During one of our company meetings, Lorraine asked me, “What makes for a good email marketing campaign?” I felt like I was back in school and the teacher just called on me to answer a question I didn’t know the answer to.
I stared at her as I thought, “I work on several client email newsletters each week. How could I not know what makes for a good email marketing campaign?” I’m glad Lorraine put me on the spot during the meeting because it got me thinking about the steps to creating successful email marketing campaigns.
Step 1 – You Must Be Blogging
Besides providing content for your email newsletter, your business should totally be blogging. Not sure how to get started? There’s a link at the bottom of this post that will help you out. If you’re already blogging, great! Put that content to good use. Every week I write blog posts for clients. These blog posts are essentially the content for their email newsletters. When it comes time to work on the newsletter, I simply feature the most popular posts.
Step 2 – You Need a Good Email List
In a previous blog post Lorraine told us there is no email campaign if you don’t have a list. Unfortunately, there aren’t any shortcuts when it comes to building your list. You need to promote your newsletter on social media, your website and when you’re speaking directly to customers. Offer something free to your customers, whether it’s a coupon or a download, and in return they have to give you their email address.
Whatever you do, don’t buy a list! This will only give you email addresses of people who don’t care about your business and will opt out of receiving your emails or report you as spam. Make sure you are adding valuable contacts.
Step 3 – Make Them an Offer They Can’t Refuse
Give people a reason to open your email and click through to your website with some sort of offer in your email newsletter. A coupon or a download which is relevant to your business is a great way to get interaction through your email campaign. If you happen to have a coupon that correlates with a blog post you are featuring in your newsletter, use it!
For example, a carpet cleaning business might feature a blog post about ways to ruin your carpet. This is the perfect match to a coupon for 10% off carpet cleaning. A butcher shop might share a recipe and then offer a discount on the featured product. In each case, the customers get valuable, trusted information, as well as a reason to call or stop by. This is the genius of email marketing.
Email marketing isn’t rocket science. Sure, there’s some trial and error involved, but for the most part, the building blocks of a good email marketing campaign stay the same. Use those blog posts you slaved over, make sure you have a good list and offer your customers something which will benefit the both of you. If all else fails, you can email them cute pictures of kittens. People love kittens.
Want to know more? Download our email marketing guide.
