Here Are 10 Crucial Things Your Email Marketing Strategy Is Lacking‍

In today’s fiercely competitive landscape, fine-tuning marketing strategies is essential to get your business noticed. Regardless of your industry or scale of operations, email marketing is a viable way to connect with customers and nurture long-lasting relationships. After all, there are over 4 billion email users worldwide, which is more than any social media platform.

While embracing new platforms is necessary to promote your brand in the digital age, you cannot underestimate the potential of email marketing. It’s no wonder that 4 out of 5 marketers say that they would rather give up social media than email.

Are you putting time and effort into email marketing but not seeing the desired results? Your current email marketing strategy may lack certain key elements. Let’s take a look at what your email marketing is missing.

Waiting To Strike a Certain Number

Whether you have just launched a new venture or kicking off email marketing, don’t wait to have a certain number of subscribers for sending emails. Understandably, you want to share your emails with a large audience. But that doesn’t mean you can neglect the small number of prospects that have signed up for your mailing list.

If you let too much time pass, the prospects will likely forget about signing up, which can lead to lower engagement. Every prospective customer is important. Even if you have only 10 subscribers, you should start sending emails as soon as possible.

Ideally, you should immediately send a welcome email to every new subscriber. Since they have recently come across your brand, a welcome email will tell them more about your brand and what they can expect from future emails. Take this opportunity to create a positive and memorable first impression.

Email Sequence

It’s no secret that email marketing can be extremely time-consuming. From curating high-quality content to determining frequency, there is a lot to do. This is why you need to make the most of an email sequence.

An email sequence refers to a set of emails that are automatically sent out at predetermined times. For example, you can create an email sequence that sends a welcome email as soon as a prospect signs up for your mailing list. This contains emails introducing new subscribers to your brand and preparing them for the nurturing sequence. Instead of straightway diving into promotional content, this sequence focuses on expressing gratitude and sharing basic information.

An email sequence eliminates the need for manual correspondence. You can pick the time and frequency to create the most impact. Email sequences can be easily tailored to your unique goals and requirements.

Relevant Content

Your email marketing efforts won’t go too far with mediocre content. From social media to mainstream media, we are surrounded by an influx of content. Curating high-quality email content is crucial to engage and convert your audience.

Instead of just sending promotional and sales content, we urge you to focus on writing content that offers value to your target audience. Start with a compelling subject line that will entice recipients to click on your email. Use actionable and emotive words that inspire a sense of urgency. Perform A/B testing to determine which subject lines perform better.

We also recommend making your content easy to read and scan. Make sure your emails are free from broken links, wrong prices, and any other incorrect detail.

Appealing Email Design

Apart from the content, the visual design of your emails influences the readability. A poorly designed email with illegible font or an overwhelming colour pallet can make your emails difficult to comprehend.

We suggest taking a minimalist approach when it comes to graphics and images. Make sure your emails have enough whitespace to break up the text. Another thing to keep in mind is responsiveness. Your email design should fit on screens of all sizes.

There is no tried and tested formula that works for every organization. We suggest testing different designs to find the best approach.

Personalization

Most people wake up to an overflowing inbox. That’s why it’s necessary to find a way to make your email stand out.

Email personalization is key to boosting your open and click-through rates. Personalization can be as simple as addressing the recipient by their name instead of a generic salutation. Or you can use hyper-personalized emails based on the subscriber’s age, location, gender, purchasing history, and other metrics.

You can send subscribers an email with recommendations based on their past purchases. Depending on your product, you can also share a weekly or monthly report. For example, Splitwise is an expense app that delivers a monthly report sharing your total balance as well as a brief overview of major expenses.

Consistency

Sending a welcome email followed by months of radio silence can undermine your marketing efforts. You don’t want your prospects to forget about your brand! A consistent schedule is important to keep your brand alive in subscribers’ minds.

However, that doesn’t mean you start bombarding your mailing list with several emails every day. Ideally, you should send emails twice a month or every week, depending on your target audience. Test out different schedules to find the best option.

Growing Mailing List

You can’t expect your mailing list to grow overnight without any effort. In addition to adding a sign-up pop-up, you can add a simple sign-up form on your website’s sidebar or contact page. It’s also a good idea to link the sign-up sheet on your social media pages.

Partially gated content is a great way to incentivize visitors to join your mailing list. Moreover, you can offer discounts or gift cards to grow your mailing list.

Compelling CTA

You enticed recipients to open your email and read your well-curated content. Now what? Forgetting a compelling call to action is an expensive mistake. Rather than hoping readers will take action, it’s your responsibility to tell them the next steps. Whether you want subscribers to contact you or complete a purchase, inform them with a clear CTA.

A Clear Unsubscribe Button

There will be instances when a subscriber is no longer interested in receiving emails from your brand. It’s not the end of the world! In fact, this helps improve audience engagement.

However, if you think you can make them stay by obscuring the unsubscribe button, think again. If an unsatisfied subscriber can’t find the unsubscribe button, they will likely resort to marking your emails as spam. And that’s a lot worse for your reputation as a sender. The last thing you want is email providers classifying you as a spammer and directing your emails to the junk folder.

Therefore, you’re better off including a clear and easy-to-find unsubscribe button.

Mobile Optimization

More and more people are reading emails on their mobile phones. So, you can imagine the consequences of not optimizing your emails for smaller screens. From formatting choices to images, every element of your email should be easily readable on mobile devices. Don’t subject your subscribers to excessive scrolling, panning, or zooming. Always test your emails on different devices to effectively convert mobile users.

The Bottom Line

Email marketing continues to be a worthwhile strategy promising remarkable ROI. For every dollar spent, email generates a whopping $42! Although adopting contemporary tools can improve your online visibility, don’t let them distract you from the power of emails. Hopefully, the aforementioned tips will help you refine your email marketing strategy.

About the Author

Stefan Smulders is a SaaS Entrepreneur | Bootstrapped to €3M ARR in just 1year | Founder of Worlds safest software for LinkedIn Automation Expandi.io | Vegan | Father