Email Marketing is widely recognised as one of the most effective, least expensive forms of marketing. No wonder really as it is predicted that email users will be at 2.9 billion (over a third of the worlds population) by 2019, sending and receiving 246 billion emails daily. Source Radicati
So, there is no doubt that email marketing is still a medium worth using and, more importantly, getting right. Unfortunately, it is not as simple as just firing out emails to your mailing list. Getting a mailing list in the first place is not always easy.
Building and nurturing your list
You need to nurture and grow your mailing list and unfortunately, there are no short cuts for this. Whilst it may be tempting to buy a list of email addresses, this is no substitute for building a list of your own. Subscribers who are interested in what you have to say, who have actively subscribed to your list are always likely to be a better prospect than those from a purchased list.
How do you grow your own list?
Firstly, give people a reason to sign up by giving something back. What can you offer in exchange for an email address? Sign-ups for things like brochure downloads in exchange for minimal information such as an email address are effective ways of getting more email addresses. A useful guide to download and keep, a white paper, an e-book. If you are offering something of value to your website visitor, they will not usually mind giving you their email address in return.
Secondly, make it as easy as possible. Don’t hide your subscribe boxes away at the bottom of a page – make them as visible as possible, there is no reason not to offer multiple opportunities to sign-up. Whether that is to be kept informed about special offers, get a download or receive a regular newsletter, the more opportunities you offer, the easier it will be to get new subscribers. Make sure you know which of your site pages get the most traffic. Sign-up boxes on your best performing pages are likely to yield the best numbers. Our Mailchimp module for DNN, psMailChimp, works by automatically reading in your MailChimp list subscription forms and creating them in DNN, You can have as many different signup forms in DNN as you like, all using different MailChimp lists which makes it simple to create multiple sign-up options.
Next – Divide and Rule
Building your own list also means that you can segment that list to enable you to send emails which are better targeted. If someone signs up to your list because they are interested in ladies shoes, for example, emails about discounted men’s hats are likely to be of less interest to them, a time limited 20% discount off ladies shoes however, is likely to be much more welcomed. Segmenting your list so that you can send targeted emails, based on subscriber behaviour is a great way of ensuring your list stays healthy.
Automate
Automating your email marketing is a great way to save time and ensure that you keep on top of your email marketing even when things get busy. Setting up a simple series of emails, welcoming new subscribers for instance is a great way to make your subscriber feel valued. The extent to which you can automate emails based on the behaviour of your subscribers is almost infinite and can take a huge amount of the work away, once you have your workflows set-up. Whatever your business model, a well targeted, automated series of emails to guide customers through your sales funnel will pay dividends and keep working even when you are not. Automation enables you to send different emails to different subscribers based on their particular circumstances and behaviour. This has the advantage of making your subscriber feel valued and understood.
Metrics
So, with all the hard work of list nurturing and automation done, you can just sit back and fire off emails to your subscribers…
Whilst this is partly true, it is important to have an understanding of how to measure the success of your email campaigns. If you use an email system like Mailchimp you will be able to measure the success of your campaigns and how engaged your audience is by looking at open rates, click through rates, conversion rates and many other metrics. Looking at the basics can help you refine your email marketing and work out what your audience prefers. Low open rates can indicate you need to refine your subject lines, low click through rates would indicate that your call to action is not engaging enough, this may be something simple like substituting a text link for a button or you may need to work on your offer. Split testing campaigns can allow you to gauge opinion and test a new offer or product.
To find out more about our Mailchimp Module for DNN or how we can help you to set up an email marketing strategy or campaign, get in touch.