How To Create an Email Marketing Strategy That Converts

[Md. Abdur Rahim]

1. Identify your campaign’s purpose, content, goals, and metrics



Email campaigns are a key part of any business's marketing strategy. But for a campaign to be successful, businesses must first identify the email campaign's purpose, content, goals, and metrics.

You may create a campaign that targets a specific business need, such as nurturing and converting leads, re-targeting old customers, driving sales, or even reducing abandoned carts. As the campaign objective differs, so do the email content marketing strategies. Consider the following objectives and observe how the content development and testing approaches differ:

Lead nurturing campaigns. These emails are designed to build relationships with potential customers. They usually involve a series of emails that provide valuable information and build trust over time.
Sales and conversion campaigns. The objective behind these emails is to get people to take action, such as buying a new product or signing up for a service. These emails typically include a strong call to action and a sense of urgency.
Win-back campaigns. Also called re-engagement campaigns, these emails are designed to re-engage inactive subscribers. They usually involve a series of emails that offer special deals or incentives to get people to come back.
Brand awareness campaigns. You can reach a wide audience with your message and track how many people open and click through your email. Such emails aim to familiarize people with the brand by providing frequent information about activities and unique offerings.
Cart-abandonment campaigns. The objective behind this type of email is to recover lost sales. These emails are sent to customers who leave products in their virtual carts. They often contain promotional offers and have a sense of urgency to propel the audience to complete the purchase process.
Once you have detailed your intentions behind sending the email campaigns, you’ll be better able to highlight your campaign goals and measure performance. Goals should be specific and measurable, and businesses should clearly understand what metrics they will use to track the campaign's success.

For cart-abandonment campaigns, for instance, you can ask questions like, “How many recipients completed sales they had abandoned?” Or, “What was the return on investment for running the email campaign?”

2. Segment your audience



After defining your campaign’s purpose and goals, consider who should receive the emails.

Typically, your audience is made up of various categories of people—new leads or active email subscribers, for example. This is where list segmentation is important. Segmenting your audience allows you to create more targeted and effective email campaigns. When you segment your audience, you can send relevant and personalized emails that are likely to resonate with each group.

Businesses can gather relevant data to segment customers into diverse classes in several ways. They include:

Gathering data at sign-up. Businesses use this method to gather basic information like age, location, occupation, and so on. They do this by asking subscribers to fill out a short sign-up form with their contact information and preferences as part of the onboarding process.
Use lead magnets. Lead magnets are free resources that subscribers can access in exchange for their contact information. These can be in the form of e-books, checklists, templates, etc.
Administer surveys. Administering questionnaires and surveys is another effective way to gather data. The catch is to make these forms interactive and short to avoid boring your audience. These quizzes are sent out periodically and can be used to collect data on various topics, such as interests, buying habits, and more. Two common tools businesses use to administer surveys are SurveyMonkey and Google Forms. They may also embed the surveys within the email or administer them via social platforms like Twitter and Facebook.
Monitor customer activity and purchase history. You can track which product or service customers spend more time reviewing and use that insight to create a personalized segment for an interested audience. Tracking purchase history also helps you make relevant recommendations on products that cross-sell in your email campaigns.

3. Design your emails



Now that you have decided who your audience is, the next step is to design an email to them specifically. You must consider several steps to build a winning email. This section will take you through it.

Customize by segment

The goal of creating various audience categories is to ensure your email newsletters are relevant and targeted to the right category of people. For example, If you operate a B2B company, you can segment your subscriber list by industry or company size to send offerings specific to that industry and those company sizes.

Geographic location. Retail companies can segment customers based on their location to send customized deals and promotions for customers within the specific region. Businesses with an international audience can customize emails to reflect local time zones, currencies, weather, festivals, and holidays. For example, sending a Thanksgiving promotion email in November will be inappropriate for your Canadian audience because they celebrate Thanksgiving in October.
Demographics. According to Andrea Noisi's Introduction to Customer Behavior, customers' purchase preferences differ according to factors like age, sex, education, and income. In essence, you can use tools like Sprout Social and Qualtrics to categorize your audience by various demographic markers to create an email that appeals to each social group and create unique offers based on customer interests or web activity.
Psychographics. As a business, you want to customize your emails to your target audience's lifestyle and interests. One way to do this is to use psychographics to create segments of your list. For example, let's say you sell outdoor gear. You could segment your list by those who are interested in hiking, camping, and adventure travel. You could then create customized emails with content that appeals to those interests. This is just one example of how you can use psychographics to create customized and effective email content.

Formulate for each step in the purchasing design
A purchasing design is a set of guidelines you can use to improve your email marketing campaigns. It covers everything from email layout to content. By following a purchasing design, you can make sure your emails are more effective and have a higher chance of converting leads into sales.

The following are steps in the purchasing design workflow.

Awareness. The awareness stage of the purchasing design workflow is a process that businesses use to identify and nurture leads. The process begins with capturing new leads through various channels like lead magnets, social media advertising, and search engines.
Lead nurturing. Once you have the new leads, you can begin sending scheduled emails so they become familiar with your business values and product interests. Depending on how the leads interact with your website and emails, you can send customized emails using their data.
Conversion. The conversation stage aims to lead the email recipients to take action. The goal of the conversation stage may vary with each business. For an e-commerce business, the objective may be to make sales. On the other hand, companies in the software-as-a-service (SaaS) industry may aim to get more subscribers.

Find ways to engage inactive customers

Having customers who become inactive and abandon carts is commonplace in business. One way to re-engage inactive customers is to send follow-up emails to show exclusive deals and promotions. E-commerce businesses often use that approach to re-convert customers. When sending follow-up emails, be certain to personalize the email from the subject line to the email content.

If they're not interested, that's OK. You can simply thank them for their past business and wish them well in the future. Either way, you should always be professional and courteous when reaching out to inactive customers.

Include clear calls to action

To maximize an email’s effectiveness, you shoujld include a CTA, or call to action, at the end. A CTA is a statement or question that encourages the reader to take some specific action. For example, a promotional email from an email marketing agency may end with a CTA like "Book an appointment today!” Such a call to action directs the audience on the next steps to take in the purchase cycle.

An effective CTA must be clear, concise, and persuasive. The call-to-action should also be relevant to the reader and offer value.

Include personalized elements

Email personalization is a process by which businesses customize email messages to specific individuals. First, you need relevant data (like name and date of birth) to improve personal experience. The following tips will help you effectively include personalization elements.

Address the recipient by name
Include the recipient's name in the subject line
Include images with messages
Send complementary messages on specific days

Include an email signature

An email signature is a block of text that contains information about the sender, usually at the end of an email. This can include the sender's name, contact information, and a short message or tagline. Email signatures are a great way to add a personal touch to your messages and can also be used to promote your business or website.

There are different ways to create an email signature. Many email clients, like Gmail and Outlook, have built-in signature generators that make it easy to create a signature. You can also create a signature manually using HTML code. With an email signature generator, you can typically just copy and paste the generated code into your email client.

Incorporate branding

One important aspect of email marketing is incorporating branding into your campaigns. Branding can help you build loyalty and trust with new subscribers and help your emails stand out in a crowded inbox.

You can incorporate branding into your email campaigns in a few different ways. First, ensure your emails include your company logo and name. Create a cohesive look and feel using your company colors and font choices. In addition, ensure your message is consistent with your brand voice.

By incorporating branding into your email campaigns, you create a strong and recognizable identity that will help build customer loyalty.

4. Use high-quality templates



Email templates provide a foundation for good email design and content. Following a few simple steps, you can create great-looking emails that will engage and inform your recipients. Here are some tips for using email templates.

Choose a template that fits your brand and purpose. You can find great email templates and helpful email marketing tips online.‍
Customize the template to reflect your brand. You can do this by adding your logo, colors, and fonts.‍
Use quality content in your email. The template will provide a basic layout; your job is to fill in valuable content that will engage your recipients.‍
Test your email before sending it. Sending a test email to yourself or a small group of people can help you catch any errors.

5. Focus on mobile-friendly emails



Mobile-friendly email design is more important than ever before. With over half of all emails opened on a mobile device, your email design needs to look good on a small screen. Here are some steps for optimizing your emails for mobile devices.

Use large font sizes. Your text should be easily readable on a small screen.
Use short lines of text. Long lines of text can be hard to read on a mobile device.
Use images wisely. Images can help break up your text, but too many images can make your email look cluttered.
Use calls to action. Make it easy for your readers to take action on your email by using clear and concise calls to action.

6. Select your email service provider (ESP) and master its functionality



Email service providers (ESPs) are businesses that provide email-related services, such as email marketing, list management, and deliverability. Some ESPs like Mailchimp and SendInBlue also offer other related services, such as web hosting, website design, and online marketing.

ESPs provide the email marketing tools and services businesses need to create and manage their email marketing campaigns. Such services include email list management, email deliverability, and email marketing software.

Choose from various ESPs; the right one for your business will depend on your specific needs. If you're just getting started with email marketing, you may want to choose an ESP that offers a free trial or low-cost starter plan. This lets you test the ESP's services to see how it affects your business.

Here are some key things to consider when selecting an email service provider.

Compare providers to find out which one best meets your needs. Select an ESP that provides good customer support and an easy-to-use interface. After selecting your ESP, take some time to master its functionality to get the most out of your investment and ensure your email campaigns are successful.

7. Schedule your emails and follow-ups



Although there's no rule that dictates a good and bad sending time, research shows that sending emails at certain times can improve the chances of getting higher engagements.

After analyzing reports from HubSpot, GetResponse, WordStream, and its in-house team, Moosend reports the best time for sending email campaigns is between 9 a.m. and 11 a.m. in the recipient’s time zone.

The report further reveals that campaigns sent out around 1 p.m. to 2 p.m. also perform well, as many workers go on a lunch break during that period. Emails sent between 6 p.m. and 5 a.m. perform the poorest. A possible explanation is that people may not commit to emails after work hours. That also explains the low open rates on Saturdays and Sundays.

8. Test your emails



After creating your email design and content, you should test them to ensure they have a few key things. You can check for functional performance and customer response using split testing (also called A/B testing). The A/B testing technique allows you to compare two design versions simultaneously to find out which works best.

First, ensure that your email is compatible with all major email clients. This includes Microsoft Outlook, Apple Mail, Gmail, and Yahoo Mail. You can check email delivery by sending test emails to yourself and a few other people to see if they render correctly.

Next, test your email's subject line and CTAs by monitoring open rates and click-through rates to determine which design performed better and gain insights on how to improve future designs.

9. Track performance


Tracking email performance is essential for any organization that relies on email communications to reach its customers or members. By tracking email performance, you can identify which messages are opened and read, which links are clicked, and which messages are forwarded or shared.

To effectively track the email, you can integrate your email with software like Google Analytics or Mailchimp. These email automation and management tools provide a dashboard to measure various key performance indicators (KPIs) that convey how well people engage with the email. Some important metrics to measure include:

Open rate

The open rate reveals the percentage of people who open an email out of the total number of people who received it. According to Omnisend, the average open rate across all industries is 25.1%. Insights from Invesp further show that 47% of email recipients decide whether to open an email based on the subject line.

To optimize an email for a better open rate, create a curiosity-grabbing email subject that helps your message stand out in the recipient's inbox. You can use a question format, like “What are your plans for the weekend?” Or, craft the subject line as a command or announcement, like in these examples: “Join us at Hiring Conference, Johannesburg,” or, “The winner of our Black Friday lottery contest is …”

Insights from Return Path also show that email subject lines with 60 to 70 characters get the most open rates (14% to 17%). The report further suggests using power words to drive better email open rates.

Click-through rate

The click rate describes how many people clicked on a link in an email out of the total number of people who received it. According to insights from the Omnisend report cited earlier, a good click-through rate should be around 3% to 5%, which is a little above the industry average (2.3%). To calculate the click-through rate, you can use the formula below:

Click Rate =   Emails Clicked /  Email Sent  -  Bounces

‍

One way to ensure you have a better click-through rate is to ensure the email content is relevant to the audience. You can achieve this by following the tips on segmentation detailed above. Besides segmentation, you should also include strong calls to action to direct readers to the next steps.

Bounce rate

Bounce rate is a metric used to describe email deliverability (i.e., the percentage of emails that do not make it to the recipient's inbox). When an email is undeliverable, it means that the email server was unable to deliver the message to the recipient's inbox. The most common reason for this is that the email address is invalid.

A high bounce rate can indicate to email providers that your messages are not being delivered, which can result in your emails being sent to the spam folder or being blocked entirely. There are a few ways to reduce your bounce rate, such as using a double opt-in process and verifying email addresses before adding them to your list.

Spam score

Before an email arrives in your inbox, it undergoes a series of checks by your email provider to determine whether it’s spam. This process is known as spam scoring.

Spam scores are calculated using a variety of factors, including email content, the sender's reputation, and whether the recipient has previously marked emails from the sender as spam. These factors are combined to create a numeric score that determines whether an email is likely to be spam.

Conversion rate

This is the percentage of people who take the desired action after receiving an email. The desired action could vary from signing up for a newsletter to purchasing something. Businesses can use email conversion rates to measure the effectiveness of an email marketing effort.

To calculate your email conversion rate, simply take the number of people who take the desired action and divide it by the total number of people who received the email. For example, if 100 people receive your email and 10 make a purchase, your email conversion rate would be 10%.

Email conversion rates can vary depending on the type of email and the offer. For example, a welcome email with a 20% off coupon will likely have a higher conversion rate than a generic newsletter.

Get an expert to create an email marketing strategy for you

Email marketing is arguably the most effective way to reach your customers and promote your business. But with so many email marketing strategies out there, knowing where to start can be tough. That's where Upwork’s Project Catalog™ comes into play.

Upwork's Project Catalog allows independent professionals to create and post their projects, alongside the cost, duration, and other deliverables. The goal is to connect independent professionals to businesses and help employers on the platform easily find expert services for their businesses.

To start as an independent professional, you will need to create an Upwork account, complete your profile, and head over to our Project Catalog to showcase your projects and expert services. As a business owner, you will also need to create an Upwork account to leverage the Upwork Project Catalog. Once you have an account, you can visit Upwork to hire email marketing consultants and other marketing experts.

Source: Global Inc.
Original Content: https://www.upwork.com/resources/email-marketing-strategy