Email marketing is essential today for your business, but do you know how to use email marketing services to grow your business? It can be tough without having the right system and information to guide you. The right info makes everything easier when you just put it all into practice!
Email marketing is ranked as the most effective marketing service because people use email more than any other platform. Pretty much everyone you know has an email address, and most people have multiple email addresses.
This is why it is important to build up your email marketing by taking advantage of email marketing services and learning how they can grow your business.
Before we dive in, though, there is one thing we need to keep in mind when it comes to email marketing: you are a guest in someone’s inbox.
When someone gives you their email address they are offering you their time and mental energy to see and read your emails. So you need to make it count.
As you learn to use email marketing services to grow your business, you must keep in mind that your list is more than just names and email addresses. These are people who deserve your respect and your best each time you hit send.
Setting Goals for Your Email Marketing Services
Many people will tell you the first thing you need to do is start building your list or adding to an already existing list. However, just as with everything else in your business, you need to think through your goals for your email marketing services.
What do you hope to achieve with email marketing?
Who is your target audience for your email marketing?
How will you measure success in email marketing?
We have already discussed how these email marketing services can be the single-most effective way to reach your audience, so you need to carefully consider how you plan to take advantage of this opportunity.
For example, if you gain revenue through advertising on your website, then your goal will be to drive traffic. If your advertisements are for the newest smartphone game app, then you are probably not going to target those in the 55 and up demographic.
While this step doesn’t have to be time consuming, it is still an important first step to take to use email marketing services to grow your business!
Building Your Email List
Something that may go without saying is that if you have taken the time to set goals for your email marketing services to grow your business, then you are going to need people to send those emails to. Which means you are going to now need to focus on building your email list.
Using whichever email marketing service you have selected you can start building your list by creating a signup form and placing it on your website with the friendly invitation to subscribe.
From there, you can immediately begin to see results with the growth of your list by offering an incentive.
Offering an Incentive
As we mentioned, you are a guest in the space, so you need to think of asking for that email address like asking for an invitation to someone’s house.
They aren’t going to offer it freely unless you have already built a relationship with them. So, for those you don’t have a relationship with already, you need to get creative.
Offering an incentive is a simple way to quickly build a relationship and it doesn’t have to be overly complicated either.
Your offer can be whatever you want it to be. Maybe your business is structured so that an ebook makes sense or maybe you are offering the guarantee that the content will be directly beneficial to them every time.
Either way, nobody can tell you what will make the most sense for your business than you (and your customers). Which, by the way, a great way to determine what offer might make the most sense is to ask customers directly. Then, give the people what they want.
Afterwards, you need to have a strong call to action. Even if they are getting a great offer in exchange for their email address they also need to be excited about the content of the emails. Keep in mind that they can unsubscribe just as quickly and easily as they subscribed to begin with.
Whatever that call to action may be, make it something for potential subscribers to be excited about getting to their inbox, and don’t be afraid to promote it for how high-quality the content is.
Use Email Marketing Services to Provide Premium Content
You have set expectations and goals for yourself and communicated those to potential subscribers. You’ve grown your list. Now, it is time to provide that premium content you have promised your email marketing services will offer.
Stick to your promise. Don’t send daily or weekly emails if you promised bi-weekly or monthly updates. On the other hand, don’t send out monthly updates if you have decided on weekly emails.
If you deliver consistent, premium content in the timeframe you promised to deliver, then your email marketing will hold the attention of subscribers and lead to improved outcomes for you.
Starting from the beginning with a solid introduction, designing your email content well, delaying your pitch, and taking advantage of automation will go a long way to building a great email marketing campaign.
Crafting an Introduction Email
Just about all email marketing services offer the ability to create an automated welcome email sequence, and you need to take advantage of it by crafting your best introduction email.
All companies take advantage of the introduction email to either confirm subscriptions, offer immediate services and tips, point to other work/products/services, or to deliver what the subscriber can suspect in future emails.
The most effective strategy, though, is to have an automated welcome email that is sent immediately after subscription to introduce yourself, your business, and how you plan to use the subscriber’s email address. Detailed information is great, but if you can convey the same information while being short and concise, then that is probably best.
Now, that you have the welcome email finished up it is time to think about design and consistency between emails.
Design Emails for Consistency
When it comes to using email marketing services to grow your business it is best to keep in mind that you don’t need to be over the top with your designs. These emails are supposed to save you time and grow your business without you spending hours and hours every single time.
This being said, people want and expect consistency. They want to know your email will deliver what was promised in the introduction email every time. The design around the content can go a long way to help convey your message through its simplicity, effectiveness, and consistency.
One major consideration for your email marketing services to stay effective is the focus on your call-to-action (CTA). Whether this is pointing to articles you are promoting, products or services, discounts, etc. you need to always feature your CTA in the same location within the email with the same or similar design around it, so people know right where to go to find the button to click on without even thinking.
People are typically creatures of habit, so intentionally using the design of your email marketing services to work for you by feeding into their natural habits and letting them know exactly where to go in the email when you discuss your CTA let’s them naturally float right to your CTA button.
However, don’t get so excited that you start pitching too early.
Delay & Spread Your Pitch
Take a minute and think through all the emails you receive and are subscribed to. Do you favor clicking and reading the ones that you know will deliver engaging content mixed with the occasional pitch for a product or service? Or the one that tries to sell you on something every time?
Let me guess, you aren’t subscribed to the ones that pitch with every email anymore, are you?
Well, this is because when you are first starting out you are building a rapport with subscribers. You need to invest in the relationship first and offer plenty of valuable free content before diving in to sell them on something.
Then, once you have built a good relationship with your list, then they will be ready to hear your pitch with open arms (well, eyes, really). Even then, if you start becoming the salesperson knocking on their door everyday, then you may turn them off quickly.
So be comfortable with spreading out your pitch. Offer premium content with CTAs that will point them to good information, offer them value, and then allow yourself to offer a pitch from time to time when you have something worth pitching.
Now, let’s talk about the beauty and danger of automation.
Take Advantage of Email Automation, Carefully
When you first start out building your list you may have people who reply or email you in reference to your market email services. At the early stages, it is easy and rewarding to personally respond.
However, as your list grows and your amount of responses and feedback increases, you may not always have time to thoughtfully and carefully respond.
The secret to keeping this up over the long haul, though? Automation.
You can automatically send out emails that you have scheduled in advance to keep a flow going for your emails to make sure you never miss an expected email. This gives you much more time to thoughtfully respond to subscribers interacting with and engaging your content in your emails.
However, be careful to not go overboard with automations because, while you can automate responses to emails, too, they can come off robotic and impersonal depending on what the subscriber has said in response to your email marketing campaign.
So, while it is great to take advantage of automations for scheduling emails ahead of time,and automations for the various ways people may click on links or other CTAs, you want to maintain a level of personal relationship with subscribers.
This is the last step to keep in mind for providing premium content for your list, and now we need to talk about what you do once you start sending emails regularly and gathering feedback from your email marketing campaigns.
Feedback Loop Using Analytics
You have used your email marketing services to set goals for your email marketing, you’ve grown your list, and you provide premium content.
Now what? Your business is growing, yes, but is there more to do?
Yes, it is time to gather some feedback using analytics and let your email marketing services grow your business even more!
When it comes to analytics for your email marketing campaign you need to focus on open rate, click-through rate, and unsubscribers.
By tracking your open rates you can gauge the relationship you have built with subscribers. If your open rate is dismally low, then you need to go back to the drawing board and evaluate if you are delivering on your promises, your goals you set before. Adjust and start again, this time holding true to your goals and expectations you have set for subscribers.
Your click-through rate shows how many people on your list are clicking on links and interacting with your content. This will let you know if your CTAs are doing their job, if what you are offering is meaningful to subscribers, and how well your email marketing campaign is targeted to a specific audience or not.
Your unsubscribe rate tells you how many people are backing out of your email marketing campaign. If you are losing subscribers faster than you are building your list, then you need to go completely back to the drawing board and start from ground zero.
More specifically, though, keep track of when your unsubscribers are leaving. If they are leaving after a set of automated emails or after automated replies to their comments or responses, then your list is feeling like they are being engaged with. If they are unsubscribing after certain marketing emails where you are promoting an offer, then maybe you aren’t selling the right offer to your audience.
Utilizing analytics to pay attention to your email marketing services that are supposed to be growing your business is vital. These analytics can be overwhelming, but if you take the time to learn from them, then they can help you to rapidly grow your business.
Email marketing is here to stay, so it is better to take advantage of where people are already paying attention and invest the time and energy into these email marketing services to grow your business.
Looking For Some Help With Your Email Marketing Services?
What is the missing piece of the puzzle for your business when it comes to using email marketing as a tool for growth? We would love to answer any questions and help you get started with a headstart guaranteed to drive growth for your business! At Catalyst Brand Group we focus on implementing proven growth strategies in brand, platform, and growth that will help your business grow by 2x-3x per year. If you are looking to implement some of these email marketing strategies or for some help in other areas of your business, then Contact Us to start a conversation about how we can help.