In contemporary times, most people tend to appraise catchy social media posts, captivating memes, and quick-tip videos among others.
However, the fact of the matter is that email marketing strategy(1) remains one of the most effective marketing tools that even big and multinational companies still employ. The only comma associated with this marketing tool is that certain email marketing strategies that were used in the last two decades may no longer be effective. The reason for this is that most sales offers sent to inboxes are often redirected to spam.
Thus, as we approach the last year in the second decade of the century, we have analyzed and come up with a list of the new and most effective email marketing strategies that surpass the regular methods that you have been used to in the last couple of years.
What Is an Email Marketing Strategy?
In case you are probably wondering; what is email marketing strategy?(2) Well, it simply involves effective digital marketing strategies in which an individual(s) optimizes certain marketing techniques in order to capture the attention and interest of the targeted audience through the sending of specific, useful and engaging emails to potential and existing customers.
Importance of Email Marketing Strategy?
As the end of the decade is here, individuals, employers and employees, professionals, marketers, and costumers; in short, almost everyone uses email. Thus, emails are essential in today’s rapidly developing world. We have highlighted below the importance of email marketing strategies:
- One major importance of employing email marketing strategies is that it gives you the platform to reach out to countless mobile customers.
- Also, email marketing techniques are really cost-effective for businesses, especially if you’re running a small business and you’re on a tight budget.
- The ability to make your email marketing interactive is another essential feature of email marketing tools. According to Marketing Land which predicts that by 2020, digital marketing strategies with higher interactiveness will interest various target audiences than other strategies. Luckily, email marketing gives businesses the platform to offer interactive content straight to consumer inboxes, and at an even reduced cost than some other marketing strategies.
- Lastly, email marketing makes it easy and quick to measure your marketing progress. This is because the metrics are easy to track and measure as time goes by.
How to Create an Email Marketing Strategy?
Follow the steps below to create effective email marketing strategies(3):
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Select your email marketing tools
In doing this, you have to research email marketing tools; then compare and contrast which ones would suit your brand marketing. Below are a few popular email marketing tools that you may consider adopting:
– ActiveCampaign
– Campaign Monitor
– MailChimp
– Constant Contact
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Identify who your target audiences are
In finding your target audience, keep in mind that they are the ideal customers that you want to attract to your brand through your marketing strategies. Thus, you would need to ponder on these kinds of questions:
– Who are my current active customers?
– What necessitated them to patronize me?
– What gave me an edge over other competing brands?
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Create your email sending schedule
Your customers are probably getting tons of other emails in a day, so how do you make sure that your own emails are being read?
– First, experiment with the time you schedule to send your emails.
– Track open rates unsubscribe rates, click-throughs, etc. for every email sent.
– From the data you accumulate, evaluate when your customers are most receptive to your emails, and then use that to determine you’re email sending schedule.
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Define what your email marketing goals are
Next, it is important to define what your email marketing goals and targets are. Ensure you track your goals and record the results. Make sure your goals are:
– Specific
– Measurable
– Aspirational
– Realizable
– Time-bound
– Genuine
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Consider the kinds of emails you want to send
In doing this, you have to:
– Determine the writing style or format you intend to use.
– Determine personalizations and mobile optimization guides.
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Format the content of your emails
It is necessary for you to format the content of your emails. It is recommended you give a professional for excellent work.
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Optimize your emails
This is another important step because you have to craft your email to make sure it is optimized for viewing on different devices. You can always search more on ways you can optimize your emails to be mobile-friendly and accessible on all devices.
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Know the A/B tests you would be running
A/B testing is a series of tests that enable you to swap out different parts of your emails to identify what kinds perform best with your audience. To do this, choose the part of your email campaign that you intend to A/B test. Then create copies for yourself and record your results. Make sure that you make adjustments based on which performed most excellent with your audience.
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Finally, reporting
This is the last step in your email marketing strategy. After you record your results, you need to report and make necessary modifications based on the data you have accumulated.
Best Email Marketing Strategies
What good is it to just know how to create an email marketing strategy without really applying those strategies? After all, Theory is Futile Without Application. Thus, I present to you the ways to apply your email marketing strategies and boost your business:-
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Have a target audience
The most important step in caring out your email marketing strategies is knowing who your audiences are. You have to do the homework of finding out who your target audience is and how your content will interest them and drive positive actions from them. The idea here is to put a specific focus on potential and existing customers who are already subscribed to your brand channel and accounts on social media or have googled your brand on a search engines.
Having known whom your content are targeted at, the next thing is to consider the kind of content they want to hear from you through emails. Keep in mind that the more information you have about your target audience and the kind of information they want from you, the higher the persuading power of your email marketing strategy.
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Quality content is quintessential
The next effective email marketing strategy is to provide your audience with the best content. A number of people who have been using email marketing strategies this past decade have not actually considered the quality of the contents they give to their users. However, high-quality content will be the game changer for you as 2020 approaches. In order to make sure your contents are of good quality, make sure you:
– Have a proper plan and draft for your emails. In fact, it is advisable to hire professionals to help you in creating quality content that will interest your audience.
– Creativity is also key. Thus, engage the use of captivating images, graphics, and appropriate fonts when creating your content. Remember, digital marketing strategies that will stand out in 2020 are those that have high interactiveness. Hence, use contents that have visuals to enhance interactivity.
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Let your subject lines speak for you.
According to research, about 47% of users open an email because of the subject line. The effectiveness of your email marketing strategy(4) largely depends on how captivating your subject lines are.
The subject line factor is essential because it determines the first impression your email would convey to the audience. Below are a few tips for creating captivating subject lines:
– Make your subject lines brief and concise.
– Subject lines that appear to be benefit-driven have been known to have a good influence on the audience.
– Strategies such as “Discount offers” also have a significant impact on the users.
– Engage the first-person narrative and be as interactive as possible.
– Create a sense of anxiety, necessity, urgency, and inquisition in your audience, through your subject lines.
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Interactiveness of your content
As emphasized earlier, interactiveness drives response. In 2020, the most guaranteed email marketing strategies that would work would be those that communicate with your audience directly. This is very important to avoid the customers discarding the content of your email. Indeed, a number of individuals do not understand that in executing email marketing strategies, it is more important to get a higher conversion and click rate than concentrating on the mass distribution of emails. In order to activate interactivity with your target audience, below are some of our email marketing strategies tips:
– Do not underestimate CTAs. CTA simply means Call-to-Action. We advise that your email should end with a Call-to-Action that directs your readers to your website via a link.
– Make use of user-generated interactive content such as polls and surveys.
– Tell your target readers that you would appreciate reviews and feedback. Add a link to direct then to your feedback page.
– Engage links and animated buttons to enable your target customers to visit your webpage or contact the customer service provider directly.
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Mobile-friendliness
It is pertinent that you take into cognizance the fact that most users today access their emails through their mobile phones and devices. Thus, design your email marketing content to be mobile-friendly. As you do this, you will experience an increased rate of clicks and activities on your website. To make your emails mobile-friendly, below are some tips:
– Make your subject lines relatively short for mobile targeted emails.
– Engage sign-up forms that are mobile-friendly
– Let your email marketing tools support mobile templates.
Other effective email marketing strategies for 2020 are:
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No Spamming
Do not Spam your target audience. This will not only push your customers away but also redirect your emails to the trash can.
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Customization
Create customized emails by segmenting your audience. Customized emails will focus on the needs and demographics of your defined audience.
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Dynamic content
Dynamic content is a rare tactic by which you can update the content when the email is opened. Most email marketing strategies lack this technique. You can consider a number of ideas such as
– Basic information like name, age, etc.
– Firmographics like name of the organization, work address, and industry type
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Employ Artificial Intelligence
In this age and time, do you really think you can have an effective email marketing strategy without Artificial Intelligence.? That’s not possible. Know that Smarter email automation is made possible by using artificial intelligence (AI) in emails.
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Conduct an A/B Testing
As the trend or style in email marketing strategy is constantly changing, A/B test is increasingly more important to spend the most time and creativity on what users prefer to read.
Frequently Asked Questions about Email Marketing Strategies
Q. What is inbound email marketing strategies?
A. Often, people ask: what is inbound email marketing strategies?(5) It entails channeling emails to individuals who are interested in your brand. This strategy helps to avoid the chances of your contents ending up in your audience’s thrash folder. You wouldn’t want that, would you?
Inbound email marketing involves being strategic in moderation and personalization of your emails. By doing this, you would in fact be saving money that you would have spent on mass untargeted audience.
Q. Does email marketing strategy increase sales?
A. This is more like asking if you would get wet if pushed into a pool. The answer is clearly- YES! Email marketing is a big contributor to e-commerce sales. Do you know that according to Campaign Monitor, email marketing strategy typically generates twice as much as the average of all other forms of online advertising methods? The study found out that you get an estimate of $38 for every $1 you spend on email marketing strategy. Need we say more? Email marketing strategy(6) indeed guarantees increase in both sales and investments.
Conclusion
Our list of effective email marketing strategies(7) can skyrocket your overall brand awareness in 2020. Again, the above email marketing strategies are indubitably a game changer if executed in the appropriate and recommended ways. Do not abuse this cost effective and relatively comfortable strategy to reach out to your audience and spam them with emails. This will only get your emails ending up in the thrash folder. Maximize the potentialities in these email marketing strategies, and you are sure to experience substantial growth in your online business.
