Why email marketing is an insanely easy way to boost your sales
What Email marketing actually means
Email marketing is a part of direct marketing techniques that educated the customers via sending personalized emails about the business. The core purpose behind email marketing is to raise awareness, retention of the audience, etc. For more advanced stages of email marketing, the drafts also include call-to-action content like booking demos, registering for free trials, making purchases, etc.
Let’s walk through the comprehensive details of email marketing.
Importance of email marketing
How it works
How to grow your emailing list
Top picks for email marketing services
Importance of email list segmentation
How to improve email open rates?
Automation in email marketing
FAQs
Email marketing still stands strong and is consistently helping businesses improve their conversion rates and score potential customers.
This guide is to help you set up your entire email marketing funnel that will boost your lead generation and sales. Keep reading!
If you are someone who is not convinced about email marketing, still keep reading! This guide will show you why you need to have faith in email marketing and start building a strong base now!
What are we aiming to deliver from this guide?
How to build strong emailing lists flooded with quality leads.
The correct way of optimizing your emails to skyrocket your open rates and click-through rates.
Automation in email marketing for better conversion rates
Importance of email marketing
Email marketing is so much more than just sending random emails to your list. Sending out emails has a lot more advantages than you would know. But remember, spamming is never a good marketing trick. Your emails need to be meticulously drafted and sent on schedules. Nothing here is haywire, my friend.
Here’s why email marketing should be a priority.
It has the highest user base. We’re pretty sure you know a few people who don’t use social media. But have you met someone without an email ID? Slim chances.
Social media cancel culture is rising every day with something new hitting the news. You never know when your account might get canceled. But with an emailing list that is something you have built, you will always have your leads.
Let’s talk wonderfully big numbers. Studies show that the ROI on email marketing is 4400%! It is also observed that people who buy through email promotions spend 138% more than the ones who buy through social media. Still doubting the old-school ways?
How it works
Let’s jump into the real talk now.
Email marketing consists of several pieces but it ain’t that hard of a puzzle, we promise. Let us take one piece at a time.
Generating email lists
You can have all the great campaigns to send but what if you don’t have anyone to send them to? Tragic. Thus, the first step should be to build a quality list. ‘Quality’ is a basic necessity. If you send the campaigns to the wrong audience, it will all be in vain.
You need to generate a list that has people from your target audience circle. Don’t panic if you don’t understand where to start this. Optinmonster will help you generate it. It is the #1 lead generation software that will develop captivating campaigns and requires no coding skills!
Displaying these campaigns at the right time of the customer journey is also crucial. Optinmonster has you covered here as well! The software integrates with the 30 most popular email service providers to make sure your growth never ceases. This brings us to our next step.
Email service providers
Your ESP should integrate with your other tools to make sure the flow is smooth and uninterrupted.
Why do you need an ESP? Here’s why.
They segment your target audience.
They help you in organizing your lists.
They do the actual work of distributing your campaigns to the audience.
They allow you to track your performance.
Your ESP can make or break this whole deal. After this step, it is just about adding the finesse and connecting to your audience.
How to grow your emailing list
Unfortunately, you can’t just wait for people to sign up. You need a lead magnet. A lead magnet, also known as an optin bribe, is something that you put up to attract the audience. Most of this stuff is digital. Here are some examples of lead magnets:
Ebooks
Tips and resources
Free trials
Coupons
Webinars or workshops
But you don’t have to stick to these common elements. You can design your own lead magnet! Just don’t forget to incorporate these things:
Easy to understand
Lead magnets only work when the customer uses them. Hence, don’t use complex language. Go for something that is in everyday vocabulary.
Actionable
Make sure these magnets are actionable and something that your audience can apply.
Ease of use
They must work smoothly.
Relevance
They need to be relevant to your business. Otherwise, it will only attract the wrong crowd.
Availability
Your audience wants immediate responses and hence, the immediate availability of your magnet should be taken care of.
After doing this, you need to move on to creating optin forms that convert. An optin form is used to convey the benefits of your lead magnets so that the visitors will subscribe to your email newsletters.
You will need the following components for an effective optin form:
Intriguing headline. Something that can catch a bypasser’s eye.
Brief description of your magnet. Keep this precise. We recommend using bullet points rather than long paragraphs.
Aesthetic visuals. Adding visuals will catch the visitor’s attention faster than mere content. For example, a mockup of an ebook.
Simplicity. Don’t ask for too many details. This will freak them out. Keep your form simple and to the point.
Inviting subscribe button. Make sure you use a contrasting color for the subscribe button. It should stand out from the rest of the form.
Now that you have made the form, where do you put it? Here are the top 14 most responsive places on your website to pin the optin form on.
The welcome gate
Floating bar
Site’s header
Or the footer
Blog archive page
Splash page
In your blog posts
Sidebar
As a pop-up box (timed)
Scroll box
About page
Resources page
A separate sign-up page
In an exit-intent popup
We have marked that the exit-intent popup is one of the best deals on the list. It pops up just when the visitor is about to leave the website. It doesn’t interrupt the browsing and pops only when they have made up an opinion as they are about to leave.
Top picks for email marketing services
Before you jump into broadcasting emails, you need to take care of two things:
Customer’s permission
Business setup for broadcasting
Spamming is being taken a lot more seriously than it used to be before. If you send emails to someone without their permission, there are high chances that they will flag you as spam or you might face worse consequences.
Hence, it is better to have their permission. If you are using an optin form, you’re all set! Optinmonster will collect quality leads for you who are willing to receive your emails.
Once you get your list, you need to pick an ESP to set up the broadcasting professionally. If you randomly start sending out emails, your platform will rule you as a spammer. This will not only affect your conversation with customers but also harm interactions with your colleagues or employees.
We have a list of ESPs that we find helpful.
Constant Contact
Sendinblue
HubSpot
Drip
ConvertKit
MailChimp
MailerLite
Importance of email list segmentation
What is an email list segmentation about?
This is a process of segmenting or breaking down your subscribers into groups based on a specific similarity. This is done to ensure that you can send more personalized emails that are relevant to the receiver.
Each email will not appeal to all of your audience. You need to send what is relevant otherwise they will start discarding your emails without reading them.
Why this is important.
This is a proven method to improve your open rates, and click-through rates, and reduce unsubscriptions. This is a smart way of drastically improving your campaign effectiveness.
Once you have efficiently segmented your list, it will help majorly in automating the emails that you send. We will talk more about this in the coming topic.
Segmentation also makes it easier for you to draft the content. You know what the group of people is expecting from you and hence, you provide them with it.
You must be wondering how on earth do you start with such a process? Let us give you a little push. Here are a few categories you can start your dicing with.
New subscribers
Interest areas
Location
Inactivity
Preferences
Lead magnets
Card abandonment
Pro tip: Contact forms are the easiest way of gathering this information.
How to improve email open rates?
This is a super important thing so take notes!
1.Make sure you don’t get flagged as spam
Here’s how you can make sure of that.
Send mails only to the ones who have agreed to it. (heavy emphasis)
The IP address you use shouldn’t have a spam history.
Use verified domains to send emails.
Don’t use sales language like ‘discount’, ‘clearance’, etc.
Avoid using deceptive subject lines.
Add an easy way to unsubscribe
2. Remove inactive subscribers
If they are inactive for a long time, it is clear they aren’t interested. An inactive subscriber can be someone who hasn’t engaged with your emails in the past year.
Once in a while, you can also ask your subscribers if they are still interested.
3. Send at a particular time
Time your emails. It is often ignored but a crucial part. You should send emails at times when you know your customers are more likely to have their phones in their hands. For example, lunch breaks.
4. Catchy subject line
The subject line is the first thing that the audience is going to see. Hence, you need to make sure it is interesting and captivating enough for them to open the email. It should entice curiosity and have a friendly tone.
5. Personalization
Even when it is broadcasted to thousands, write in a way as if it is being addressed to one specific person. This will need you to know your buyer personas thoroughly but it is all worth it.
6. Be informal
Use a friendly tone to connect better with your audience. For example, “Hey! Take a look. You can’t miss this.”
7. Quality content
If you don’t provide them with something worth reading, they won’t come back. Hence, focus on the quality of your content.
8. Sense of humor
Again, this is a style of writing that will appeal to most people. Hence, make more use of it.
9. Mobile-friendly
Our entire lives are on a smartphone. Hence, optimize your emails to be mobile-friendly so more customers can reach you.
Automation in email marketing
Now let’s talk about technology. This is where all your efforts are converted into cash.
The autoresponder series is the market’s leading sales tool. It will help you perform all the steps we have discussed. Autoresponder is a set of emails that are sent out to the segmented email lists when they connect the situation. For example, it will send emails to people who have abandoned their carts.
Here’s why you need it:
To nurture leads
To increase conversion rates
We have summed up the autoresponder setup process in four easy steps:
Step 1: Pick your goal. Do you want it to send reminders or do you want it to send welcome emails?
Step 2: Set the sequence. How many emails do you want to send and when?
Step 3: Writing the emails.
Step 4: Monitor and improvise.
FAQs
Q: How do I build an email marketing strategy?
A: Follow this guide step by step and you will get there.
Q: What is the ideal interval for sending promotional emails?
A: Utilize Google Analytics to determine your ideal number.
Q: What are the KPIs in email marketing?
A: click-through rates, open rates, and deliverability.
Q: Are email newsletters advisable?
A: Absolutely yes!
Q: What are some best practices for list building?
A: Utilize phone directories, Google, network groups, social media, etc.