Finding the perfect fit: segment your audience. A tailor makes a good suit look great. In the world of email, you're that tailor for your content, sizing up your audience, sharing messages they'll love and deftly not poking them with straight pins. Create small segments based on geography, response history or anything else you know, so it's easy to get the right message to the right person. See how the Atlanta Falcons segment their fans >
A good foundation:
Build a permission-based list.
If you want to push up your response
rates and be supportive of email’s best
practices, you will ignore these rather
unrefined bra puns and instead focus
on building your email list the right
way, emailing people who’ve asked to
hear from you. It’s a critical
foundation for successful email
marketing, and it’ll make everything
else you do more, ahem, seamless.
(Sorry, had to.)
Learn more about opt-in lists >
A bit of daring:
Aim for big goals. It’s easy to wear what’s
comfortable, particularly when what’s comfortable
involves an elastic waistband and a t-shirt from the
Reagan administration. But great fashion means
occasionally pushing your boundaries and choosing
pieces with daring – heels a bit too high, colors a bit
too loud. Bring the same moxie to your email
marketing and challenge yourself to try new things
and set big goals.
Read our tips for higher response rates >
Investing in quality:
Go for great brand design. Send emails with quality
design, and people will engage more with your
content and brand. Carry a bag with quality design,
and people won’t mock you when your purse rips,
scattering its contents and revealing to the world
your Pez addiction. Hypothetically speaking, of
course. Anyhoo, forgo cookie-cutter email templates for
quality design and thoughtful layouts.
Explore Emma’s design options >
The statement piece:
Craft a compelling subject line. Add vodka, and
your email inbox is pretty much a cocktail party —
just as crazy and full of people demanding attention.
A statement piece helps you attract that attention, and
that’s exactly the idea behind a great, attention-
grabbing subject line. Divulge just enough
information to get noticed, but don’t give everything
away.
Get Emma’s 10-step subject line tutorial >
Social media integration:
Something to talk about.
A bold accessory makes a statement and gets
people talking. If the same thing is true for your
email content, your subscribers will talk about
your content on Twitter and Facebook, especially
when you share your newsletters with your own
social networks. Those sharing and publishing
tools are built into Emma, with tracking that
helps you see just how popular you are.
More tips for sharing your emails on social media >
Personalization:
Like it was made just for you.
With email personalization, you can customize
information for each individual on your list automatically.
Go beyond a simple first-name greeting and personalize
with company name, the month someone joined or
anything else you know. It's all about recognizing that
your subscribers are more than just names you're emailing.
They're people you're having a converstation with.
Get ideas for personalizing your emails >
Split testing:
Two options are better than one.
Yes, there is an email equivalent of the reversible belt, and
it's split testing, which lets you try two versions of one
email and see which one performs better. Learning what
subject line, headline or image your audience prefers is an
easy way to keep your results up. Much like a belt is an
easy way to keep your pants up. The comparisons are
endless, really.
Emma customers: sign up to be the first to
try subject line split testing >
Autoresponders:
Timing is everything.
Autoresponders help you send email automatically on your
subscribers' schedules, so welcome notes reach new
subscribers right away and birthday coupons arrive
automatically. You're delivering email when your customers
are most likely to read it, which means you're delivering a
more personal experience, too. If you could also deliver us a
few reubens at lunch while you're at it, that'd be great.
See how Mountaineers books drives sales with triggers >
Return on investment:
A good place to put your money.
Of all the direct marketing channels, email offers the best
value, bringing in $41 for every dollar you spend. It's
inexpensive, it's effective and services like Emma make the
tools accessible for everybody. And just so we're clear on
the wallet comparison, email marketing is not an effective
way for you to store your sub punch cards and ticket stub
from that Chumbawamba concert in '98.
Compare email's ROI to other channels >
Segmentation tools:
The right look for the occasion.
You can't wear the same tie to every occasion, nor can you
send the same content to everybody on your list. That's
why email segmentation (and tie sales) are handy. Divide
your readers into smaller groups – say, customers &
prospects, men & women, active & inactive readers – and
tailor the content accordingly. If your results are in line
with MarketingSherpa's research, expect a 20% boost in
your clickthrough rate.
Try segmenting based on customer lifecycle >