5 steps towards a successful email marketing campaign

Email marketing can turn out to be one of the most efficient business strategies in the arsenal of any company. A successful email marketing campaign brings you a tremendous return on investment – £42 to every £1 to be exact – as compared with traditional advertising and promotional means. But what steps do you need to take to make your email marketing campaigns successful? Keep reading to find out.

Step 1: Build a mailing list

Don’t hurry to write a killer email for your campaign – everything starts long before that. First of all, you need to slowly build up your mailing list. If you’ve already got a website which rides high in the search engine listings and gets a constant inflow of visitors, why don’t you tap into it and create email opt-in lists? Loyal customers may want to stay updated about your new promotions; casual browsers may be attracted by special offers and best sellers or other types of product recommendations. Opt-in mailing lists are the best starting point for launching a successful email marketing campaign.

Step 2: Consider your offer

Do you already know what you are going to send to your customers? You need to think about your offer carefully if you want people to open your emails and click through to your site. You can send newsletters to keep your regular customers updated, attach coupons for buying products with discounts, invite potential customers for free trials and presentations of new products, etc. When subscribing for your emails, people should know how they can benefit from them – so make the incentive clear. Psst! For a successful email marketing campaign, perhaps start with a sign-up incentive – like a percentage off a customer’s first order. This can help you acquire new customers faster, plus gives you the opportunity to create a positive first customer experience. For more advanced email marketing tips, check out this blog.

Step 3: Make information security a top priority

Today customers want to know that the brands they shop with protect their information. Successful email marketing campaigns rely on the assurance of recipients; communicate your data safety measures. For example, that data is stored securely in your database and isn’t shared with third parties. Make this super-clear when potential customers sign-up to your email marketing.

Step 4: An engaging email which gets opened

It’s not enough to press the ‘send’ button to reach your customers. Even though your emails land in the receiver’s inbox in a few seconds, they go a long way to get read. And that’s when email marketing professionals should come into play. Working with experts maximizes the chances of your emails passing through internet security protocols. Plus, the last thing you want as a business is to get blocked by email providers’ filters. If you put your email marketing campaign into the hands of dedicated email gurus, your emails not only get into inboxes but get opened, too. Usually it’s enough for recipients to throw a quick glance at subject lines to decide whether a email is related to them – so make sure your preheader provides information on the email content. What’s more, the content should be precise and informative; avoid giving vague information – customers need clear incentives as to why they should open and click through. That includes compelling calls to action, too! Psst! Consider a preference center and dynamic content. During the sign-up process or in your welcome email, ask recipients for their email preferences. What do you they want to hear about? Editorial content or just promotional? Newsletters or new products? And how often do they want to hear from you? Twice-weekly or monthly? Giving customers choice puts them in the driving seat and makes them more likely to engage. You can then tailor emails through dynamic content based on their individual preferences. Want more email personalization tips? Our back-to-basics cheatsheet is full of them! 

Step 5: Track your emails

Some emails may bounce and some may not be opened. If you keep on sending to these email addresses, response rates of your email marketing campaign may be surprisingly low. That’s why you need to track who opens what emails, who clicks on links, and who gets redirected to your site. It can give you an overall picture of your email marketing campaign success, plus helps develop a viable email marketing strategy targeting your engaged recipient base.

Savvy marketing techniques and high-end technologies drive successful email marketing campaigns – so let dedicated experts find the right formula for your email marketing campaign success. It may save you time and money, plus bring you the expected ROI sooner rather than later.

Want to find out how your email ROI stacks up? Check out our free email marketing ROI calculator. Know where you need to improve, for future successful email marketing campaigns.