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Email Marketing
in five steps
Email Marketing (eDM's)
Fundamentals
eDM’s (Electronic Direct Mail) are a form of email communication used to reach potential and existing customers. This channel often provides the highest return-on-investment as eDM’s can be cheap to send whilst achieving strong open and click-through rates.
Part of this success is due to eDM’s being sent to people who have already shown an interest in your brand (e.g. they have visited your website and signed up to an email list or they have previously purchased).
People can also respond more favourably to an eDM as this medium is more personal, and less intrusive, than a direct ad. eDM’s provide a direct line to customers opposed to online advertising which likely won’t reach every person within your target audience.
Whilst other channels (such as Facebook and Google ads) can provide good results, these channels can be costly and risky due to reaching out to a cold audience (if you’re not using retargeting).
Unexpected changes to channels, such as Google and Facebook algorithm updates, can impact on performance, costs and management of those platforms. With email marketing, however, you maintain control over how many emails you send, the topic of each eDM, costs, audience lists etc.
Building an email list
Continually building an email list is one of the most important aspects of email strategy. Lists can be created through existing sales records (i.e. customers provide their contact details when purchasing), lead magnets, signup forms on a website etc.
Lead magnets are pieces of incentivised content which provide value to website visitors including:
- A thorough PDF guide on a topic
- A webinar event
- A list of tips or a checklist etc
- Templates for presentations, reports etc
- Original research or case studies
- Summaries (i.e. reviewing a large amount of information and providing a summary)
Anything which helps someone achieve a specific goal, solve a problem, or learn more can be used as a lead magnet. To access such content, a user is required to enter their email address. Once a user enters their email, they will be added to a specific list (within your email client – Mail Chimp, Campaign Monitor etc) and the email client will automatically send the relevant email with the requested assets.
Tip
The greater the quality and resulting outcome for the user, the more valuable and in-demand a lead magnet will be.
An example of an excellent lead magnet is the 18 page SEO periodic table content piece from Search Engine Land.
This resource is in high-demand as it summarises the different aspects of SEO all in one place (i.e. saving users time and energy not having to collect this information themselves). The guide is also beautifully presented and carefully put together, indicating a high level of quality in the content.
Before users are able to download the PDF, they are required to enter their email address:
Many websites choose to have one webpage dedicated solely to a lead magnet (known as a squeeze page). This allows the user to have complete focus on the value of the lead magnet without being distracted by other pages/sections on the site.
Whilst there are other methods of acquiring email addresses (e.g. newsletter signups), these methods provide little immediate incentive. Users are looking for content which can help them straight away – they don’t want to wait a month to receive a newsletter or details of a new blog post.
Backlinko provides a very good guide on creating an effective squeeze page to encourage and increase email signups:
Resource
Campaign planning
When developing an email strategy, first ask ‘what am I trying to achieve with these emails?’ Are you trying to bring people back to your website (i.e. promoting content), have people sign up for an event, encourage purchases of a new product etc?
Your main goal will dictate how email sends are segmented (i.e. sending to everyone on a list or just a select few), whether the email will be a once off or in a series (i.e. automation), the style and design of the eDM etc.
In the SEO section, we discussed the benefits of infrequently creating and posting content.
This ensures when content is released, the quality, usefulness and value are significantly greater than if several smaller lower quality content pieces had been hastily created and pushed out. When new content is added to the site, users are keen to view as they know it will provide value.
This is the same approach to take when creating an email strategy. If users receive several low-quality emails of no value, they simply unsubscribe. But if they know they will benefit from the value of an email, open rates and click-through rates will rise significantly.
Tip
Don’t send constant generic emails, trying to push products, just for the sake of it.
Maintaining email quality and open rates
People are very wary about online advertising and will generally turn a blind eye when they see ads. High unsubscribe rates can be the result of users receiving too many promotional or sales-driven emails.
An effective email strategy will prioritise delivering valuable content to users over sales-focussed emails. The end goal will be to increase sales or leads but users need to receive content which helps and benefits them before they decide to become paying customers (i.e. firstly build trust with your audience).
Plain-text emails
When it comes to communicating with customers online, people are guarded when they see ads or corporate messages.
There is now an approach to eDM’s which involves using little to no professional design (i.e. templates). These eDM’s are mainly text based and are created as a more personal way of communicating with customers.
If a friend sends you an email, they write in plain text – they don’t send their message in a professionally designed template.
This plain-text approach helps to increase personalisation (i.e. non-corporate), readability and click-through rate whilst still communicating a message to customers.
People prefer working with other people rather than communicating with a faceless business. This personalised approach to email helps add a human-aspect to the message and is ideal when sending emails which promote content which has recently been added to your website.
You can also go one step further and ensure eDM’s are sent from a personal email account rather than a generic company-based account.
Receiving an email from Sarah@example.com is far more personal than receiving an email from noreply@example.com.
Personalisation also helps emails avoid being delivered into spam folders. A personal sender account gives customers a chance to write back and communicate with the business (similar to sending messages on Social Media).
Understanding your audience
As email is a more personal form of communication, personalisation should be a priority. This includes using a person’s first name (rather than ‘dear customer’) and sending emails which are only relevant to them.
Segmenting email lists is the best way to ensure relevancy as you don’t want to send generic blanket emails to everyone on a list. If a user has provided their email address to learn more about choosing a TV, they probably don’t want to see emails relating to computers, gaming consoles or phones.
Audiences will respond differently depending on when an eDM is sent. Too early in the morning, the email may be lost in a busy inbox but too late and users may have already switched off for the day.
An ideal send time will depend on your business and customers but generally you want to send early to mid-week at around 11:00 a.m. This gives people a chance to get on top of their existing emails at the start of the week.
Running a campaign
eDM’s can be created through various email platforms such as Mail Chimp, Campaign Monitor, Klaviyo, etc. Each platform will have its own features, pricing and suitability for specific businesses.
We’ll use MailChimp to create an example campaign. You can create from scratch or use an existing template where you simply need to add our own images, copy and links.
When you first sign up for MailChimp, you will have the option to create an email, automation series or a new website.
You will then be able to choose from a variety of options across templates, themes and the ability to code your own eDM.
Once you choose a template to use, you simply need to add your logo/brand colours and populate the template with your own details. There are various options available within the right hand menu which can help add additional blocks and functionality to your eDM.
Once you have finished creating your eDM you can move on to the next step of adjusting settings and selecting recipients. Before you send the final email, you can preview the live version and send test versions to yourself (or to group members) to double check that all details are correct.
When ready, you can choose to send immediately or schedule your eDM to be sent at a future date/time.
The below video provides an excellent overview of all the features available within MailChimp.
Video
Subject lines
Email subject lines should be kept as short as possible. Split testing subject lines is a best practice amongst email marketing specialists and involves testing two different versions of a subject line to see which results in more opens.
Testing options can include a long or short subject line, different use of words, generic or specific language etc.
Split testing works via:
- Two subject lines are entered when creating an eDM
- The email client (e.g. Mail Chimp) will send the eDM to an initial group of people to determine which subject line receives the most opens
- If a particular subject line performs better, the remaining emails will be sent featuring that specific subject line.
Preheader text refers to text which is displayed after the subject line in email clients (such as Outlook, Gmail etc). It’s important to add relevant text otherwise default text will display (email not displaying properly…) which may turn off users (e.g. it indicates this may be a typical sales-based email).
Improving the click-through rate of emails is best achieved by having only one clear call-to-action (CTA) in each email. Don’t confuse people by asking for multiple actions.
The majority of emails are opened on mobile so it’s important to use a responsive design with a large font and ensure buttons and links aren’t too close together.
It’s also important to have an unsubscribe link/option at the bottom of every email. This is a legal requirement in many countries and non-compliance can lead to heavy fines.
Resource
Measuring results
Most email clients have built in tracking and analytics reports which provide insight in to:
- Number of opens
- Open rate
- Click-through rate
- Unsubscribes
- Bounces
Open rate is the percentage of the total number of recipients who opened the email (emails opened/emails sent).
CTR is the percentage of people who clicked on a link in the email (number of clicks throughs/emails sent)
Response rate is the percentage of total recipients who clicked a link and completed an action or conversion (conversions/emails sent)
Reporting options for eDM’s include:
You can also use Google Analytics to view referral traffic from eDM’s.
Analytics dashboards can also be set up to provide an overview of eDM performance.
Supermetrics also has a MailChimp reporting template which can be added into Google Data Studio.
Improving performance
Improving the performance of future eDM’s is all about testing, measuring and finding what works and what doesn’t. Once you’ve sent an eDM, you want to keep track of the layout/template, the number (and segment) of subscribers, content, requested calls-to-action etc.
When focusing on improving click-through rate, you can make choices around the design and use of images for each eDM. Redesigning an eDM to feature a more simplistic layout which naturally guides the user to an end CTA can help improve click-through rate. Different types of visuals and location of CTA buttons can also impact CTR.
Video
Maintaining a high-quality email list
Email lists need to be ‘scrubbed’ and kept clean to ensure future email deliverability performs well. Removing subscribers who have not engaged with emails over the past, say, 3 months helps keep a list concise and of high quality.
Receiving spam complaints from email recipients can lead to significant consequences such as having your emails blocked by entire email applications (e.g. Outlook, Gmail etc). If you continue to send emails to recipients who have indicated they’re not interested (e.g. by not opening/engaging), the chance of receiving spam complaints rises significantly.
Tip
Gmail also keeps track of whether a user is opening emails from a certain sender. If emails are continually left unopened, future sends are automatically directed to the Promotions tab.
Email automation
Email automation is the process of automatically, rather than manually, sending emails to subscribers once a certain event is triggered, such as a new sign up. This can be used to send one-off emails, such as birthday or anniversary event-based emails, or a series of emails, such as an educational course.
If a user signs up to a general mailing list (e.g. ‘keep up to date with our business’), many email clients can automatically send a welcome email which you have created beforehand – there’s no need to send a new email to each new subscriber.
An automated email series could be based on an educational series of content-based emails. Once a user signs up, they would receive a new email each week discussing a new topic. This approach is worthwhile in demonstrating your brand’s knowledge and maintaining brand awareness/relevancy after users have left your website.
eDM’s and the customer journey
Email automation can also be tied to each stage of the customer journey. A lead magnet can be created to provide general information which a user would find useful when they are at the awareness stage and are beginning to learn about a topic.
Subsequent, more refined automated emails can then be sent as a user is further along their purchasing journey.
Imagine if you run a company selling software for managing Facebook ads. An example automated campaign could be:
– An initial lead magnet promotes details on how to advertise on Facebook.
– Once a user enters their email address, they are sent a PDF guide
– A follow-up email then reveals best practices and tips/tricks for getting the most out of your advertising.
– The next email outlines features and tools of Facebook management platforms which can make ad management much easier and simpler. This email could include current user testimonials.
– The final email could be discussing the features and benefits of your specific software for managing Facebook ads which can then encourage users to become customers.
The duration of an automated email campaign will depend on the length of your customer’s journey before purchasing a product/service.
A short journey may only be a few days from when someone begins researching a topic (e.g. best material for bed sheets) to deciding to purchase (buying the sheets). An eDM campaign could include three emails sent one day after the next to encourage a quick purchase.
A more expensive product/service (e.g. purchasing a house) would have a longer journey time where eDM’s can be spaced out every couple of weeks for, say, three months. The first eDM could provide an overview of the buying process, the second features content on loan/mortgage approvals, the next could be tips on bidding at auction etc.
Consistent communication (via email) throughout the customer journey can help your brand stay relevant and front-of-mind for customers. However, the timing of these emails are important. If you send too many too quickly, unsubscribe rates will increase. But if you send too few over a longer period, users will forget about your brand.
Caution
Similar to SEO content, these education-based emails are designed to help the user, not directly sell a product or service.
Existing SEO content can be used as the basis for creating an eDM series so there’s no need to create everything from scratch.
When you originally created SEO articles, this content was based around keyword types tied to the customer journey (e.g. informational at the awareness stage, commercial at the purchase stage etc). These articles and structure can be repurposed into an eDM campaign to bring people back to your website.
Tip
Email automation can become complex and difficult to track so it’s a good idea to start with general once-off eDM’s or smaller scale automated content sequences.
Using other digital channels
to improve eDM performance
A smart approach to eDM’s won’t focus on email marketing in isolation but will use each channel within the wider digital strategy to improve overall campaign performance:
How eDM’s can be improved by:
Facebook Ads
Promoting lead-magnet type content via Facebook ads can help attract additional relevant users to your website who will need to sign up to access the content. Ongoing content delivered via eDM’s (e.g. a month-long course with a new lesson each week) can also be promoted via Facebook ads.
Testing different aspects within your creatives (e.g. call-to-action, length of copy, images, offer etc) can provide guidance as to how you should design and build your emails.
Video
Google Ads
Similar to Facebook ads, Google ads can be used to attract a large amount of relevant traffic to your website. If this traffic has arrived from bottom funnel purchase-intent keywords, the audience is ideal for ongoing communication about your products/services.
For example, users may be searching for keywords relating to using a buyer’s agent to purchase an investment property. Once on the website, the business may promote its ‘monthly property update’ email newsletter.
Traffic from Google ads would be interested in this type of offer as it directly helps with what they are trying to achieve (monthly property data helps them make an informed investment decision).
Social Media
Promoting your newsletter or an ongoing email campaign across organic Social Media can be a good way of attracting new subscribers as your page followers are already familiar with, and have an interest in, your brand.
It’s important to remember the organic reach limitations on Social platforms and consider how the algorithms function. If promoting a basic newsletter which doesn’t offer a huge amount of value, the Social post will likely see little reach with few, if any, subscriber sign ups.
Promote the value someone could receive by signing up to your email list, not the actual newsletter itself.
SEO
The more relevant traffic a website receives, the greater the chance of users subscribing to an email list.
Split testing SEO content pieces via Google optimise can provide insight into better performing article titles, use of images, calls-to-action etc. These insights can be used to help guide use of creative pieces in eDM’s (e.g. should a call-to-action be at the top or bottom, should you use one large image at the top or several smaller images throughout etc).
Analytics
Google Analytics can provide data on user behaviour once eDM subscribers are on your website (i.e. referral/acquisition channel is email). Data can include bounce rate, time on page, number of pages viewed as well as conversions from this audience segment. These insights can help determine if website content is relevant and valuable (i.e. they spend a certain amount of time on the site).
Platform specific reporting can provide insights into how interested people are in email content based on number of opens, click-through rate, unsubscribes etc.
Split testing subject lines, images, copy etc can provide data on which options are most well received by the subscriber audience. These insights can be used to guide future eDM creation when it comes to length of copy, calls-to-action, creative pieces etc.
This concludes learning how to create and run an email marketing campaign. In the next section, Display Ads, we’ll cover how you can use Display advertising to bring past visitors back to your website and how you can keep your brand front-of-mind.
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