Why should you even bother to run an email marketing campaign?
Are you looking for a way to generate crazy amounts of leads and turn cold customers or prospects into interested and ready-to-buy patrons of your business? Then, email marketing campaigns are vital to your marketing and sales strategy.
This is why they are highly cost-effective, allowing businesses to reach a large audience at a fraction of the cost of other marketing methods.
Secondly, they provide an excellent opportunity to build long-lasting relationships with new and existing customers.
You can inform them about your products or services and show that you value their loyalty by offering exclusive promotions through marketing emails.
There’s an amazing benefit to email campaigns that no one can take away from you (Apple OS 2014 reference), and it is their traceability.
You can measure the effectiveness of each campaign by tracking open rates, click-through rates, and conversions. This data can be used to fine-tune your future campaigns and optimize your messaging.
Since it is cost-effective, you can learn how to set up campaigns as often as possible. They can be scheduled and automated, allowing time for other essential tasks.
You can experiment with different subject lines, content formats, and calls to action to see what resonates best with your audience.
It’s important to remember that your email list is the MOST valuable asset that should be nurtured over time. By continuously growing your list and providing value through thoughtful content and timely promotions, you can ensure that your subscribers remain engaged and loyal customers for years.
1. Get your email list ready
The initial step in starting an email marketing campaign is to prepare your email list. You should begin by consolidating all your contacts in one location, whether a spreadsheet or a CRM system.
Ensure all the information is correct and includes essential details like names, email addresses, and phone numbers. Adding tags to your contacts lets you sort and select them based on specific criteria.
Once your contacts are tagged, you can personalize content and increase engagement by segmenting your audience into groups based on their interests or demographics.
An organized email list is the best way to build a targeted email list and is a solid foundation for creating a successful email marketing campaign.
PRO-TIP: Collect your customer’s and lead’s contact information names, email addresses, and phone numbers. Get creative but systematic with your tags. This will be a game changer for your business and your profit.
2. Create your email templates
This applies to some of us who use email marketing software, but if you run your campaigns manually, think of Gmail signatures as your footers.
Firstly, you must favor using plain text over HTML designs for your emails.
While fancy designs may look attractive, they can often be flagged as spam and usually get your emails landed in the Promotion category.
BUT, you still want to incorporate your company logo and an unsubscribe button in the footer of the email. This helps with branding and ensures compliance with email marketing regulations. A
Stay away from using the following: website-like designs, any HMLT that has many links, any templates that are design-heavy, too many images, too many GIFs, or other sort of imagery.
When setting up your template is crucial to set font type, font size, and line height that match your brand’s style. What I find working well is regular fonts that most email clients support (Arial, Helvetica, and other Windows 95 fonts).
The font size is your preference, but font size 18 is our choice.
The line height should be 1.75.
The objective here is to look like a regular email from a friend, not a marketing masterpiece.
Lastly, your email sender information is important to build trust with your recipients. Stay away from emails that scream “SALES” – like sales@myadcenter.com, etc. Make sure that you use your full name in the sender’s name.
PRO-TIP: We will cover more on this one later in this article, but including a mission or about us statement in the email format in very small font and with low opacity will improve your delivery rates. Try it!
3. Create personalized and captivating email subject line
Your subject line is the headline of your email that will get the reader to open the email. That’s the goal.
You will definitely get the reader’s attention if you use the recipient’s name. It is our nature to feel comfort seeing your name and dropping defense mechanisms when someone calls us by our name. And I mean the first name, right?
Next, we can mention something related to their interests, recent events, work, and achievements in the subject line.
“Hey, John, this will really make a great birthday gift”.
Take a little time to find out what it will be if you are working on manual cold email campaigns. It works!
Please, please, please avoid Excessive Capitalization and ALL CAPS.
Now this one will really make your emails opened up by strangers: ask questions, invoke curiosity or urgency.
“John, this is crazy and I think your company may be doing this”
“John, what will be the first thing you will do in the new office?”
Avoid sales language or spammy wording, so stay away from setting a temperature for the email by asking business-related questions, or guaranteeing an increase in RIOs with your offer right from the door.
“John, we will increase your sales by 300% or double your profits in 90 days” – DO NOT USE THIS ONE!
PRO-TIP: Just imagine that you are writing an email to a friend or colleague – this type of personal you want to get.
4. Create email content with real value for the reader
Congrats, you have had a contact open your email, and it is now the email content’s job to get the reader through each line of the email – all the way down to the bottom to your CTA (call to action).
It is time to deliver on the promise you made in your subject line. Your email must be personable, education, and yet entertaining. Otherwise, the contact will develop an email blindness to your boring emails very quickly.
Let’s make it very clear here, It’s important to address one pain point while trimming away unnecessary information. Focus on one thing only.
“My client Andrei generated over $1,000,000 in opportunities in 5 days simply by combining all his communication channels in one place. This is how he did this…“…entire email will be about how much benefit it is to answer all customers’ inquiries from one place.
Similar to this blog post, you can use one or two sentences per line to enhance readability. Make each sentence logically flow into the other one, and add emotions to make sure that our email flows like a story.
If you want to include bullet points, images, or GIFs – just remember one type of media, use it one time per email.
Aim to provide a solution to their problem or pain.
Maybe a story, a blog post, a news publication, or a link to a website for automating blog posts and SEO. Be valuable and you will gain their trust (with time).
You won’t have a perfect email right away, that’s why you can test and optimize results down the road. See below!
5. “Give, give, and give – before asking” with CTAs
Now we have, John the reader, reading your email, and he finds it interesting. It is time to give him even more value.
We want to continue the strategy of giving before asking for anything in return.
This means leading your readers to the next step that will give them even more value.
Your goal should be to show your audience that you are here to provide solutions and help them with their pain points.
You may say:
“John, I don’t want to take much more of your time on this email. I have a full-blown report that will take you into depth on this. Send me a quick reply and I will forward you the report right away.”
or
“Today just wanted to share a few ideas on how Andrei was able to get his business to the next level. I am working on a report right now that will outline how anyone can get the same success with a simple tech and a few checklists. I will keep you posted once it is ready”.
The last one does not even have a call to action, it just leads the reader into waiting for get another sequence of emails (Soap-opera sequence, emails connected with one theme)
if you are going to ask John to take him to your VSL, blog or to schedule a call, I suggest that you use a text link (hyperlink) to do that. Buttons are for promotions and businesses, right?
Using text links strategically can encourage them to consume more content and take action. However, explaining in detail what will happen when they click the link is crucial, so they know what to expect.
6. Review and preview your email before sending
It’s my biggest pet peeve.
One effective technique is reading your email aloud to ensure it flows well, sounds natural, and adheres to proper grammar.
It’s also important to check all the links in your email to verify that they work correctly.
Try reviewing your email on desktop, tablet, and phone modes to see how it will look on different devices.
Sending a test email to yourself can allow you to optimize it and detect any grammar mistakes before sending it out.
Getting feedback from someone close to you can also help ensure that your message makes sense and sounds good in terms of grammar and overall communication.
PRO-TIP: Prioritize speed, value, and layout over design and features in email marketing campaigns.
7. Pre-header email text – build more intrigue
The pre-header text is optional.
But it is an available real estate on your email, so use it to grab the recipient’s attention.
It is important to reiterate the ideas from your subject line in the pre-header text to create a cohesive message.
PRO-TIP: Make sure that all email elements (subject line, pre-header, and content) are synced and work together to convey one clear message.
8. Scheduling your email campaign
When scheduling your email campaign, you have several options to consider.
You can choose to send your emails immediately or schedule them for a specific time of the day.
This allows you to have complete control over when your audience receives your messages.
Most marketing email services will allow you to select optimized delivery options. So they will determine when to send it based on the contact’s location and time zone.
Experimenting with delivery times is key as this helps you identify the sweet spot, or the most optimal time, to reach your target audience effectively.
It is important to note that avoiding big events and holidays is best unless they align with your marketing strategy.
PRO-TIP: Send your email to a small group of contacts at a specific time and then do the same for another group at different times and compare results.
9. Meassuring the success of your email campaign
After we have fired off emails, now is the time to track your email metrics and compare them to your goals.
For example, you have sent 1000 emails, and 35% of your emails were opened.
And you got 15 people to click on your email offer but no sales, appointments, or calls.
So that’s where most of us quit.
But now, let’s send 10,000 emails; we got 35% of emails opened and 175 people to click (5% click rate).
And BANG!!! You have 3-4 new sales (2-3% conversion), appointments, or calls.
So now you can start building objectives for your conversion and work backward.
You made 3 sales, and your objective is 15, so you now can send 50,000 emails to achieve your goal.
PRO-TIPS:
I suggest that you use automated email marketing software where you can get statistics and analytics for each campaign.
You can use drip campaign automation or sequence automation to nurture users to a sale. The beautiful things about it?
You set it once, and it will work 24/7/365 while you can focus on creating quality content.
Using trigger events, like email opened or link clicked – allows you to zoom in on engaged readers and send them more targeted content.
Try effectively implementing the “More, Better, or New” framework to scale results. This principle involves optimizing one of three areas: producing more content, improving existing content quality, or creating new content altogether (learned from Alex Harmozi).
By following these best practices and utilizing the right tools, you can effectively measure the success of your email campaigns and make data-driven decisions for better results. Furthermore, it is essential to regularly monitor email metrics such as open rates, click-through rates, and conversion rates so that you can tweak and refine your strategy accordingly to achieve the best results.
10. Optimizing your email responses
First, you want your email to land in the Personal email inbox.
There are two: Personal and Commercial.
Guess what happens with emails that get landed in Promotions (Commercial). Yup, deleted, archived, unsubscribed etc.
So it is our job to get your email in the Personal inbox.
In the section below, I will share some of the tactics.
Now we want to make sure that our open rates are above 15-35%. If they are not…
We need to work on email subject lines. Also, you want to check that your emails show your full name, not your business name.
From: Evgeny Chayko – good for open rates
From: Myadcenter Support – bad for open rates
Lastly, we want to ensure that the click rates are 5-25% percent (of open rates) in email domains. if we don’t get it…
Let’s shorten the email to focus on one idea and then send it to another list of your addresses.
Shorter emails are easier to track, and you can create 10-15 variations and test them all to find the golden one.
OMG! So much work… I will just pay for ads. Listen!
Let’s go back to our previous example; 50,000 emails were sent, but this time we improved the open rates by 5% (to 40%), and our click rate is now 7%.
That will end up in 28 sales compared to 15 from before – that’s almost 2x your sales!
PRO-TIP: Regular segmenting and cleaning up your email list is also important.
It ensures that you’re targeting the right audience and avoiding sending emails to inactive subscribers who may impact your deliverability rate negatively.
Using A/B testing for elements like subject lines, CTAs, and images can help refine your campaigns and boost engagement rates.
Consistently tracking and optimizing these metrics can drive better results for your email marketing efforts.
PRO-TIP: How to avoid landing your emails in spam folder
For email marketers, one of the most significant hurdles is ensuring that their emails do not end up in the recipient’s spam folder.
To avoid this issue, there are several strategies you can implement.
Firstly, clean up your contact list by removing inactive or unengaged subscribers.
They lower your sender’s score. Yup, your email has a score, and you can check it here:
Secondly, you can include the about and privacy policy sections in your email footer. (Just a trick was learned from Grant Cardone’s marketing team.)
I have an example that I have made for my clients so you can get it here, customize it for your business, and use it in your email.
Don’t forget to include an unsubscribe link or opt-out wording to comply with regulations and prevent high unsubscribe rates.
If you are just starting or you have a brand new email, you need to warm up your email and your list.
Send emails in small batches or send emails to contacts that have previously opened your emails.
This will help improve engagement rates and reduce the likelihood of your emails being marked as spam.
Conclusion
In conclusion, the first step to building an effective email marketing campaign requires some planning, testing and optimization.
It’s important to start by preparing your email list and creating a plain text email template.
Personalization is key, so create personalized subject lines and valuable content for your readers.
Remember to give before asking, and always review and preview your emails before sending.
Don’t forget about the pre-header email text to build intrigue.
Schedule your emails for best results and measure the success of your campaign by setting objectives based on email metrics.
Finally, optimize your email responses and follow the pro tips to avoid landing in the spam folder.
This email was created with the help of Scalenut.