29th September, 2023
4min Read
Author: Adam
Email marketing is one of the most effective (and cost-effective, too!) ways to communicate with your audience. Reaching a wide audience quickly and productively, they’re a way to successfully build up trust with clients, and to keep subscribers up-to-date on your business by promoting new content, products and services.
By nurturing a responsive, engaged community through their inboxes, email marketing can generate consistent traffic for your brand or business, and drive sales. But, crafting a successful email marketing campaign isn’t just as simple as drafting a message and pressing ‘send’. To truly engage subscribers, and to enjoy your desired outcomes, you need a well-thought-out strategy.
At Puddle, we send out email newsletters, packed full of colourful content, to hundreds of thousands of subscribers every month. In this article, we’ll outline the essential steps to curating the most effective, engaging email marketing campaigns.
Define clear objectives
Before you get busy typing and designing, work out what you need to achieve from your email campaign. Do you want to drive sales of a particular product? Would you like to direct people to socials, or make your audience aware of an achievement? Once you’ve got your objective, you can guide your entire campaign to this goal, and measure its success more effectively.
Build a high-quality email list
To ensure your email campaigns are getting to the right inboxes at the right time, you need to build an email list ethically. Make sure it’s made up of people who have opted in to receive your emails – don’t skirt those pesky GDPR guidelines! Avoid purchasing email lists, as this can lead to spam complaints and damage your sender reputation. Grow your list organically through sign-up forms on your website, social media, and at events.
Segment your audience
Not all subscribers are the same, so it’s crucial to segment your email list based on demographics, behaviour, and preferences. Segmentation allows you to send targeted and relevant content to specific groups, increasing the chances of engagement and conversions.
Craft compelling content
You want to get your audience clicking on your emails. When an inbox gets saturated, spam and all, that means you have to make your campaign stand out. To make it scroll-stopping, you have to keep your emails exciting, visually appealing, and choc-a-bloc with engaging content. Make the copy easy-to-read, and provide value to your subscribers. Personalise your message by addressing recipients by their first names, and use persuasive language to encourage action. Make use of a catchy subject line, too – get their busy thumbs tapping!
Choose the right design
A well-designed email can significantly impact engagement. Ensure your emails are mobile-responsive, as many people will be reading them on smartphones. Use a clean layout, eye-catching images, and a consistent brand theme to enhance recognition. Keep the design simple, and focused on the message you want to convey – remember that first step!
Make use of A/B testing
Optimise your email campaign by conducting A/B tests. Test different subject lines, email copy, images, and CTAs to determine what resonates best with your audience. A/B testing helps you make data-driven decisions and refine your email marketing strategy over time.
Ensure deliverability
To make sure your emails aren’t going straight to spam, follow the best practices for email deliverability. Authenticate your domain with SPF, DKIM, and DMARC records, maintain a low bounce rate, and regularly clean your email list to remove inactive or invalid addresses. Monitor your sender reputation, too, to avoid being flagged as a spammer.
Set up automation
Automation can save you time, and deliver personalised experiences to your subscribers. Set up automated email sequences based on user actions, such as welcome emails, abandoned cart reminders, and post-purchase follow-ups. Automation helps to nurture leads and drive conversions.
Monitor and analyse
Regularly monitor your email campaign’s performance using key metrics like open rate, click-through rates, conversion rates, bounce rates and unsubscribe rates. Depending on the email marketing software you’re using, there are many metrics you could track to find out what’s working. Analyse the data to identify trends, successful strategies, and areas for improvement. Use this information to refine your future campaigns.
Compliance with regulations
Ensure your email marketing campaign complies with relevant regulations like GDPR (or the CAN-SPAM Act, if you’re in the US). Include a clear and easy-to-find unsubscribe link, and honour unsubscribe requests promptly.
Join the list! We blend our design, copywriting, and strategic marketing skills to send straight from our clients to your inboxes – and, with proven success in these email marketing campaigns, we can do it for you, too. Just get in touch.
