The number of email users keeps rising and it is expected to reach 2.9 billion by the end of 2019. Parallel with it, the number of online brands investing in email marketing also grows. The reason for that is simple – email marketing benefits businesses on multiple levels.
First, email marketing has the 4400% high ROI, meaning that, for each $1 you spend, you earn$44.
How to Write Emails That Actually Convert
Second, email marketing is a perfect method of nurturing leads, increasing engagement, and inspiring brand loyalty. Stats say that 40% of B2B marketers claim that email newsletters are vital to their content marketing performance.
Here is how to use email marketing to give your brand a boost it needs.
Tailor Email Marketing to your Brand Strategy
A brand is not your company’s name. It’s not your logo or your product, either. A brand is the idea your name, logo and products convey. It stands for your missions, goals, and values – anything that makes you authentic and helps you stand out in the overcrowded market.
Your goal is to build a comprehensive brand strategy that will help you create a consistent brand across all channels you use (including email marketing).
A brand strategy is a long-term plan that includes the goals you need to achieve to grow your brand. It determines the purpose of your brand and gives it a unique personality. As such, it increases your competitive awareness, makes your brand consistent and, above all, builds trust with your target audiences.
One of the simplest ways to enable brand consistency is to establish strict brand guidelines that would dictate the use of your brand features in an email marketing campaign. Some of these features are:
- Brand colors, typography, and logos
- Your tone of voice
- The format and the layout of the email
- The size and quality of the images used
- The implementation of company details
- The length and form of your subject lines
- The frequency of your emails
- Branded short links
Based on your guidelines, you could build an email template to make sure that every email you send is on-brand.
Always Ask for Permission
When building your email list, remember that targeting recipients randomly won’t deliver the right results. Your emails would probably end up in the spam folder and your brand would go unnoticed.
Your goal is to get yourself noticed by the right audience – the one that is interested in your content and that can benefit from it. This is why you need to ask every user that subscribes for consent before start sending out emails.
Asking for permission is immensely important for a few reasons. First, it gains users’ trust, telling them that you respect their decisions. Second, by targeting the people interested in your brand, you’re automatically increasing your engagement and conversion rates.
Send Welcome Emails
A welcome email gives you an amazing opportunity to put yourself in from of your target customer and establish a stronger relationship with them. The average open rate for welcome emails is over 84%, meaning that they have a greater impact than traditional newsletters.
Your welcome email should be catchy, informative, and user-friendly. It needs to inform a user about how they can benefit from your email content and brand. Most importantly, it should include quality content, convincing calls-to-action, and relevant links that would inspire a user to take the right action.
You can even let your recipients choose how they will receive your emails in the future. For example, ask them how often they would like to receive your emails or what kind of content they would like to receive. Instead of just bombarding them with a bunch of irrelevant emails, you will prove that you care about their preferences and inspire them to interact with your brand actively.
Create Personalized Emails by Segmenting your Lists
Today’s customer is more demanding. They expect brands to understand their individuality and provide them with personalized and relevant content. SalesForce highlights that over 60% of consumers expect companies to send targeted offers or discounts based on their purchase history.
Now, personalization goes hand in hand with target audience segmentation. Not all of your customers are the same. They have different backgrounds, education, interests, hobbies, and problems.
There are numerous email marketing tools and methods you could use to segment your email list.
Adidas, for example, tailors their offers and deals based on customers’ gender.
Some brands rely on the location of a customer. This can be in the case of Uber that using their demographic and customer location information to provide accurate pricing options.
Users’ previous interactions with your brand also matter. For example, Amazon observes their customers behaviors on their site and, based on them, they provide personalized product suggestions.
Align your Emails and Landing Pages
What happens once your email delights a customer and inspires them to click on your link? If they’re not satisfied with what they see when they land on your page, they will ditch it without converting.
For starters, your landing page and your emails should align. Ensure that a user’s transition from their inboxes to the landing page goes smoothly. Keep the same aesthetic appeal, from the place and size of the logo to the colors and layouts you use.
Then, focus on your messaging. A landing page needs to be written in the same manner and repeat the offer mentioned in the email.
Keep your pages simple. Create powerful and informative CTAs that motivate a user and emphasize what’s in it for them when they click.
Remember, an email serves to spark people’s interest, while a landing page should help them make the right decision faster.
Over to You
The competition in the online marketing ecosystem is growing at an astonishing pace. Therefore, to grow people’s awareness and increase conversions, you need to build a solid brand around your business’ name. This is where email marketing can help a lot, allowing you to target the right audiences and engage them effectively.
Still, these strategies are only your starting point. There are no strict rules to apply when branding your business via email. You will need to experiment with your tactics and test them until you find the right ones.
