10 Critical Components to Consider: Using Email Marketing To Build a Following

Developing a marketing strategy can sometimes feel like trying to drain a lake with a bucket. In this age of information, there is so much we are being bombarded with as small business owners. We seem to be pulled in every direction to try a hundred different types of marketing. 

Getting to Know Email Marketing

Email marketing is a marketing strategy used by almost every business online. It involves sending out emails to people who have subscribed to your email list to connect with your audience. There are many different types of email campaigns that can be used to boost your brand. 

Email marketing provides information and value to customers and puts your company in a position to establish yourself as an industry leader. Providing subscribers with information and solutions to their problems generates trust in your company and forms a long lasting relationship with customers. 

1. Why You Should Incorporate Email Marketing as a Go-To Strategy

When done right, email marketing can be used either as a stand-alone method or in conjunction with other marketing methods. It can help to boost the ROI of different marketing strategies. In addition, email marketing offers a high return on investment.

The average ROI from email marketing is around $43 for every $1 spent on marketing. 

2. Build Trust

Building trust with customers is one of the most critical aspects of marketing. Customers are far more likely to engage with and spend money with businesses that they deem worthy. This includes companies that have a good reputation and who care about their customers beyond the dollar signs.

Email campaigns often increase brand recognition, as companies who use email marketing are seen as more professional and more highly rated than companies who do not have an open line of communication with customers. 

3. Build a Following

Building a following through email marketing may seem like a lot of work, but it doesn't have to be. Many email campaigns can be created and sent with specific triggers, so they are a low maintenance strategy. Email campaigns should be updated regularly, of course, but they still allow for maximum reach.

As a bonus, you know that subscribers are already somewhat interested in something about the company. Whether that is the content, products, services, or the company mission, it means that these people are going to be more open to product pitches and more likely to jump at new product launches. This can mean a consistent stream of income due to these people engaging. 

Drawing your audience in and providing free value is the key to getting more people to sign up for your email list. Providing free email courses, free downloads, free tools, and more through landing pages and web page pop-ups are a great way to entice viewers to enter their email. Just make sure to deliver stellar content and keep the promises that are made when encouraging visitors to sign up. 

Email marketing can also be used to build a social following on Twitter, Facebook, Instagram, and even Pinterest! Inviting customers to become part of a community is easy, and many customers want to feel included. Doing this can help to open lines of communication even more, and provides a quick and easy way for customers to be a part of a company’s journey. 

Emails should be sent consistently, but not too much as to flood people’s inboxes. Once or twice a week should be sufficient, although more often if the customer has recently placed an order or abandoned their cart is fine. Not emailing frequently enough can cause the customers to lose interest, although emailing far too much is a good way to position the customer to unsubscribe.

4. Use Emails to Engage Followers

Providing emails with value is a vital part of email marketing, and doing so gives customers value they can't pass up. This can be anything from discounts to company updates to information that is organized in a way that subscribers cannot find anywhere else.

Emails should be strategically sent, however, with each email being targeted to a specific subset of the grand subscriber list. Providing content that is relevant to the customer's interests is far more effective than sending the same email campaign to every person on the list.

Take a look at the increases companies saw just by segmenting email campaigns: 

5. Importance of Clear Call-to-Action 

Make sure to create a call-to-action within every email, and to place it at the end of the email. 

Subscribers often will not take action without being asked. Organize the email so the call-to-action is the next logical step, and make a move easy to take by providing a link and specific instructions.

Creating a sense of urgency is an essential aspect of the call-to-action, as it promotes feelings of needing to act right now. This ensures that the customer does not merely sit on the email so long as to forget about the action they are supposed to take.

Inviting customers to provide feedback is another great way to make sure your email campaigns are still aligned with your audience’s interest and needs and tells you what you are doing correctly and what needs to be improved upon. This also opens the line of communication between the subscriber and company, which customers love. 

6. Increase Open Rates

Increasing open rates is a crucial aspect of creating a winning email campaign. This is due to the fact that if no one opens the emails, they won’t do a brand any good. 

Excellent Subjects Stand Out

The single most significant factor that affects open rates is the subject line! 64% of people say they open emails based on the subject line.

When your company sends an email to a customer, that email lands in an inbox that is full of other emails. To compete with these other emails for attention, make sure that you write a subject line that is full of personality and entices the person to open the email. 

Subject lines should be kept short; the optimal length is 3-8 words. It could be a pun, a funny saying, a question, or an urgent offer to garner attention. Numbers and emojis can improve open rates, as well. 

Take a look at how the number of words in the subject directly impacts open rates. 

Personalizing emails is a good practice as well, says ListKit. Subject lines with the subscriber's name have a higher chance of getting opened. The first line of the email should be a hook, to draw in interest and keep the customer reading to the end.

Thinking about the customer's needs wants, and values, the hook should talk about the customer and include what will be in the email. Summarizing the email in one line and including something personal about the customer is a great way to engage customer attention.

Be sure to have the emails sent with an actual name and a professional company email address. Gone are the days of “no-reply” email addresses. Customers now are more apt to send those emails to trash. 

7. Increase Reply Rates

Once a person has opened your emails, getting them to respond or reply is one of the keys to having a successful email campaign. 

The Shorter, The Better

Many successful email campaigns have shown that shorter emails often have higher engagement rates. People have a lot of emails to go through, so keeping them short is an excellent way to ensure the entirety of the email is read, all the way through to the call-to-action at the end.

The content should be highly relevant to the customer's life. Segmenting each email campaign to only run to specific customers helps to increase the personalization.

Customers love to feel important, and one way to trigger this emotion is by respecting the customer and only sending content that they could benefit from. 

8. How to Increase ROI 

Increase the ROI of your email campaign by following good practices when creating email copy and designing the emails for each campaign. 

Be sure to make each email something of value to your subscribers. Keep emails short and to the point, and segment lists to ensure you are only sending relevant content. Create an incredible subject line to stand out in the inbox sea. Include a clear call to action in each email and time campaigns to align with the highest open times for your target audience. 

How often emails are sent plays an important factor in how well received the email campaigns will be, as well. This chart represents how often typical businesses email their subscribers. 

9. Types of Email Campaigns to Consider

There are many different types of email campaigns that companies can utilize to keep their emails fresh and exciting in the customers' eyes. Some of these include:

• Welcome Email

• Lead Nurturing

• Email Course

• Product Pitches and Updates

• Abandoned Carts Series

• Post-Purchase Emails 

• New Content Emails

• Digital Newsletter

As you can see, there are tons of options available to get subscribers engaged and interested in what you have to say. Email marketing is best used when you welcome new subscribers and build a relationship with them to allow them to understand your company better and prepare them for product pitches and other types of emails. 

Create a strategy to send helpful and informative posts to new subscribers while sending new content and products to subscribers who have been on your list for a while and already have an excellent grasp of what your company mission is.

The Welcome Email

Welcome emails are sent to people who have just subscribed to an email list. The welcome email typically includes information, such as what the company does and what it stands for, who runs the company and email campaigns, and exciting things the subscriber should check out on the website.

In the welcome email, businesses should avoid selling products. They should instead focus on the customer and how they will benefit from being a part of this email list. 

The email should be kept short, under 200 words if possible. It should also be mostly plain text, with only one or two pictures. Email templates are great, but simple welcome emails have a higher response rate than ones with tons of graphics and other formattings.

Lead Nurturing

These emails are also typically sent to new subscribers. Loaded with useful information pertaining to problems that customers may face, these emails introduce potential customers to the brand and prep them for future communication with the company. These campaigns are typically set up to be triggered when a customer opts-in to the email list in a specific place, similar to email courses.

By prepping customers before bombarding them with sales pitches and other newsletters, it gives the impression that the company is more interested in creating a relationship with the subscriber rather than just selling them products that they may or may not need. This is a great way to lead up to a sales campaign, as customers only purchase from companies that they know and trust. 

Email Courses

Email courses are a fantastic way to get people to opt-in to an email list. People love free stuff, and free email courses fit the bill perfectly. These courses can be created on any topic. One great way to promote these courses is to insert a pop-up on a web page that relates to the topic that the email course covers. Another is to create a dedicated landing page to promote the email course to people who may not otherwise have found it. 

Either way, people will be subscribing like crazy to see what the free course is all about. With no risk, people are more likely to subscribe to a free product than one that they have to pay for. Email courses are also a great way to build trust with customers and position your company as an expert on a topic or a leader in the chosen industry.

Product Pitches and Updates

Although businesses should tread lightly with this type of email, product pitches and updates are a great way to introduce customers to products and services that they may not see otherwise. This includes new product launches and products that relate to purchases already made. Be sure to section your email list accordingly to avoid an adverse reaction from people who are not interested.

Abandoned Carts

Email customers to remind them of their abandoned carts has proved to be a useful method. Emails go out at specific intervals, like one day, one week, and two weeks, to keep the thought in the back of their mind. Recovering these customers is a matter of getting creative with these emails.

Sending product reviews for the products left in the cart is one way to go about generating interest again. Another is to create a sense of urgency and provide a discount if the customer is willing to proceed to check out promptly. Sending an email to show concern, with a subject line such as, “Is Everything Okay?” demonstrates concern about the customer, rather than the abandoned cart. This method can also encourage customers to leave feedback if they are not satisfied with part of the ordering process. 

Post Purchase Emails

Post-purchase emails are often underutilized but can be a crucial aspect to generating respect and trust from customers. Simply showcasing different ways to use a product or which products will go well with their purchase is one way to offer valuable information to the customer without appearing to be too over the top. You may also invite the customer to provide a testimonial or review to gather insights about the products and services that you are selling. 

An email series of this sort also demonstrates a concern with what is best for the customer, rather than the company. Customers love to see this. These emails can be easily triggered when a product is purchased, so these campaigns are very low maintenance.

New Content Emails

New content emails are an excellent way for companies to showcase the latest blog posts. These emails are great because they make it very easy for customers to follow along with a blog and never miss a post! Blogs are very information-rich, and people are beginning to take notice of that. Blogs are more popular than ever before, and using this strategy can make email subscribers loyal followers of your blog without having to put too much work into it.

Digital Newsletters

Digital newsletters are another great option to connect and engage with customers! Although newsletters should only be sent out once a week or so, they can be packed with information. Blog post highlights, new products, social media, and upcoming events are just a few things that can be showcased in these email campaigns.  

In my opinion, all companies should include digital newsletters in their email marketing strategy. This is one of the best ways to connect with subscribers and invite them to take actions to further engage with the company. 

10. How to Craft The Perfect Email Campaign

Sales

Building a great sales email campaign is one way many online businesses generate more leads and more sales. To do this, they follow simple guidelines to create better sales copy in email form.

When selling through email, building a relationship with the customer is essential. Customers spend money with companies they trust, and they grow to trust companies through communication methods, like email. Be sure to include value for the subscriber in each email. Include relevant information, discounts, or freebies to up the value. Keep emails short. The general rule of thumb is 200 words or less for sales emails. 

When it comes time to start sending out those sales pitch emails, remember to segment the audience based on each interest segment of your business. This will make sure you are only sending products that are relevant to the customer, based on content viewing or buying history.

Create a sense of urgency by sending sales invitations, limited-time discounts, and emails with countdown timers to encourage customers to buy now. However, do not use these tactics too often. The sense of urgency will wear off if offered too many times. 

For E-commerce stores, creating email campaigns designed to get customers back after they have abandoned a cart or started to fill out a form is a great way to increase sales. Abandoned cart email series show that reminding customers of their carts have been effective in getting them to come back and complete the purchase.

Email Course

Email courses should be set up so that they are sent only to the people who opt-in to the email list on the email course landing page. This ensures that only interested people are receiving the course and that the campaign is set up correctly and triggers as soon as an email is entered into the appropriate place.

Email courses are great freebies that allow a company to build a relationship with a customer by offering value rather than only selling something. Email courses can be created on almost any topic, from gardening to pet training tips to learn how to write SEO content and anything in between.

Email courses can even be created on innovative ways to use products or services and can be used as a method to lead up to the sale of the company’s products. 

The main thing to keep in mind for email courses is to keep the content short, to about 500 words. Links can be provided to additional content or videos to enhance the course experience further.

Think about what problems customers may be facing and develop an email course that solves a problem. By offering value without sales to customers, it promotes trust between the person and the business.

To get people to sign up for an email course, creating a landing page and promoting that page is one of the best ways to get the word out about the course and get people to sign up. Be sure to set up triggers correctly so that the campaign will be launched without problems. 

Set up the course in such a way as to solve a problem, and lead to offering your company as a solution.

Newsletters

Newsletters offer tons of value to the customer without being too upfront. Newsletters are often sent out weekly or monthly. They often highlight precisely what the company is doing and keeps customers up to date on the newest company offers.

Many companies showcase new blog posts or other content, introduce new products or updates to existing products, and inform customers of any upcoming sales or special events. They can even be used to open up lines of communication by asking customers to participate in surveys about the company and their interests to help the company better understand their audience.

Newsletters can be a bit longer, but still, try to keep the offering short. Showcase different topics that you would like to cover in the email with a brief introduction, but a link to other pages to fully cover the topics. This helps to include all necessary information within the email without it being too long.

Craft the Perfect Email

Crafting the perfect email is an art, but anyone can learn it. Engage customers and provide the most exciting copy you can to get the highest response and highest ROI possible from your email marketing campaigns.

Start with the subject line. Keep it short, sweet, and to the point. Include interesting aspects such as limited time offerings, the customer’s name, puns or jokes, or even emojis to generate interest in what you have to say. 

Keep the content relevant to the customer. Be sure to segment email lists so each subscriber is only sent content that they will be interested in. This increases open rates, response rates, ROI, and trust in the company. Customers love to feel special. Personalizing the content helps make this happen. 

The length should be short, and the email should stay on topic. Sales emails should be 200 words or less, with other types being between 200-500 words. Include additional links to relevant content and specific call-to-actions with links that are easy to follow.

Keep the formatting of the email simple and easy to understand. While newsletters typically have more formatting to provide the look of a digital magazine, other types of emails should limit formatting to plain text and headers, with only one or two pictures. Many people open emails on mobile devices, and keeping formatting simple helps with load times and helps keep emails looking their best across all devices. 

Subscribers Are More Than Just An Email

Don't forget that subscribers are more than just an email. There are people on the other side of the screen with their likes and dislikes, interests, and daily lives. Keeping content personalized and relevant to their situations shows that your business respects them and their time by not spamming them with things they will never need. Producing valuable content for customers or potential customers to enjoy is a great way to foster that relationship and increase the engagement between business and consumer.