Follow this rules for a good email marketing strategy

While there are still people who are wondering how is email marketing still „alive“, the fact is — not only it is still alive — it is still very powerful.
It’s an effective communication channel for those who know how to utilize it and there are certain things you have to keep in mind in your email marketing strategy.
Here are few things you should think about while producing your email marketing strategy:

1. Always start with an eternal question WHY.
Why are you sending emails? What do you want to achieve? Based on the answers to this question, you should adjust your email marketing strategy.
- What do you want to achieve with your emails?
- Do you want to inform your customers about a new blog content on your site in case they haven’t seen it already?
- Do you want to use email as a direct channel to increase sales?
- Do you want your customers to engage in something (e.g. contest)?

If the answer to any of these questions is yes, great, we have something, to begin with.

2. How well do you know your users?
Can you divide them into several groups and if yes, based on what would you do it?
In order to answer this question, you have to have some data about your users and some form of analysis of your business.
Why is this important? It’s simple — different people react to same things differently and the only way for you to maximize the purpose of emails is to adjust your communication for each of these groups.
No matter what do you want to achieve with your emails one thing is for sure — email is communication channel and key to the success of any communication is an adjustment.
You don’t communicate with every person in your life the same way and same should apply to your users/customers.
Although it’s hard to predict who will respond to what, you can always test.

You can take your business results and combine it with data about your users/customers. For example:
If you are an e-commerce site look at your sales results by the customer. Here you can see differences:
- There are customers shopping more frequently, more valuable things
- There are customers shopping certain product categories
- There are customers shopping only discounted products etc…

That being said, make a few rules and start from the beginning.

1. When people join your list, welcome them
Just like in our daily lives, when someone comes to you you say “hi” and when someone does something we ask them to do, we say „thank you“.
This is your first chance to leave a good impression. Greet your users, tell them you are thankful and make them go back to your page and explore even more.

2. Make your message as personal as it can be
If you know something about your user, use that information to make that „connection“. Make your user feel „special“ and let them know you care. Don’t just go the easy way by sending the same message to everyone. Address the email by their name, adjust the message as much as you can (use the insight you have from your users).

3. Decide in advance how often you will communicate with your users
Not only it is important to communicate, it is also important to communicate with your users regularly. How often is enough is something you will have to decide on your own. It shouldn’t be too often and it shouldn’t be rarely. There is no correct answer how often — it depends on your message. If you’re selling something, then sending email once a week is not too often (you can even do it more often in case you have more sales promotions), but sending an email with content every day would be too much. No one likes „pushy“ people and same goes for brands. Here, again, you can always test and see what brings you best response.

4. Write an attractive subject
Stand out among all uncreative emails — write something that will draw the user’s attention. Be unique. Always. Don’t reveal what you are offering right in your subject unless it’s something really exclusive and valuable.

5. Keep your email „clean“ and structured
If people have to try really hard to find out what the writer wanted to say, they will close your email without doing anything. People don’t have much patience, so keep that in mind while structuring your message. Structure your email so that user can easily „flow“ through it and make the action.

6. Use your own photos
Make your message as personal as you can by also using your own photos instead of using the ones from Shutterstock or some other similar website. Your photos are also a part of your brand and make your brand recognizable. Also, make your photos clickable.

7. Tell your users what you want them to do
Make your call-to-action simple and understandable. Don’t make it too long and don’t make it difficult to notice.

8. Check if everything is ok before you send your email out
Send yourself and few of your colleagues mail to check how does your email look like on desktop, on mobile. Don’t forget to test if all the links are working, if CTA is working if the photos and text are well dispersed.

9. Check the response
After you send out emails, go back in a few hours/days and check the results. See if your email was successful. Collect all insights you can and use that insight for your next email. Never stop analyzing because what’s the purpose of doing something if you’re not interested in what happens after.