Email marketing has been around for years, and it doesn’t plan on leaving any time soon. Adding this communication channel to your marketing strategy can seem daunting, especially when it feels like we all get 100+ marketing emails every day.
But, strategically launching an email marketing plan can help you reach your target audience and achieve your overall business goals. Sign us up!
Step One: Build your list
The first step towards effective email marketing is building your email list. You can have the best content in the world, but the only way to generate leads is to send it to the right people.
Consider growing your list by:
- Adding a pop up window to your website homepage
- Creating an opt-in reward that offers something of value, such as an informational pdf, access to a webinar, an exclusive coupon, etc.
- Promoting your email newsletters on social media
- Inviting customers to sign up for emails in stores or online at point-of-sale
We recently launched an email marketing plan for our in-house client, Alpha Pak. To help build our list, we added a pop up window to our website homepage that offered a 15% off coupon. Additionally, we encourage social media followers to subscribe to stay updated on promotions, new blogs, and more!
Step Two: Segment your target audiences
The more information you have about your email subscribers, the better! This allows you to segment your audience, so that you are only sending them information that they find relevant and engaging. Why is this important? Segmenting your audience helps create a valuable relationship with engaged subscribers, and you are more likely to generate conversions.
The email marketing segmentation opportunities are endless, such as age, gender, customer type, and content preferences. Understand your different audience personas, and create segments accordingly.
Step Three: Start to strategize
It’s time to think big picture. Take time to go over the following questions with your team to understand the big “why” behind email marketing.
- What is the purpose of adding email marketing to your marketing strategy?
- How are you supporting your overall business goals?
- How often will you send emails to your subscribers?
- What information is most important to your audience?
Once you have a better understanding of your brand’s strategy, identify a few strategic and measurable goals to help gauge success along the way.
Step Four: Create an email content calendar
As an agency that specializes in social media strategy, you know we love our content calendars. Utilizing an email content calendar will help you stay organized as you integrate this communication channel into your marketing plan. Plan ahead to stay on top of upcoming promotions, seasonal opportunities, product launches, and more.
Additionally, email content calendars can help ensure you are using a consistent tone and creative messaging.
Step Five: Measure your success
Time for the fun part! Remember those measurable goals we mentioned earlier? Make sure you are checking your progress often. This will allow you to make adjustments as you grow your email marketing strategy and prevent you from feeling like throwing your computer in a dumpster.
Each month, check delivery rates, open rates, click thru rates, and unsubscribe rates. Analyzing these numbers will help you gain more understanding on what content performs best with your audience. Then, take a deeper dive to see how email marketing is affecting leads and conversions to support your business goals.
Interested in launching an email marketing plan for your brand?
