How To: Make More Money With Email Marketing
Why: Email Marketing is Still King
While email isn’t the shiniest new thing in the marketing world, it still dominates in effectiveness and ROI. There’s a reason it’s been around for years. It works.
People who buy products marketed through email spend 138% more than people that do not receive email offers.
Source: Convince and Convert
Getting a direct link to a potential customer’s email inbox is gold. Especially when most of us are constantly checking our email via laptop, desktop, or mobile devices. Business Insider offers some insight into our need to check our email in the study illustrated below.
Email is a proven method for increasing sales, and creating repeat customers. If you aren’t currently putting time into your email marketing, no sweat. You can start today.
Who: Who do we send emails to?
So who should we direct our email marketing efforts towards? Send them to the people that would be interested to read them: your customers. Create an email newsletter signup on your homepage and collect email addresses there. You can also collect email addresses at the checkout, in classes, at events, etc. Click here to read 32 Ways to Grow Your Email List.
[Tweet “95% of those who’ve signed up to receive emails from companies find those emails useful.”] SalesForce
What: What do we write about?
Knowing what to write is a challenge we all face. Luckily for you, you have a small business that has a lot to say. Share info on upcoming sales, the month’s most popular products, new products, upcoming classes and events, and more. Get creative with it by spotlighting something neat in your industry, or featuring a great employee, teacher, or service person in your business.
How: So how do we do it?
Now that you know what to write about and who to write it to, how do you turn that into an email that brings in sales? Read on.
Create Great Subject Titles
If you want to decrease the chance of your emails being filtered out by spam filters, be mindful of the types of things they look for. Don’t use language in your subject title that will look like spam. Words such as “free” may cause your email to be stopped in its tracks.
Do spend time on your subject line. Take a look at your own inbox and notice which promotional emails you want to open. Why? Do they peak your curiosity? Do they promise savings inside? Will they show you something new and exciting? Apply these principles in your own email marketing. Take ten minutes to brainstorm a list of great subject lines. Once you have your list, show it to your coworkers or employees and get their feedback. Coming up with a great subject line is worth your time. It could make the difference between a customer exploring what your store has to offer, and your email getting deleted before it ever gets opened.
[Tweet “35% of email recipients open email based on subject line alone.”] Convinceandconvert.com
Be Wise About Image Use
Another tip for avoiding spam filters? Keep the number of images you use down. Only use an image if you feel strongly about it. They may look awesome, but images may be the thing that prevents the email from ever getting into the intended inbox. If the email never gets opened, it won’t matter how awesome your images inside of it are. If you do have a great image you want to share, be sure it has a small file size and is joined by at least 200 words.
It’s How You Say It: Tone
If you want to not only avoid spam filters, but also meet your email goals (discussed next), choose a tone that is relatable. Let consumers know that a real person wrote the email that they’re reading. Don’t be afraid to show your excitement about your products and services. After all, 65% of customers prefer a casual tone in their email.
Win Customers For Life With Email
Work Towards Email Goals
Most importantly, have a goal in mind for each email you send.
Is your goal to get email openers to click on a link to your store’s new products?
Is your goal to have them print out a coupon and bring it into the store?
Whatever it is, be sure to make the action easy and obvious for readers to complete. Tell them where to click to learn more about a product or upcoming event, etc. For the best success, measure how effective your email is by tracking traffic to your online store (Google Analytics is a great free tool that allows you to do this) or tracking coupons used from your email, etc. Then adjust your tactics based on those results.
When: The Best Day {and Time} to Send out Your Emails
Timing is an important part of marketing. You do all of the work to craft a well-written email that is complete with a call to action, and now it’s time to send it out to the world. But when? You’re hoping that people will click on the CTA you included and start exploring your online store, but they have to open the email first. The great folks at Hubspot have the answer for us. They pulled data from 20 MILLION EMAILS over a 10 month period and found the following:
[Tweet “We found that Tuesday is the best day of the week to send an email.”]
[Tweet “Sending an email at 11 AM EST will give you the highest chance of receiving a response.”]
Source: Hubspot
As is always the case when it comes to marketing, do your own testing to verify the best times and days for sending emails to your audience. Different audiences can have different email behaviors. Some age groups would be more likely to be online late at night, others may be early birds.
Email Frequency
Knowing how often to send emails is also something you should test with your audience. Start off by sending out emails at least once a month, and no more than once a week. According to one study done by Statista,
[Tweet “86% of consumers would like promotional emails from recognized companies at least monthly.”] [Tweet “15% of consumers would like promotional emails from recognized companies daily.”]
You may want to survey your audience specifically to ask them how often they would like to receive emails. Getting this info can make a big difference in the long run, since 78% of consumers quoted “too many emails” as the reasoning behind their choice to unsubscribe.
[Tweet “78% of consumers quoted “too many emails” as the reasoning behind their choice to unsubscribe.”] Source: Hubspot
Use the information your email subscribers give you. They may not all want the same thing. To avoid getting kicked out of consumer inboxes, you can even create separate email lists, those who are interested in receiving more frequent updates, and those who only want to receive your monthly newsletter.
Make Email Marketing a Part of Your Business Plan
So now what? How can you use the insights we’ve shared to bring revenue to your store via email? Start your email marketing campaign by growing your list. Make a plan for how often you plan to send out emails and what those emails contain. You’ll learn as you go, and that’s great. Just get started!
Originally published at Modern Retailing Hub by Rain Retail Software.
