Building an effective marketing plan helps you grow your business in a strategic way (as we’re all wiping our brows trying to keep up with it all). When you own a business, you’re probably balancing a million plates in the air at once—but one thing you shouldn’t overlook?
Email marketing. Email campaigns are more prevalent and powerful than ever before, so now is the time to master the art of an effective campaign and weave email into your marketing plan.
What Is Email Marketing, Anyway?
Email marketing is a super effective strategy in the digital marketing world, but what does it actually mean? Basically, with email marketing, you create and send emails to prospects and current customers.
You do this through email campaigns—each email should have a goal, a clear CTA (call-to-action), and a clear intention within your larger marketing strategy. If your marketing plan overall is a baseball game, an effective email campaign is like the star player waving to fans and hitting home runs. So here’s a 2021 resolution for you—less useless emails, more converting emails.
Effective email marketing campaigns both convert your prospects to customers and help one-time customers become a returning customer. But there’s a strategy behind effective email campaigns, and you’ll need to focus on those tips and tricks in order to generate great results.
Why Is Email Marketing Important?
Email marketing is a powerful tool that makes it possible to find new customers. Wouldn’t you love it if you could add something to your marketing plan that could generate tons of different benefits? An all-inclusive one-and-done wonder!
*ahhh*
Email campaigns help you build brand awareness, nurture your current customers, and grow your email list cost effectively compared to other marketing methods. It’s the ultimate package...if you get it right.
A targeted email list actually allows you to reach a new, primed audience who shares key characteristics with your current customers. You’re reaching out directly to the customer to educate, inspire, and persuade. Let’s just read those again for good measure. Your goal is to educate, inspire, and persuade.
With over 3.9 billion emails sent each day, implementing an email marketing strategy allows you to directly communicate with your targeted audience. With just a few clicks, an effective campaign will be on its way to your customers’ inboxes, ready to help seal the deal and make your business soar. But it takes practice to figure out exactly what game plan you should use when creating email campaigns.
3 Ways to Build a Successful Email Campaign + Marketing Strategy
Building a successful email campaign is a stepping stone to executing an impactful marketing strategy. This starts with identifying your target audience. Obviously, you can’t hit home runs with your email campaigns if you have no one to send them to! This is where Exact Data can help you.
Since 1999, Exact Data has compiled hundreds of millions of consumer and business email addresses, along with data purchased or licensed from over 2,000 sources, to create the most accurate, complete, and up-to-date consumer and business databases available.
Our sources include surveys, magazine subscriptions, purchase histories, government records, licensing boards, municipal directories, memberships, attendee registries, website registrations, DBAs, incorporations, and more.
Our database of email addresses is routinely run through a rigorous data hygiene process to make certain all selects, new movers, new addresses, invalid email addresses, and deaths are unerring and up-to-date.
Once you’ve got a thorough list, it’s time to perfect your email campaigns and solidify your marketing plan. Here’s how to do it!
Step 1: Get Specific About Your Goals
Before you start to plan your email marketing strategy, you need to think about your goals. A strategy is your plan for achieving your goals, so without clearly defined goals, you’re like a tour guide without a place to give those tours.
So, how do you set your goals? Step back and think about who your customer is, what they need, and what you’re looking to do within your business. From there, what do you want to actually achieve with each email marketing campaign?
Here are some common goal ideas to get you started:
- Boost brand awareness and recognition
- Increase sales
- Convert prospects to customers
- Convert one-time customers to raving fans
- Increase website clicks and traffic
- Boost brand loyalty
Step 2: Work on Writing Epic Subject Lines
Subject lines matter. You’ve probably heard the classic, cliché piece of advice that first impressions matter. In the case of a flooded email inbox, this is totally true! Your subject line helps your emails stand out amidst a crowded inbox, garner more clicks, and help generate better results.
Think about it from a consumer’s standpoint. If an email has a boring or irrelevant subject line, you probably move it straight to the trash without ever looking at it. Your customers will do the same thing, unless you actively focus on creating compelling subject lines. We’re not tricking anyone, just making your business sound as cool as it really is.
This might not sound like a crucial component of building an effective marketing plan, but trust us, it is! Subject lines directly affect your open rate, and if people don’t open your emails, you won’t see the results you’re looking for.
Some quick tips? Include the recipient’s name whenever possible, add your latest promotions and discounts, keep things brief, and don’t use spammy phrases. Another great way to boost your subject line game is to pose a question: open up a conversation that people feel intrigued to read more about!
Step 3: Be Consistent and Schedule In Advance
Email marketing is all about building a relationship. Just like building a friendship with someone over multiple years, email marketing requires you to focus on active, consistent connection.
This means you should send emails regularly, on a set schedule, so that customers know what to expect (and even start to look forward to your emails). Be the boyfriend that always sends love notes without being asked.
Before you send your first email, finalize a strong, achievable schedule. Part of building a successful plan is in the consistent implementation, so make sure to automate wherever possible and stick to the plan. 99% of consumers check their email on a daily basis, so this is your chance to reach them where they are!
If you’re ready to grow your business, it’s time to focus on email campaigns as part of your marketing strategy. Now is the time to build effective campaigns, schedule in advance, and weave email into your marketing plan.
Exact Data can streamline the process of growing your list. With a pool of people in your ideal audience and effective email campaigns, you have the foundation of building great customer relationships and growing your business. Give us a call today so we can help you get going!
