Compared to most components of digital marketing, email has been around a very long time. It’s old-school, as far as technologies go – but that doesn’t mean it’s not effective for marketers. After all, it’s stuck around this long because it works well for a huge part of the population. Developing an effective email campaign is a critical part of your email marketing strategy.
What is an Email Campaign?
An email campaign is a way to reach your audience of prospects and customers at the same time, offering them information, deals, or engagement right in their inbox. You can have very targeted campaigns aimed at a specific segment of your audience, or a broad one that’s more general. You can send the emails in your campaigns whenever works best for your audience. That’s the beauty of an email campaign – it’s customizable, personal, and efficient.
But writing an effective email campaign that gets you results isn’t easy. Your inbox is probably overflowing these days – the same is true for your audience. Since email marketing campaigns are so effective, almost every business is using them. That means more noise for your message to cut through to deliver your message.
Fortunately, there are many types of email campaigns. You should mix and match the ones that work for your business – sending every type to every email list member is just going to annoy your audience. With some thoughtful planning and a solid strategy, your email campaign can get the results you want.
The Types of Email Campaigns
Email campaigns come in many forms. Let’s go through the most common types of email campaigns so you can find what works for your business.
Welcome Email
The first step in your email marketing strategy is the welcome email. This goes out automatically to anyone who gives you their email address on your website to sign up for offers or updates. True to its name, it welcomes your newest audience member to your email community, tells them what kind of content they can expect, and allows them to set their preference for how often they receive emails from you.
Special Offer
Email campaigns can be offering something as well – a seasonal offer, a limited-time sale, a special product, or an upsell to a more expensive product. These kinds of promotional emails can go to a wide selection of your audience if the offer applies broadly like an end-of-season sale. Or you can send more targeted emails if there’s a segment of your audience you’d like to entice with a deal or a new product.
Shopping Cart Reminder
One very effective email campaign is the abandoned shopping cart email. Sometimes prospects will visit your website, browse your products, and add a few of them to their online shopping cart. They’re clearly interested in what you’re offering. But then, they disappear. Maybe they got distracted, or decided to do more research, or realized a bill is coming due soon. Setting up an email campaign to remind them of the items they almost purchased can increase your conversion rate by nudging them to complete their purchase.
Email campaigns can be an opportunity to strengthen a connection with your audience. You can invite them to an in-person or online event, ask for their feedback on their latest purchase, or share your content that they might find interesting or relevant.
And last but not least, the most common email campaign is the newsletter. This is one of the best ways to build that relationship with your audience. This type of email campaign isn’t all about getting a sale. It’s a way to share your content and keep your audience updated on what’s newsworthy, what’s new, and increasing the trust and value you offer to your audience.
Delivering Effective Email Campaigns
Once you’ve selected some types of email campaigns to focus your efforts upon, you can start thinking about how to create and run those campaigns.
First, you need a way to deliver all those emails to the people who should receive them, when they need to get them. This is where email automation comes into play. With the help of an email automation service, you can set up multiple email campaigns and direct them to the appropriate audience. You can even set up automated emails to go out automatically once an action is triggered, like a welcome email for list signups or an abandoned shopping cart email. There are many email automation services – find the one that matches your budget and your needs.
Next, you need to create the content for the emails. Every email campaign will be different, just as every business and audience is different. There isn’t one set of hard and fast rules that work for every company. But in general, there are a few key principles to keep in mind.
Keep it short
Not only are email inboxes crowded, but your audience is also facing plenty of distractions on and off the screen. Make sure the point of your email is immediately clear – excess wordiness means more time to get distracted. This also means your content needs to be very engaging, from the subject lines down to the last sentence. Write compelling copy that moves the reader through the whole email quickly and with a purpose in mind.
Keep it friendly
Emails are more like a direct conversation than a banner ad or some other digital marketing techniques. Keep that in mind while writing your content – it should sound like a conversation. You can use automated email personalization to enhance that feeling by using your reader’s name.
Keep it customer-focused
In a world where we’re all drowning in email volume, no one is going to take much time to read an email that only talks about how great your company or product is. That’s nice for you, but it doesn’t draw in the reader. Instead, focus on the customer and their fears, needs, and desires. Be sure your language centers around their experience and their lives instead of just your brand and your readers will be more engaged.
These guidelines apply to both your marketing emails and your email newsletters. Whether you’re trying to make a sale or strengthen a relationship, always keep it short and focused on your customers.
Tips for Email Campaign Success
The success of your email campaign isn’t just about the emails. Your email campaign is just one part of your larger digital marketing strategy. To create the most successful email campaign possible, you also need to think about how it fits into your overall customer experience.
For email campaigns with a sale in mind, make sure the landing page your email links to is a seamless experience. You should keep the same look and feel of the email on the landing page to create a consistent brand experience. And your landing page should have the same call to action that your email had. That call to action should be easy to find and simple to do – whether it’s making a purchase or a different action.
When you’re creating an email newsletter campaign, your goal is to inform and engage rather than make a sale. But that doesn’t mean you can just drop your reader into a blog post and consider the job done. Make sure your content is well-written and informative, and tells a story the reader can engage with. Include high-quality images or graphics. And include social share buttons that encourage readers to share your content with their social networks, increasing your reach organically.
Your Guide for Successful Email Campaigns
When you’re creating an email campaign, you need just a few essentials – easy email automation, data-driven best practices to guide your strategy, and well-written content. Without those three elements, your campaign could be unsuccessful – just a waste of time and money. Avoid missing out on the benefits an excellent email marketing campaign can bring your business. Schedule your free business review with ContentFirst.Marketing today and get started with our digital marketing expertise. We’ll partner with you to get you the growth your business needs, with results you can measure.
