Emails have become a fairly intimate form of communication and brands know this better than anyone else. In an age where consumers are becoming increasingly savvy about branding and marketing, companies need to create email campaigns that are engaging and have a personal touch. Easier said than done, of course, but not impossible. In this article, we tell you how you can effectively create email campaigns for your brand.
Table of Contents
What Is Email Marketing?
An email campaign sends customised content to a large number of recipients, hoping to convert them into leads. Typically, these emails are a mixture of marketing, thought leadership, and educational content, and combine visual and textual content.
Like any other marketing activity, an email marketing campaign has an important goal: lead generation. Alongside, it also works towards brand recognition and awareness. Emails are also a great strategy for building long-term customer relationships.
Why Emails?
Emails send personalised content to your target audience. However, incompetent emails are also among the quickest ways for a potential customer to block your communication and develop a negative brand image. A successful email marketing campaign is planned to precisely address the target audience that would convert to leads.
Benefits Of Email Marketing
According to a 2020 study by Litmus, the ROI on email marketing is at least 36 times. The study further breaks this down into sectors: Tourism and hospitality top at 53 times, while e-commerce and entertainment follow at 45, and technology at 40. Reports suggest at least 66% of all customers have made a purchase after reading a marketing email. This makes email marketing one of the most essential and impactful marketing strategies to adopt.
Email marketing is particularly impactful in how it brings updates to readers. Whether it is to notify your customers of an upcoming sale, to present an opinion piece, to update on a current affair, etc. email marketing works best in delivering a curated content experience. The more relevant it is, the higher the impact.
Emails are perhaps the best way to communicate the following to a large readership:
As a prerequisite, you would need to get your target audience to sign up to hear from you. Signup forms on websites and content, and on social media will help you accumulate your database.
- Product launch
- Sale notification
- Thought leadership
- Updates on current trends, policy, market, etc.
Getting Started With Your Email Campaign
First things first, you should have a clear agenda for your email campaign. Planning in advance means identifying a campaign’s purpose, its target audience, and content topics that they find appealing. Here are some steps to get you started:
- Strategise Your Email
- Strike The Note
- Good Content
- Customisation
Strategise Your Email
Get your audience clear. Who is this email targeting? Identify the right demographics of your target audience that would include their age, cultural background, geographical location, preferred media consumed, behavioural patterns, political conditions, etc.
Once you have identified your demography, strategise your email. A B2B marketing email targeting polluting industries, for example, would focus on the hassles of regulatory fines and industry shutdown for violating environmental norms, as part of their pitch. A luxury cosmetics brand may use a B2C pitch that entices their audience with self-care, stress relief and appropriate imagery.
Looking for lead generation tips? Read our blog on winning the first 100 customers for your business.
Strike The Note
One of the underestimated ingredients of a good email is to know what your customers want. Research topics that your buyer persona would be interested in. One of the best ways to do this is to actually talk to a few of your customers. Would they like events, public and personal, to be remembered? Would they be interested in updates about your business? Would they appreciate a check-in email offering support after they purchase from you?
A simple technique that works towards striking the right note is to open with a personalised line. It’s always a great idea to have a first sentence that has the addressee’s name. This simple strategy calls out to them in a direct way. A witty and conversational first impression is a great start to any content piece, especially because it engages the reader’s intellect and challenges them simultaneously. Once you have struck the note with your target audience, your chances of getting relevant leads are higher.
Good Content
Thought leadership is hard to resist. Relevant content that directly addresses the audience’s problems and pain points is a big gain. Adopt a tone that is clear, direct, and serious. Concise content in an optimised format retains readership and over time, helps build community and nurture leads.
Beware of packing too much content into your newsletter. A newsletter typically has 3-4 headers, visuals, and short opinion pieces. It is important to ensure the email is not cluttered with too many items, making it haywire and ruining the call to action. The content should enable the reader to progress towards completing the action called for.
Customisation
Content must be targeted to appeal to the audience you want to convert. The one-size-fits-all rule certainly doesn’t work with marketing. One of the strategies adopted to attract diverse audiences is customer segmentation. Keeping in mind different kinds of customers based on demography, etc. content may be optimized for your target lead. For instance, visual content is more appealing to millennials, and older readers don’t mind reading long-form content. Customising content types, tone and even the time the mail is sent to the reader can help attract relevant leads for your target.
What Platform Do I Use To Send My Email?
Platforms such as Mailchimp, Sendinblue, HubSpot, MailerLite, Zoho, Moosend, SendPulse, Mailjet, etc. among others are mailing tools that you can use to compose and send marketing emails to databases.
Measure Your Email’s Performance
After your email is sent, measure your campaign’s success using these parameters:
- Clickthrough rates
- Conversion rates (the rate of readers completing the required task: form filling/ making a purchase/ downloading a resource)
- Website visits
- Bounce rate (to rectify incorrect email IDs)
- Number of forwards of your email
Long-term parameters to check your email campaign’s collective performance include tracking your number of signups over a time period. You need to check if your number of signups has increased or decreased, and address the factors behind each.
It is also important for you to periodically examine your email strategy to check if your campaigns are aligned with your key goals. Are you working towards lead generation this quarter? Or towards branding and visibility? Eyeing an award or grant? Make sure your content efforts, including your emails, are aligned with your objectives.
Have any ideas you’d like to add? Let us know in the comments below!
