blogs; there are many options. Experiment a little: move your opt-in form around and try some different locations, measuring the results. You will find the optimum location if you keep track of how your opt-in form performs.
All customers are individuals, and there will be different reasons why they come to your site. In respect of this, email autoresponders are ideal for you to be able to engage with your customers in a way that is tailored to their interests, while keeping communication efficient. Once you have categorised your subscribers into smaller groups, autoresponders will send out emails to specific groups at different times, allowing for a range of interests and circumstances. Some ideas would be: a series of welcome emails to new subscribers; interest-based emails depending on the lead magnet they chose; location-based emails for local events; and special offers sent to those who click on particular links and interest areas.
Email marketing is far from outdated; in fact, it’s still a viable, current strategy which has evolved with the times, and which offers high returns for those who fully utilise its potential. There are lots of reasons why people might not click on an email; but there are lots of reasons why they open them all the time. Be sure your email is one of them: ask us to help you design your perfect email marketing strategy.