Email List Marketing
Email marketing can be a really difficult thing for newcomers to break into, especially when you think about all the misinformation and confusion you can find online. Some of the people who are really good at making email list marketing work have a vested interest in making sure you don’t know how to. They would like it to seem like magic. It may be that there is just a little bit of magic involved, but no more so than in any other form of marketing. All you need to do is put in the initial workof market analysis. Just like you would need to do for any marketing campaign.
Begin by brainstorming about what different types of outcomes you would like to see resulting from your email marketing efforts. You don’t have to hold back too much in this phase, just so long as you cover the basics. How would you summarize the campaign’s purpose in just one or two words? When people receive your messages, what do you hope will take place as a result? If you’re just running a single promotion, then this is all cut and dried. But does that squander your list-building efforts? Would you be better served by building your brand over time? Sending out regular messages over an extended time period can be a lot of work. In that case, you can do some of your market research as you go along. Every action that a recipient takes is more data to feed back into the campaign.
This is why the first step in any successful email marketing campaign is traditional market research. That way you will know exactly who you are selling to and why. And don’t fall into the trap of thinking that everyone on your mailing list is the same, either. Even within specific geographic areas, societies are increasingly diverse. Over time, you’ll see different segments of readers present themselves on the same mailing list. All you have to do is use software such as ActiveCampaign Email Marketing to send unique, targeted material to each one of these segments.
The next step is settling on a visual layout for your message. Try to make sure that your message is laid out in a way that facilitates the kind of interaction you’re looking for. For example, in many cases you will want your readers to click through the hyperlinks in your message and arrive at your web site. In this instance, you’ll generally want your email design to be a pretty good match for the design of the actual web page. If they look the similar, the reader will immediately know they’ve found the correct place.
You also need to consider the message content as it exists in the overall context of your email campaign. If you are cultivating a list around an informative newsletter format, take advantage of your readers’ growing expectation that they’ll be receiving useful material from you. By working your sales pitch into the existing informational format, you make it more familiar and more believable to your long-time subscribers.
Finally, an effective email campaign is made up of of messages which are actually being opened up and read by their recipients. There are many different things that can help or hinder your email open rate. Straight away you should be thinking about the headline. It has to give the reader a reason to continue on. Essentially, the headline is an advertisement for your advertisement.
Next to the headline, the most crucial part of your message is in fact the first sentence. And it may not be for the reason that you’re thinking. You see, most email-reading programs display the first line of your message as a kind of teaser for your message. If the teaser text is not engaging, many readers will assume the message is not worth their time, no matter what the headline may have promised. Another thing you may want to take into consideration is the times of day and days of the week that your specific clients will be most open to receiving your messages.
Over time, you should test out new styles, formats, and messages. Put in the extra time that it takes to really study your outcomes in order to determine what factors contribute to the success or failure of a given message. Soon you’ll be ready to implement more advanced strategies such as viral email marketing. In the long run, you’ll be amazed by the way you come to understand your market so deeply that your own email marketing strategy will look like sorcery.