In my last two blogs, I showed the benefits of email marketing and showed how to grow your email list for free. Of course, however, none of that information is particularly meaningful unless you can create a successful email campaign. After all, if your email sequence isn’t grabbing the consumer and helping to promote your brand, the great list you worked so hard for will shrink quite quickly.
So in this post, I will discuss the basics of email marketing strategy. Hopefully, you can adapt some of these best email marketing examples for your business.
But first, let me give one quick caveat. This post is about sending emails to those who opt in for your email list. Cold emails follow some of these same principles, but those are a topic for another time. Besides, as I have discussed before, you will find much better success sending to an email list you’ve cultivated.
What types of emails you send out to your list depend on many factors.
Remember: one of the great advantages of email marketing is that you can use software to automatically send different emails to different customers.
However, one of the primary considerations is where the person is in the customer journey. So, in this post, I will break it down by how recently the customer signed up for your list. Then at the end, I will give some general tips.
Let’s dive in on how you can improve your email campaigns!
How to Use an Email Campaign to Nurture Customers Who Just Signed Up for Your Email List
If a customer is new to your email list, it is for one of two reasons, and you need to treat each one slightly differently.
1. Signed Up To Get a Freebie
If the customer signed up for your email list because you promised something worthwhile for doing so, the first step in the email sequence is that you need to, you know, send them what you promised. You should have software set up that sends the digital product for you automatically to immediately build trust with consumers.
In the body of the email where you send the free gift, you should thank the person for signing up. You should also express that you hope the resource you are sending is helpful.
A few days later, you can send an email to the person reminding them that they signed up to be on your email list and explaining the benefits of being on the list. Remind them that they will receive tips or discounts, but remind them that they can opt out if they would like.
After this, you have a few potential paths. You could add this email address to your normal flow of email campaigns. However, you also could choose to send them a special email targeting a pain point that is typical of people searching for the resource you sent. For example, if you sent a resource with tips for making a great small business logo, you could follow up a week later with an email promoting the fact that your company prints logos on promotional items.
2. Signed Up While Making a Purchase
If someone joined your email list while making a purchase, a first step is often a receipt.
Somewhere in your email sequence to this new customer, you also want to express sincere gratitude that they chose your company. This could be part of the emailed receipt or part of another email in the sequence.
Another nice touch in your email sequence to a new customer is more information about their purchase. You could explain how to use the product or how to take care of the product, for example.
Finally, a week or two after purchase, you can send an email checking in with the customer to check that the product is meeting expectations. If they are having any trouble, you can encourage them to contact you.
As you can probably tell, you could combine some of these elements together rather than keep them as separate emails. But no matter how you choose to package them, these pieces are all important components of a welcome email campaign.
Email Campaigns for Customers Who Have Been on Your List for Several Weeks or More
Of course, if you are writing to people who have been on your email list for a while, they no longer should receive the welcome email sequence. However, you do want to still be sending emails regularly, partly to keep your brand on their mind and partly because email campaigns directly lead to revenue.
You have many options of messages you can send to your customers, depending on your email marketing strategy. Just remember the basic rule: the messages must be meaningful. Otherwise, customers will unsubscribe.
Also, remember that email software will allow you to send some email campaigns to only certain users. This differentiation is very important at times, since some campaigns may not make sense for everyone.
Here are just some email marketing examples for your existing customer base:
- Send information about sales, discounts, exclusive deals, free giveaways, contests, etc. These are the most common email campaigns for companies. Indeed, 44% of customers will look through their email to find a discount when shopping online.
- Give free tips. For example, a tutoring company could cover a math concept once a week or a nursery could send out plant care tips.
- Use a renewal email sequence if time is running out for a current perk that a customer has.
- Send messages that fit your brand. For example, a recruiting firm could send out “Motivational Monday” messages to keep encouraging job seekers.
- Mail newsletters that inform customers about new products and services.
How to Email Customers Who Haven’t Interacted Lately
For these customers, the goal of your email campaign is straightforward: you want them to re-engage.
How do you do this? Of course, you have many options. However, most re-engagement email sequence examples involve just being honest. Acknowledge the fact that the customer has not interacted with your material recently. Many of the best re-engagement email campaigns will either use some humor or some emotional language to discuss this. You can say something as simple as “We miss you!” Or, you can say something funny like, “It gets pretty lonely over here when you don’t click on our emails.”
Then, you remind customers of the value your emails offer. Explain how you can help them solve a problem or achieve a goal. For example, you could say, “Are you still hoping to have the bathroom of your dreams?” Or you could say, “We love giving our email customers the very best discounts on our authentic Italian meals.”
Finally, in my email followup sample, I would give the recipient the choice to continue to receive messages or to unsubscribe. So I would say something like, “If you want to continue to receive our discounts, click here. If you don’t, we will be sad to see you go, but you can unsubscribe here.”
Not everyone does this last step in their re-engagement email campaigns, but I like it for two reasons. First, many people will click on the button to stay subscribed. Then they are re-engaged with you, and you know it. They become more likely to interact with your messages again soon.
Even the ones who unsubscribe appreciate that you treated them fairly. They are likely to re-subscribe or at least remain your customer.
Besides, your email analytics are not accurate if you have many inactive contacts.
General Tips for Any Email Campaign
No matter what type of email sequence you send (or even email blast, where you send out just one singular message, not a chain), consider the following email marketing tips. All of them will help you grow your revenue.
- Personalize your content: Any kind of dynamic content in email campaigns (even as simple as being sure to include the recipient’s name) has great results. In fact, dynamic content, on average, doubles the ROI.
- Use A/B tests: A/B tests are when you send out two different emails to see which gets a better response and then adjust your strategy. On average, using A/B tests nearly double your ROI.
- Include a GIF when possible: Of course, you don’t want to overdo GIFs or use them when they don’t fit. However, used at the right times, they are very powerful tools. In fact, animated GIFs lead to over double the engagement than emails without.
- Incorporate live action content: Live action content is anything that is updating in real time. Examples include countdown clocks, current sporting event results, local weather, poll results, social media feeds, and more. Much like GIFs, live action content has a powerful effect when used well: over double the ROI than emails without.
- Ask subscribers to whitelist your email address: If subscribers have willingly signed up for your content and find it useful, most will whitelist you. Then, your emails will not land in spam or junk folders. Plus, email programs will be less likely to place your emails in the spam of junk folders of other people either.
- Remind subscribers they can unsubscribe: Admittedly, this tip has less of an impact on revenue as other suggestions on this list. However, when consumers can unsubscribe freely, they associate your brand with being fair and customer-centered and are more likely to return to your business later. Also, you get more return on email campaigns and better analytics because emails are being sent to more engaged customers. Plus, this policy is required by law in many jurisdictions, so you should follow it.
- Offer a “refer a friend” bonus link at the bottom of emails: When a new customer gets a referral from someone they know, they are far more likely to actually sign up for your email list. How do you get those referrals, though? Honestly, just asking will motivate some customers to do it. However, offering a small but valuable incentive to existing customers makes them even more likely to share, of course.
What If I Don’t Have the Time or the Right Words?
Incorporate these tips into your email marketing strategy and you should see solid results. Of course, that doesn’t necessarily mean these suggestions are simple to incorporate. You might feel that you don’t have the time to compose email sequences. Similarly, you might want someone with more experience to write the copy.
After all, since email campaigns offer greater ROI than any other form of marketing, you want to get them exactly right.
If so, you can always ask for help with email marketing services! A digital marketing agency will have the expertise you need so that your email campaigns lead to explosive new revenue.
