6 tips for the perfect email marketing strategy

As a business owner, you want to reach your customers. Your digital options are endless; whether you focus on increasing organic search hits through a blog, bid on the perfect combination of keywords or simply up your Facebook presence – reach is within, well, your reach. 

The problem is understanding which strategy to focus on. If you’re an entrepreneur without much marketing background it can all seem a bit overwhelming.

There is one digital marketing channel that remains steadfast in its relative ease and impressive returns. 

Enter email marketing, the often overlooked but massively impactful marketing tool. So impactful in fact, that Hubspot reported email campaigns can generate an ROI of 3800%. 

Before you start shooting off a steady fire of emails to anyone who’s ever visited your website, let’s make sure you’re getting the most out of your creations.

Read more: 4 tips to easily optimise your online store

Here are 6 things to consider before you write your first marketing email:

Set context (for yourself and the customer)

• For yourself: You should know exactly what the purpose of your email is before you even start. Are you letting your audience know about an upcoming lunch special? Or are you trying to move the last bit of your stock before summer arrives? You should only try to do one thing per email.
• For the customer: The opening line (or paragraph) should create context and answer the question of why you are emailing them. Is the subject line aligned with your opening paragraph in what they want to achieve? Respona created some helpful guidelines on opening email lines that work.

Be human and add value

• Your focus should always be on how you can benefit your customer. Highlight the value they might get from what you have to offer – is it a big discount before a busy holiday? Is it early access to a limited range of products? Answer the reader’s question of WIIFM (What’s in it for me?). 
• Speak directly to the customer by using “you” in the sentence and, when available to you, use their first name!

Read more: 8 communication tips for success in sales

Make your email easy to scan

• You’re going to be one of many emails your customer receives in a busy day. Make sure they can get the most important information out quickly, even if they don’t have a lot of time.
• How? Use subheadings and bullet points where relevant, make sure you’ve broken your mail up into paragraphs and bold the active part of the most important sentence (the clause that starts on a verb – “To sign up for this deal, register before 1 April”).

Have a clear call-to-action 

• A call-to-action (CTA) is the action you want your customer to take after reading your email. It could be “shop”, “order”, “register” or even “take the survey”.
• Your CTA should always stand out to the reader (either because it’s in a button or it’s a linked sentence on a separate line). 
• Your CTA should always be above the fold (that means, it should appear before the reader starts scrolling) so that if they open your email for 2 seconds, they already know what is expected of them.
• Do your best to only have one CTA but if you need to include two or more, make sure you know which is most important to you and make it stand out by placing it on its own, in a line, broken away from the rest of the copy to draw attention to it. Additional CTA’s can be included in the copy elsewhere. 

Cut the fluff

• Does every single sentence you’ve written add value and support the overall objective of your email? If you, as the receiver of this email, would not derive any value from a sentence, cut it out. Email marketing should be concise – don’t hold on to a sentence even if it’s beautifully written.  
• A general principle in the world of email marketing: write your first draft, then cut your copy by 20% – then cut it again! Remove all verbal fat, and ensure your message is clear and persuasive.

Segment and customise

• If you’re brave enough to try out an email marketing tool like MailChimp, Campaign Monitor, or Moosend you can start separating your audience into groups to target them more effectively.
• Maybe you only want to speak to your audience in the Western Cape or to people who’ve shopped with you more than twice in the last month? Customising an email to speak directly to them can increase your revenue by up to 760%.

And with all of that said, the two most important things to remember are:

• Write like you’re writing to a good friend. Be friendly and engaging.
• Don’t bombard your audience with emails every day – focus on real instances of value for both you and your customer. Our rule of thumb is 2-3 times a week at most.

Here’s to your next successful email campaign!