Contrary to what some people might think, email marketing is still ranked as the most effective marketing channel, surprisingly outperforming SEO, social media, and affiliate marketing. Data shows that the number of people using email continues to increase every year. With email marketing, you won’t have to worry about constantly changing algorithms and how they will affect your campaign’s reach.

Email marketing can help businesses reach a wider audience, drive sales, recover abandoned carts, and further develop customer relationships. What are the factors to consider to run a successful email marketing campaign? Charlotte NC PR Firm McKeeman Communications answers some of your questions.

How does one start building an email list?

A simple way to do this is to add a banner or form to your website asking people to subscribe. Follow it up with an incentive. What can you give to convince people to share their email addresses? It can be a checklist, ebook, white paper, podcast access, or other valuable content. You can also run a contest or a giveaway.

Be clear with your objective. People won’t immediately share their emails just because you asked them to. Explain what the emails are for and get people interested in receiving them.

What are some best practices when it comes to email marketing?

It helps to follow email marketing laws and regulations. The US Federal Trade Commission has released a guide on the CAN-SPAM Act, a law that sets the rules for commercial email and establishes requirements for commercial messages. The law also gives recipients the right to have you stop emailing them, and spells out tough penalties for non-compliance.

Some best practices include: not buying email lists, consider using double opt-in options so people know what they are getting into, and making it easy for people to unsubscribe.

How does one deliver great email content?

Keep in mind that each email you send has a purpose: to engage customers and generate sales. Having said this, however, you don’t want to start your email communications with a sales pitch; many customers can sense a pitch a few sentences in and will be put off by it if you have yet to establish a relationship with them.

Warm-up your audience with an introductory email that explains what they can expect from your organization. Your follow-up email should then detail what you plan on doing with your new subscriber’s email address.

Put yourself in the reader’s place. Ask yourself if your messaging is consistent with the expectations you’ve set. If possible, identify what the customer has shown interest in before and send similar offers down the line. 

Strike a balance between product updates and personal messages. Use email campaigns to further your relationship with the reader/customer, and be consistent. Remember, you are a “guest” in their box. You might be asked to leave for good when you send out irrelevant offers or email them every day or (or once every 6 months) when you said that you’d do so once a week.

How can email automation help?

As you run more complex email campaigns, manually following through with everyone all the time would be virtually impossible. The solution: email automation. It lets you automatically send out emails that have been scheduled in advance.

How can we make sure our email campaigns are targeting the right audience?

Organize your email list into more targeted groups; this process is also known as email segmentation.

You can segment a larger email list according to:

• Customers with actual purchases (in comparison to leads who haven’t bought anything)
• Newsletter subscribers
• Frequency of emails sent out (daily, weekly, bi-weekly, monthly, etc.)
• Demographics, such as age, location, or job title
• Interests

Just like targeting in paid social media ads, dividing your list gives you the ability to send more targeted communications.

A top PR firm in Charlotte NC, McKeeman Communications works with companies that are experiencing rapid growth or change. We help localize and share messaging that builds awareness and trust for their brand. Call (866) 341-2650 or email info@mckeemanpr.com to learn more.