Broaden Your Brand Awareness with Email Marketing

A lot of people ask ‘what is email marketing’ and once they know they are asking what is the best email marketing strategy so that’s why I’ve took to my keyboard to give you the full insight into what email marketing is and what are the best practices your business can use.

The opportunities that are available online are excellent for any and all businesses but email marketing is one you don’t want to miss out on.

Email marketing is a way of majorly increasing your brand awareness on a whole new level to a whole new range of people.

Tell Me, What is Email Marketing?

What can I say about email marketing, it’s one of those things that does what it says!

Email marketing is all about marketing your business/brand through emails.

The fun thing is it’s up to you to create the email to really get your business noticed, to get more people aware of your business, what it is you do, what it is you sell and more importantly what you can do to benefit them.

Marketing by email is a great method, you can email existing customers, potential customers or previous customers.

All you need is a list of emails and an eye catching template to get your mission to increase your business/brand underway!

I know what you’re thinking, I’m talking about using the best practices but you don’t know what they are and that’s why you’re here to learn them, well don’t you worry let the learning commence.

The Email Marketing Strategy you Need to Know About

First and probably one of the most important aspects of your strategy is the planning.

Anyone can use the likes of Mail Chimp to create a fancy looking email but only the people who have planned their email will gain real success.

Before designing your email you need to know the audience you are targeting, take a look at what areas of your business is doing well, what your customers currently like.

Take this information and create a strategy which will engage new customers and gather more attention towards other products and services, not just the ones that are popular already!

One of the next email marketing best practices has got to be about ensuring you are using relevant content and data.

If you’re sending out an email to promote a new product or service, stick to this one, don’t go off on a tangent about something that isn’t relevant.

Another major area which is crucial for the best possible email marketing strategy is you need to have the permission of your recipients; you can’t just go pulling emails in from left, right and centre without having their permission for sending it!

The best way you can get emails for people who will count and make the difference is from previous purchases, subscribers, people who have willingly allowed you to have their email and have used/took interest in your business before.

Next, make it personal.

Let people know exactly who the email is coming from, design the email so it is personal to you as a business but also to the person on the receiving end.

As a person who receives quite a lot of emails from all different companies I can tell you myself that more time than not I read the emails that start with ‘Hey Georgia’ or ‘Georgia, we’ve got 25% off today’.

See, with this email screenshot above, Booking.com know what I have been searching for so have followed up with it using my name, making it look personal to exactly what I am looking for.

This is the type of personalisation you want and your customers and potential customers want; it also helps it looking spammy.

I’ve Got Plenty More Email Marketing Best Practices Coming your Way

There are still plenty of elements that you can use to create the best email marketing strategy with one of them being the right time to send an email.

Depending on what type of business you are and what products and services you offer, of course there is going to be a time of day which will be best for you to send an email but as an overall timing the most popular times to send an email are between 8pm – 12am.

Most days people are working and haven’t got the time to be looking at these type of marketing emails properly however between 8pm and 12am people are home from work, have eaten and put the kids to bed so have got the time to see your email.

Email marketing isn’t just all about the first initial email you send out either you know.

It’s all about the process you take and doing it the right way, send too many emails to the one person in a short amount of time, expect a rise in people unsubscribing or contacting you; and no not for the good reasons.

What about if someone has been on your website shopping around and left something in the basket without checking out properly?

This is a perfect opportunity for an email to be sent to them to remind them what they was looking at/close to buying, this gives them a little push to buy the product which means they will be visiting your website again and could look around further and maybe see something else they are interested in purchasing.

Content is key.

You don’t want an email which is just all text, you want it to be eye catching and engaging, there needs to be some imagery, maybe even a video but definitely some call-to-action!

Although content is important, it’s also important you don’t overdo it either.

Would you want to be sitting there reading an email which is going on and on and on?

No, me either!

Make it clear what the email is about, why exactly you are sending it, if you are offering a discount or have a sale on, make it clear, make it bold.

While discussing content for an email this falls into one of my final points about email marketing on mobiles and desktops.

Emails appear different on a mobile compared to a desktop so you need to make sure you test them to suit both devices. With a smaller screen on mobile it means more scrolling time, make sure everything fits the screen and it displays exactly how you want it to.

Finally, after the email is designed, sent and had time to be opened by your recipients this is the time for you to monitor the success of the campaign.

With the likes of Mail Chimp it allows you to view all the analytics of the email; the number of times it has been opened, the times it was opened, number of clicks from the email, number of unsubscribes etc.

If you look below you will see an example of some analytics within Mail Chimp, what would you have to say if these were your results!?

This is the information that is crucial, you can use this data to improve your next campaign which will all go towards improving your business as a whole.

Georgia’s Final Thought

If you want to create a successful email marketing strategy then follow the simple steps I have discussed here.

The best and most successful email marketers are SMART; Specific, Measurable, Achievable, Realistic and Time Bound.

By sending an email which is specific, measurable as well as having goals that are achievable and realistic within a specific time then you’ll be onto a winner.

Need the help of an expert? We’re just a phone call away; 0151 329 2988.