How to create an email marketing strategy for your business?

How to create an email marketing strategy for your business?

Email marketing is a form of digital marketing that uses email to send promotional messages or newsletters.

Email marketing’s purpose is to

1. Connect with potential customers

2. Improve brand recognition

3. Drive traffic to your website

4. Drive conversions

5. Increase customer loyalty and lifetime value

According to Mailchimp, there is $42 return for every $1 spent on email marketing.

My Story

Before starting INNMCO (pronounced IN - EM - COH). I was a digital marketing strategist at NTT DATA for 10+ years.

When I started INNMCO in 2021, I was trying to inform prospective buyers about my services using an outbound marketing approach. I cold messaged a lot of people in my network. I quickly discovered that, I was talking to people who I thought needed my service but didn’t really need what I was selling.

I realised that I didn’t know all the people who needed my services. I was thinking, what if all the people who needed my services came to me instead. This is what is called inbound marketing. This means you need to be creating valuable content and experiences for buyers to help them at every stage of the buyer’s journey. The information that you provide needs to be in a format (e.g. blog, video etc..) that resonates with your buyer.

I used email marketing as channel for distributing my content. I prototyped, tested and optimised my email marketing campaigns over time. I used the learnings from my email marketing campaigns to craft effective email marketing strategies for my business.

Here are a few email marketing strategies to increase your website traffic and generate sales opportunities for your business:

Email Strategies

1. Set one content goal per email

What are you trying to accomplish with this email? If you don’t have a clear end goal in mind, your email content is likely to drift all over the place, leaving your readers overwhelmed, confused or uninterested.

Whether your goal is to drive website traffic or increase sales, it’s important to define your content goal and create content to achieve that goal.

Your target audience has to sift through hundreds of emails. Keeping your content to one goal and one message will help them understand the intent of your email. This will enable them to take action.

2. Segment your audience into smaller groups

Segment your audience by persona, demography or online behaviour. In this case you are sending messages to people who are interested in what you have to say & have given you permission.

Example - I am looking to send an email to prospective buyers who have shown an interest in one of my products. I have identified this interest based on what they downloaded from my website or other online interactions they’ve had with my business.

3. Personalise your message for your target audience

Tell a story, build a relationship, have a unique voice that is relatable to your target audience and talk like a human.

Example, keep your subject line short & sweet. Align your subject line to the content of the email. Personalise the subject line to the person who you are emailing.

4. Tell your readers what to do next

The best way to achieve your content goal, is to tell your readers what to do next. Always end your email with a clear call to action (CTA). Highlight the positive outcomes your subscribers will get from taking a particular action.

Conclusion

I used inbound marketing to drive traffic to my website and generate leads for my business. I prototyped, tested and optimised my email marketing campaigns over time. I crafted effective email marketing strategies to increase my website traffic.

I rest my case - email marketing accelerates revenue growth.

Written by Anees Misbahudeen

Founder & Digital Marketing Director, INNMCO

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