Email marketing can be a more powerful tool than ever before for keeping your customers informed about what is new for your business, building brand loyalty, and staying top of mind.
Follow these steps to reach more customers with email
1. Keep Loyalty
Many people are having to shift priorities and try new brands due to availability, staffing issues, convenience, or simply a lack of funds. This shift in priorities makes it even more important that your customers know that you are empathetic to their situations and are ready to support them. They need to be reminded of their value to you and the efforts you are willing to take to keep them loyal. Rethink how you can make your subscribers feel comfortable buying from you or supporting you. Do not be afraid to adapt or shift your priorities to better match those of your customers.
Ask yourself these questions:
- What do my customers need most right now?
- What do my customers value the most?
- What products or services do I have that could help my customers most?
- What am I most grateful for about my customers?
- What steps do I need my customers to take?
- How easy is it for people to find me online?
- Is there an easy way to sign up for emails on my website?
- How well do I encourage new and repeat business?
2. Stand Out
Email volume is up right now since it has become the easiest way for companies to communicate with their customers. This means reader engagement is at an all-time high. Whether sending emails about a featured product or an upcoming sale, you should use emails to your advantage. Shopping habits have changed over the past couple of years, which means that now is the time to get out in front of customers in a new way.
Set up your emails correctly to get noticed, look professional, and improve your sending reputation. Focus on the header and pre-header areas. The From name is the most important, even more important than the subject line. It should be your company name with your own domain name if possible. Don’t use a person’s name, instead use a more generalized email such as info@…., newsletter@…., or news@…. so that if the person leaves, the messages will still be clear about who they are from and their importance. People only want to spend their time opening emails that they trust, so it is very important that your company email does not look like Spam. Use the Subject line to entice readers to why they should open the email and use the Preheader text to give them supporting information. Those three lines are the only opportunity you have to grab your reader’s attention enough to get them to open the email. Focus on what your customers want from you and what you could offer them that could get them to open this email.
3. Keep it Simple
Over 4.3 billion people own a Smartphone, and over 60% of all emails are being opened on a mobile device. That means that your emails need to stay as clean and easy to follow as possible in order to be really seen, especially on a mobile device.
Keep your emails short, sweet, and authentic. Photos help bring your email to life and attract attention, so every email should have a supporting image that ties to the message. Natural or realistic images work the best. Try to include images of people enjoying or using your products or services to create the most interest. Keep images around 600×800 pixels in size for the best quality.
76% of marketers say authentic content performs better than polished material.
Your email should answer these main questions:
- Headline: What are you offering or trying to accomplish?
- Message: How will it help the reader or why should they care? (Use 3-5 sentences)
- Call To Action: What should the reader do next or how can the reader get involved? (Use a button to link to an exact location, not just the home page of your website)
Take time to set up company-branded, reusable master templates for each type of communication you are sending. Keep the look and feel the same, and only change the 5 areas shown above for each email (The Header, Preheader, Image, Message body, and Call to Action). This will allow the reader to recognize your brand and find new information easily. Limit your fonts to 1-2 fonts per email so that they do not distract from the message.
4. Use Email Marketing To Its Fullest
Email marketing allows you to easily stay at the top of mind with your customers. It is important to use consistent emails to build loyalty by reminding your customers that you are here to help them get what they need in the easiest and most reliable way. Take the uncertainty away for them, and let them know they can trust you to help them get what they need when they need it.
Use email marketing for the following:
- Message of thanks
- Offers or promotions
- Business changes / updated business hours
- Remind them how you can solve their problems
- Inspirational message or how your products/business can help in troubled times
- Provide resources
- Timely events or event updates
Need Help With Email Marketing?
Whether you need help launching your first customer email campaign, don’t have time to maintain consistent communication, or want to boost your current open and response rate, we can help. Contact us today.
