5 Essential Elements of Email Marketing

Email marketing is a great way to connect with your audience and is one of the most cost-effective ways to communicate something about your brand. However, it can be challenging to make your message stand out in a full inbox. In this article we will be discussing 5 important elements that will boost your open rate and improve conversions for your next email marketing campaign.

Number 1: Email Personalization and Segmentation

Anytime you are addressing your recipient with a message, you should always address the subscriber by their first name. You can get your subscriber’s name by adding it as a field to your email newsletter sign-up. Personalized emails are more likely to be opened because it stands out in the inbox as more relevant material. 

Segmentation is the process of splitting up your master list into smaller segments based on information provided by the subscriber. Like personalization, segmentation will allow you to make your emails appear more relevant to the subscriber, and therefore more likely to be opened.  One of the best strategies for segmentation is to create an email group for each version of your customer avatar. You can also divide your email list by age, status as a customer, geographic location, past purchase history, browsing behaviours and much more!

Number 2: Email Campaign Metric Tracking

Tracking your past  email campaign metrics will help you improve. Email metrics that will be invaluable for making adjustments to your future campaigns include:

• Email deliverability: Did your email reach the inbox or was it flagged as junk?
• Email Open rate: Are your emails being opened or are they being deleted?
• Click Through Rate: If your email was opened, did they engage with the content? Did they click on the links? 
• Disengagement Rate: Did this email make them unsubscribe? 

‍Number 3: Scheduling Emails‍

The timing of your emails can impact performance. The optimal time to schedule an email is between 8am and 5pm. Research also shows the most effective day to send an email is Thursday, followed by Tuesday then Wednesday. The weekend and Mondays typically have the worst open rates. Nevertheless, by monitoring your previous metrics you can determine the best days and times based on your specific audience. 

Number 4: Send A Welcome Email

A welcome email is important because it allows you to connect with the customer while you are still fresh on their mind. A welcome email will build brand awareness and let the subscriber know what they can expect from your business. You can also use the welcome email as a way to drive traffic to your social media. 

Here are 8 key elements to include in your welcome emails:

• Welcome and Thank You 
• Introduce the Brand 
• Set Expectations: somewhere in the body of your email you should state how often they will hear from you. 
• Encourage White Listing
• Restate the Benefits: remind the subscriber why they signed up, focusing on how they will benefit from being on your list. 
• Best Of: provide your customer with your best content upfront, like blog articles, youtube videos, ect… 
• Encourage them to keep in touch on other platforms 
• Prescribe next steps: let your subscriber know what you want them to do next. (ie. visit your website, use a coupon code… etc.)

Number 5: Email Marketing Strategy 

Be purposeful when creating your email marketing strategy. When developing each aspect of your email marketing campaign it is important to keep your goals in mind, whether that be to excite, engage, convert… etc.  Consistency will yield better ROI. Over time you will find what works best for you.