5 tips to improve email marketing

What is email marketing?

Email marketing is a marketing channel where companies send emails containing marketing materials to a list of people who have signed up for their email marketing campaign. The goal of email marketing is to drive people to a company's website or buy from a seller. Email marketing has evolved rapidly in recent years, so we can now personalize email content and create highly segmented audiences.

Email marketing remains one of the most cost-effective and conversion-rich forms of digital marketing today. Sure, social media, SEO, and PPC have come along and excited marketers, but don't be fooled! Email Marketing is Powerful, Persuasive, and Gets Great Results for Your Ecommerce Store

Because it is important?

Email marketing has become a consistent provider of conversions for many small, medium and large businesses. There are even email marketing courses, webinars, and conferences around the world to help people with their CRO via email. If you are not participating in this reliable digital marketing channel within your marketing strategy you should start today.

Let's look at some statistics that show the importance of email marketing. According to the Direct Marketing Association, you receive $32 for every $1 you spend on email marketing! That is incredible. No other form of digital marketing has such a high return on investment. So, the next time you ask yourself, “What is email marketing?”, remember that it is an affordable way to advertise your small online store that gives you a really good ROI.

The advantages of email marketing

Good return on investment

As we've already discussed, email marketing has a great return on investment if done right. When you take the time to track the results of your email campaigns, you can find out exactly what ROI is on them and decide if you need to improve this number or celebrate your big wins.

Tracking Capability

Using free tools like Google Analytics, you can track the people who access your website from your email campaigns. This can be done by creating crawled URLs, through the likes of Google URL Builder, or by using a third-party email tool that will enter special URLs so you don't have to worry about creating your own.

When you send an email, all traffic to your website that comes from this email will be recorded in Google Analytics as the "Email" source. From there you can track how many visitors convert or complete a goal if you have these set up in your Google Analytics account.

Ability to automate

Email marketing software like Constant Contact or GetResponse gives you the option to automate email campaigns so you don't have to press a button for a campaign to be sent. Instead, you can schedule an email to be sent at a certain time and it will be sent regardless of whether you are in front of your computer or not. The beauty of email service providers like these is that you can create campaign paths that new subscribers can go through, which can be automated so that when a new subscriber is added to an email list, they receive emails without you having to press send.

5 tips to improve email marketing

1. Build your subscriber list

It's so important that you build a list of subscribers who engage with your content. When you're not recruiting new subscribers, your recipients will begin to unsubscribe or stop engaging with your content and your campaigns will quickly go from successful to stale. Instead, add a subscriber box on your website, add a subscribe button during the ordering process, and ask your social media followers to sign up for your email marketing list. This way you will have a constant influx of subscribers to interact with.

2. Personalize your content

When sending an email campaign to any group, research has shown that personalizing content to the customer increases conversions and helps build trust with your audience. According to Epsilon, 80% of consumers are more likely to buy from you when you provide them with a personalized experience. Personalization includes a wide range of options, such as adding a subscriber's name to the email opening or customizing the content in an email based on your customer's past purchases.

3. Segment your audience

Segmenting your audience means you place subscribers into carefully curated lists. These lists can be based on parameters such as demographics, psychographics, subscriber status, or products purchased. When you do this with your email lists, you can rest assured that you are providing personalized content to your subscribers that will lead to better conversion rates. Campaign Monitor indicates that marketers who used segmented campaigns saw a 760% increase in revenue. This is a great tip to act on when your email list starts to build.

4. Test and optimize

With the ability to track campaign success, it is very important to use this information to improve future campaigns. For example, if you find that your CTR is below the industry average, you could A/B test different subject lines to find the right format to increase CTR among your audience. Or you may find that subscribers click on your website but never buy from you, so your email content may not be engaging enough to make subscribers want to buy from you. For this, you can try including a discount code or limited time offer or test different CTAs to see if this will affect your conversion rate.

5. Create an email calendar

When your email subscriber list grows to the size where you can't remember the entire list, it's time to create an email calendar where you can plan email campaigns to go out, highlighting who they should be sent to and the content. within them. You can then create content ahead of time and schedule emails so you have more time to optimize your website and focus on increasing sales. What's more, you can set up activation emails for people when they first sign up for your email list, or make a sale, so they'll send you their emails even if you decide to take a few days off. Neil Patel mentions that “Activation emails have a 152% higher open rate compared to traditional emails.

They are a valuable communication tool and turn window shoppers into lifelong customers.” This being the case, who wouldn't want to set up activation emails as part of their email marketing strategy.

Email Marketing in a Nutshell

So there you have it. Email marketing is a complex digital marketing channel with many areas to think about, from personalization to CTR, to trigger emails. But one thing is for sure, this content format has outperformed its digital marketing counterparts time and again in terms of being a profit-generating channel. If you're looking to increase online sales and have a little time to invest in email marketing, according to our research, it will be time well spent.

Author: Karyn Corrigan,

About the Author: Karyn is a content writer at Oberlo. In addition to writing, she likes to spend her time reading and learning about Content Marketing.