Get more impact from your email marketing
You’ve heard it once, you’ve heard it a million times - email marketing is great for business. But what if you’ve tried it and aren’t seeing the results? The answer could be that you’re using it in a way that isn’t engaging your audience. Lets look at 4 ways to get your email marketing working better for your creative business.
Goals
Before you embark on email marketing you need to identify what your primary goals is. Once you have established this, it makes the direction of your individual emails so much clearer.
Some common goals include:
Driving traffic back to your website
Promoting products or services
Increasing sales
Sending the latest news from your business
Remaining front of mind
Being seen as a knowledge expert
Contact List
Establishing a list of names is often what puts people off starting email marketing. It can be time consuming but it is vital to the success of your emails.
Your list represents your target audience so you want the people on this list to be exactly who you want to talk to. Growing your list organically will ensure it is on point. Make it easy for people to sign up by sourcing them via places like:
Existing clients and customers
Social media direct link or incentives to sign up
Website newsletter sign up options or pop up
E-commerce platforms on your website
Keep in mind that it is useful to segment your list too. This allows you to reach specific people within your audience through targeted campaigns.
Content
Make your email worth reading. Full stop.
If your emails focus solely on how great you are and what you’re trying to sell, your audience will quickly turn off.
Using an 80/20 rule works well for email newsletter content:
The first 80% is about providing value to your reader
The last 20% promotes your products or services
How do you provide content that’s valuable? Speak directly to your audience’s needs, wants and questions. For example, write down all of the areas that your clients or customers have difficulty understanding about your services or products, and start by answering these in your content.
Frequency + Consistency
“I send emails a few times a year but I don’t get anything out of it”. Sound familiar? As with any form of marketing you do, frequency and consistency is key. And by frequency we don’t mean quantity - it’s about regularity.
Go back to your goals and remember why you’re using email as part of your marketing. For example: if you’re aiming to increase sales, you will not achieve this with 3-4 emails each year.
Consistency applies to the look and feel of your emails as well as the format of them. Don’t make them harder than they need to be by creating an email from scratch each time. A consistent format gives your audience a clear expectation of what they’re receiving from you. It also makes your job of creating them easier, too!
Consistency combined with frequency and quality content equals the formula for successful email marketing