How should you work over time to get the most out of your email marketing? Learn more about what to think about and become an email marketing master.
First set your goals
Think carefully about what you want to achieve with your emails and newsletters. Should the recipient buy something directly, visit your website, follow you on Facebook or maybe just be entertained and think happy thoughts about you and your company?
Try different ways and see what works best for your business. Don’t be afraid to change your plan if it doesn’t work as you intended.
Start with your calendar
A simple way to get started is by basing your plan on what the calendar looks like over the year.
For example, by sending out a timely offer in advance of the holidays but also sending emails directly after—when other brands are less likely to send their messages and there is less noise.
Here’s some examples of special days that may be helpful to use for your marketing depending on what type of business you have:
- Mardi Gras
- Chinese New Year
- Valentine’s Day (February 14)
- International Women’s Day (March 8)
- Earth Hour
- Easter
- Passover
- Mother’s Day
- Ramadan
- Eid-al-fitr
- Graduation
- Midsommar
- School start
- Halloween
- Yom Kippur
- UN day
- Singles day (November 11)
- Father’s Day
- Black friday
- Hanukkah
- Christmas
- New Year’s Eve
A good tip is to prepare all the emails for the whole year’s holidays and schedule them. Then you have already completed a big slice of your email marketing in a short period of time.
Think about who your customers are
Are you targeting people who are busy at work? Think about when it’s best to send your emails. Perhaps they have more time to read emails around lunch, on the way to work or just before bedtime.
Think about what your recipients would be happy to read. Do not be too aggressive but not too plain either. Keep the message short, efficient and with the intention of giving the recipients something they can see the value of.
Be personal
Many emails that end up in an inbox are anonymous, impersonal and boring. Dare to be more personal. Don’t use a formal language. Show personal behind-the-scenes images or simply a picture of you and your name as the sender. It’s more fun to read an email from Steve Smith than from info@yourcompany.com. Show the real you!
Avoid spamming
What’s spam? In short, it’s unwanted email. What is undesirable depends on the recipient and how they see things.
Sometimes it is just about the frequency of emails but it might also be because of the content, design or wording.
How often you should send emails to your customers depends on what you are doing and how you have received their addresses. If people have just left their email address in your store, maybe you should not send too often. However, if you have a wine club for wine lovers, they will be happy to receive e-mails with wine tips weekly or even more often.
Mix newsletters and regular emails
With Minutemailer, you can send great newsletters as well as regular “smart” plain emails (text-only emails). To get more variety in your email communication, you can switch between sending long newsletters, short emails with just an image and regular “smart” plain text emails. Then the recipient will not get tired in the same way.
Read about how to get a better result by sending plain text emails
Plan your call to action
Be clear about what you want the recipient to do after receiving your email. Have a clear call to action in the form of a button or prompt. “Buy”, “Contact Us”, “Read more” or maybe you want the recipient to respond to the message. Enter your call to actions in the plan and spread them out over time.
Most importantly. Dare to try things, see the results and don’t be afraid to change how you work over time with your newsletters and email marketing.
Good luck!