If you haven’t implemented email marketing in your overall marketing strategy for your business, you should. With the average return on investment (ROI) of email marketing being $42 for every $1 spent, it’s a cost-effective way to reach customers and increase your sales.
There are billions of emails sent each day and the average person checks their email around 20 times each day. That gives you ample opportunities to get your company and products in front of customers.
While creating an effective email marketing campaign can help you grow your business, it’s not a strategy that’s implemented overnight. There are various tactics that you’ll need to hone to maximize the impact of your emails.
This guide will go over the best ways to create an email marketing campaign and how it can benefit your business.
What’s an Email Marketing Funnel?
Another term that you’ll see thrown around when reading about email marketing strategies is an email funnel campaign. This type of marketing is focused on nurturing leads (customers) over a period of time. However long that period of time depends on your customer’s lifecycle in your business.
The four stages of a customer’s lifecycle include:
- Engagement
- Discovery
- Product or service purchase
- Customer retention
To create an effective email funnel, you’ll need to anticipate and understand your customers’ needs. You’ll be targeting more than one type of customer and each of these customers get their own type of funnel.
Overall, your email funnel needs to accomplish the following goals:
- Capturing your customer/lead’s attention
- Enticing them enough they’ll click through to your website
- Give them enough information so they can reach out to you with any questions
This isn’t a sales promotion. It’s a series of strategic emails that are sent out to your leads at pre-planned times. These emails can be based on trigger actions or time sequences.
Why Do I Need Email Marketing?
Email marketing is effective because it allows you to send specific communications to your leads at the right time. Each email is personalized to whoever receives it, helping boost your open rates.
Your customers aren’t treated as a single email address out of a huge list. They’re targeted as individuals. You’re able to identify where they’re at in their purchasing journey and tailor your communications to them.
How Do I Develop an Email Marketing Campaign?
There are a series of steps you need to take when developing your email marketing campaign. By following them, you’ll develop a successful email marketing strategy and target the right customers.
Choose Your Tools
You’ll need the right tools to help you create your emails, send them, and track and measure their success. One of the things you’ll need is an email marketing service provider. Some examples include:
- Mailchimp
- Constant Contact
- ConvertKit
- GetResponse
Many of these email marketing services offer free plans but with limited features. Depending upon your needs, you might want to look at paid options. It makes email automation easy as you can schedule your emails to go out at specific times.
Select Your Target Audience
The people to who you target your email campaigns to are those who are your ideal customers. Some features of these types of customers include:
- Who wants your product
- Who needs your product
- Who has a problem you can solve
Any communication you send to them should attract, interest, and convert them into buyers or leads. Evaluate who your current customers are and who are customers of competing companies.
Once you figure out who these different groups of people are, see where they overlap. You’ll want to look at demographic information they have in common, such as:
- Gender
- Age
- Location
- Income
- Occupation
- Education
- Marital status
When you figure out who your targeting with your email marketing campaigns, you’ll be able to tailor your messages accordingly.
Build Your List of Subscribers
In order to send emails to your current and potential customers, you’ll need their email addresses. There are a few ways you can gather email addresses to build out your contact lists:
- Create a One-Time Offer: In exchange for someone’s email address, make a free offer like a template, ebook, or tip sheet
- Create Content With a Call-to-Action: Build trust with the relevant content you post, including a call-to-action where you ask them to sign up for your mailing list
- Add an Opt-In Form on Your Website: Include an opt-in form on your website so your site visitors can sign up for your mailing list
Once you begin gathering customer emails, you’ll want to segment them out into different groups. You’ll have your main target audience with smaller groups that get different targeted messaging.
Break up your main list into smaller lists based on similarities. You can break them up by their demographic information, like age or interests. Create email campaigns based on the customer persona attached to each email segment.
Develop Your Goals Create Your Emails
You have your email lists ready. Now, what to send them?
Different types of emails you can send out include:
- Weekly newsletters
- Updates on your blog
- Triggers based on their interaction with your company’s website
- Upcoming sales
When creating your email marketing strategy, think about what it is you want to accomplish.
Do you want to spread awareness about an upcoming sale? Do you want more eyes on your regularly posted content? Or, do you have specific messages you want to communicate that’ll only work via email?
When developing your strategy and timeline, take all of those factors into consideration.
You’ll also want to think about what you want your email marketing to achieve. Each email campaign can have a couple of goals, like getting more click-throughs and opens. It all depends on your business goals and your brand.
Get Help Developing Your Email Marketing Strategy
Creating an email marketing campaign and overall strategy can help grow your business. You’ll connect to the right customers at the correct times, increasing your leads and sales.
Refuge Marketing is here to help you with your marketing needs. For more tips and tricks of the trade, check out one of our other articles.
