9 tips for successful email marketing campaigns

Email marketing is the most underutilised form of marketing for many brands. It can be a really effective way to connect with your audience, remind them of your brand, promote sales or bookings, make an announcement, sell products, reward loyal customers etc. 

Whilst businesses see the value in email marketing, most use it ad hoc resulting in campaigns that fall flat, getting few opens and even fewer clicks. Ultimately these brands dwindle the use of this marketing channel opting to spend their time on paid advertising to get a result. 

We’re here to tell you not to give up on email marketing and have taken the time to put together our top nine tips to creating successful email marketing campaigns with purpose!

1. Make sure your subject line is attention-grabbing

Your subject line can make or break your email open rates. Having a subject line that piques your reader’s interest encourages them to open your email and learn more. There are however some keywords that should be avoided in your subject line, but we’ll go into that more in tip #8.

2. Use message previews to your advantage

A great message preview can work as a second email subject line – it’s an opportunity for you to grab attention and convince people to open your email. A dull preview can have your audience deleting your email without even opening it and that’s not what we want. The preview text shouldn’t be a repeat of what’s in the subject line, but it shouldn’t be completely different either. Instead, it should work with your subject line to spark further interest and encourage opens. 

3. Write to the individual

You might be sending your email out to hundreds, or even thousands of people, but crafting your email with that mindset will make it impersonal and disingenuous to the readers. Instead, imagine your writing to one person – what language would you use to excite them? How would you sell your product or service if you were having a casual conversation with one person? Tap into that style of writing and your emails will be more interesting and relatable. 

4. Make sure your email has a clear message

What are you trying to convey to the reader? Having a clear purpose for the email ensures your message is direct and customers know exactly what you’re trying to tell them. Are you trying to sell your newest collection? Or promote an upcoming event? Perhaps you’re trying to generate bookings or share an exclusive sale offer? Whatever the purpose, make sure the message around it is clear so customers know what the email is about and can take appropriate action if they’re interested.

It goes without saying that you should also connect your email system to the desired action. If you’re trying to get sales, ensure your software links in with your eCommerce store so you know exactly how many sales it generated (it’ll help with tip #5 below!).

5. Measure what works

The best way to predict what will be successful in your email marketing campaigns is to look at what has worked in the past. Every audience list is different and, while you might expect a certain subject line or a particular special offer to be effective, the only way to be sure of what works with your audience is to look at your statistics from past campaigns.

Most email marketing platforms allow you to view stats like open rates, click-through rates and conversion statistics. These are essential to learning what your audience what’s to see in their inbox and what isn’t working as well.

6. Make it easy to subscribe

Having a subscription box on your website and promoting sign-ups via socials, while not asking for too many details, is the best way to grow your audience. Asking for too many details at sign up can be off-putting for many customers, with people seeing it as ‘too difficult’ to continue the process.

Feed recommends running competitions anywhere from quarterly to annually or offer an exclusive discount to increase sign-ups. 

7. Include a call to action

If you established the purpose of your message before writing it, you should already know what you want readers to do (tip #4). Whether you’re encouraging readers to visit your website, check out your special offers, share your latest blog post on social media, or buy your new product or service. Ensuring your email has a clear call to action encourages your audience to take the action that you want.

8. Avoid the spam folder!!

Spam and junk folders are the nemeses of all email marketing campaigns, this is where we DON’T want to end up!

Unfortunately, we don’t have complete control over where our emails end up; but there are a few things you can do to avoid the dreaded spam folder –

• Have a clear ‘unsubscribe’ link in your email footer
• Avoid trigger words like ‘100% off’ ‘Act Now’ ‘Free Trial’ etc. HubSpot has created an extensive list of trigger words to avoid, check it out here.
• Ensure you’re following the Spam Act 2003 and the Spam Regulations. Adding people to your list who did not request it, misleading your subscribers and not including a valid postal address all break Australian spam laws. 

9. Create a content calendar

If you have a plan for sending email marketing campaigns, you are more likely to be consistent and increase the trust your subscribers have in you. Make sure the content of your emails is varied and interesting by including ideas for content in your planning, as well as any significant dates or occasions you want to capitalise on.

Armed with those top 9 tips for successful email marketing, are you ready to start creating email marketing campaigns for your brand?! Get in touch with Feed today to see how we can help!