7 Tips for Creating an Effective Email Marketing Strategy

Many of our clients come to Social Supply Co. with the thought that email marketing is a dying marketing form. In reality, this couldn’t be further from the truth. In 2020, there were over 4 billion email users worldwide - which means over half the world’s population is currently using email - and that number is continuing to rise. Even with so many people actively utilizing email,  more than 40% of marketers saw cuts to their email marketing budgets since the pandemic according to Hubspot.

What many businesses fail to realize is that email is not just a tool for communication and lead generation, it’s also a primary tool for generating an amazing return on investment in marketing. Studies show that roughly one-third of markets globally say email marketing is their best tool for generating ROI as it provides roughly $51 for every $1 spent. So why do so many keep predicting the death of email as a marketing tool? It’s because many businesses aren’t properly utilizing an email marketing strategy.

7 Email Marketing Strategy Tips

1) Have clear goals.

The first and one of the most important steps to having a successful email marketing strategy is to take the time to outline goals the business wants to achieve through email. You can achieve a lot with an email, but it’s important to focus on one objective at a time otherwise you risk confusing your audience and reducing conversions. To prevent this from happening make sure content, copy, call to actions, and links are cohesive in every email. Whether it’s increasing audience engagement, growing subscribers, or increasing purchases, focus on one at a time and be sure to have all aspects of your strategy align with this objective. 

2) Segment your audience.

Email segmentation is a must for email marketing. It allows you to properly target your audience and ensure that people are receiving only relevant information. Segmenting subscribers increases open rates, revenue, sales leads, deliverability, and transactions. Segmenting is especially important for companies with very large email lists or multiple products or services that target different interests.

A great way to begin segmenting is by gathering data through signup forms. Many email service providers allow you to build customized signup forms that can be integrated into your website. These forms are a great way to gather segmentable data such as age, gender, location, interests, and more. Most email service providers also allow you to create tags and segments that allow you to target other specific information such as new vs returning customers, frequent buyers, or engaged users. 

3) Automate emails wherever possible.

Automated email campaigns are trigger-based emails that are sent out automatically based upon user behavior. They are a great tool to use in your marketing strategy because trigger emails outperform traditional emails. They have an open rate as high as 49% and generate 4X the revenue on average. Trigger emails perform very well compared to a newsletter or other types of emails because they are sent out when a user interacts with a brand or website, so the user is more likely to be interested in opening the email. 

Adding and utilizing trigger emails to subtly promote products is very effective, and companies do it all the time by adding things like “products you might also like” at the bottom of trigger emails. The most common trigger email types include welcome emails, thank you emails, transactional emails, and abandoned cart emails. Abandoned cart emails are often the most effective at generating high open and purchase rates compared to other email types. 

4) Personalize your messages.

A way to increase engagement and open rate is by personalizing emails. This can be done from collected customer data. Personalization is a key tool when creating an effective email strategy, but it is often overlooked by most marketers and brands. The simplest form of personalization is addressing the reader by their name, and most email service providers (like Mailchimp and Klaviyo) offer this within their functionality. Other great personalization tricks are: sending a happy birthday email, reengagement emails, and utilizing dynamic content (such as their most recent product views or purchases on your website).

The ability to personalize information means you need to have access to that information, which starts way before crafting your email. It starts at your signup form. Whether it’s a subscribe button on your website or an ad campaign with the goal of increasing your mailing list, make sure your signup form asks for a subscriber’s name. Keep in mind that personalization is a great touch, but do not go overboard with it. People like their privacy so they don’t want to feel like it’s being invaded or that they may have given away more information than they should’ve. 

5) Be effective with your subject line.

The subject line is the first impression your audience has and can greatly affect whether or not they will open your email. Aside from personalization, other best practices for writing a subject line include: adding emojis and numbers, asking a question, using power words and terms related to your brand, and of course, clever puns can be pretty effective if done well. Things to avoid are writing in all caps, excessive punctuation, using words often associated with spam, and anything that would deceive or trick someone into opening an email (such as RE: or FW:). The key to an effective email subject line is authenticity with a clear purpose.

6) Test your emails.

There are many ways to design, write, and send an email so testing is a must. Testing is so important to your marketing strategy as it allows you to continually refine your emails to effectively accomplish your goals. Most email service providers make testing emails super easy and offer an A/B Testing feature. You can test many things such as subject lines, copy, call-to-actions, design, personalization, landing page links, your target audience, and your sender name. 

7) Make the email mobile-friendly. 

Over 60% of emails are opened on a mobile device so it’s crucial to make sure your email is readable and created with a phone view in mind. People are more likely to unsubscribe from an email list if the email is not optimized for the device they are using. 

A great way to ensure your email design is optimized for any device is by implementing a responsive email design (RED), which ensures the user experience is optimized regardless of the device or screen they are using. Other things you can do to ensure your emails are mobile-friendly is keep the subject line and preheader short so it’s not cut off and make the CTA big and obvious - mobile devices vary in size so you want things legible and clickable.

Next Steps

Does your company need help implementing an email marketing strategy or building out email campaigns? Social Supply Co. is built on creative communication, and we provide strategic guidance in the creation, development, and optimization of email marketing. Get in touch here to learn more!