Email marketing campaigns are essential elements of every online marketing strategy. We communicate and build relationships with customers. To build, execute, and maintain effective email marketing campaigns, you must pay close attention to your audience, the message, and avoid the common mistakes. Marketo provides you 10 tips for successful email marketing campaigns.
1. Use email campaigns as a dialogue
Many marketers follow the “batch and blast” method of email campaigns. This achieves the objective of sending out email, but it often does not begin a dialogue with your audience. Look to extend the conversation by listening, adding relevant value, and engaging prospects with meaningful communication via email marketing campaigns. Ask for their participation and always include social share buttons to encourage your audience to continue the conversation on social channels.2. Evolve past click through rates
Standard metrics are important, but evolve beyond just statistics by exploring all the information available. Pay attention to things like where prospects went on the web site, number of visits, visit frequency, social sharing, and how you can segment them based on their behaviors. You want to make sure you are measuring engagement in addition to traditional metrics.
3. Segmentation
Consider combining the standard segmentation criteria with behavioral data to create more complex segmentation strategies. Look at data including: who opened the email, whether they downloaded the offer, the length of time they spent on the web site, and what they downloaded while they were on the site. Once you have a better idea of what your different segments find interesting, you can make sure your offers are more customized to fit their needs.
4. Focus on the message
Remember email campaigns send out more than ommunication – they send out a message. Use these campaigns to tailor your messages according to the prospect’s profiles, interests and actions. Consider sending different emails/messages to the different segments of your list when appropriate. Additionally, by making sure you are including value added content, your readers are more apt to engage with your emails.5. Automate where needed
By automating your email marketing campaigns, you have more time to spend on developing strategy and being creative. Use your marketing automation solution to automate campaigns based on event and behavioral triggers, and have more time to build relationships with prospects.6. Create a mix of styles and methods
To avoid having your email campaigns underperform, consider mixing up campaign styles and methods. As you test different email components such as delivery days, content angles, surveys, and fulfillment pieces, you will start to learn what your customers are responding to. By always keeping your content and methodology fresh, you will have a better chance of keeping your readers engaged7. Deliverability
Even the best plan will fail if your message doesn’t reach the inbox of your intended recipient. Proof your messages eforehand and identify any issues that may prevent your message from getting to your prospect’s inbox. Avoid common spam trigger words like free, opportunity, offer and click here.8. Testing
To achieve optimal results from your email marketing campaigns, testing is a requirement. Consider testing subject lines along with standard A/B testing to ensure the right message goes to your prospects’ inbox. You can also test other elements including: images, change in copy or other small revisions. Also be sure to test the deliverability of your email with a small inhouse group prior to delivery and make sure that all your links go to the right pages.
