Email marketing may seem daunting, but it can be incredibly effective. According to a 2019 Litmus survey on the state of email marketing, the average return on investment for email marketing was 42:1, with some organisations achieving even higher levels of success. As a cost-effective and efficient marketing tool, investing time and effort into growing a mailing list of existing and potential customers and sending them engaging content can keep your business top of mind and encourage repeat business.
 
So, what constitutes an effective email marketing campaign? Here are my top tips:
 
1. Ensure Consent
Make sure that people have consented to being on your mailing list. Receiving unsolicited emails from a business can create a negative first impression. Ensure that people who sign up for your newsletter, download a free lead magnet from your site, or reach out to you via email:
- Are happy to be emailed.
- Know exactly what they will receive from you.
 
Advising subscribers they will receive occasional emails and then spamming them with daily sales content can result in a high unsubscribe rate, which can negatively affect your email deliverability if you're using an email marketing tool.
 
2. Tailor Content to Subscriber Preferences
Send people the content they want to hear. Offering subscribers the choice of what they want to receive from you can boost open and engagement rates. For example, some businesses give subscribers the option to choose between 'latest news and views' and 'offers and new products,' allowing them to opt-in to the most relevant and interesting information.
 
3. Provide Value Beyond Sales
Even if your customers want to receive 'salesy' content, ensure you offer something beneficial and 'free' in each email, such as a productivity tip or a link to a helpful tool. This adds value to your emails and encourages people to open them for your advice and to read about your latest offers.
 
4. Determine the Right Email Frequency
Carefully consider how often you want to email your customers. For some businesses, monthly emails are enough to keep your business top of mind without being intrusive. For others with regular offers or new stock, weekly emails may work. Avoid daily emails unless you have exciting content to share daily, which can lead to decreased open rates and email fatigue.
 
5. Automate Key Processes
Email marketing isn't just great for customer communication and can make your business processes more efficient. If your email marketing tool allows you to create automations, use it to streamline repetitive processes like client onboarding. Automating these tasks can save time and effort, allowing you to focus more on important client work.
 
6. Proofread Your Content
Your emails should convey professionalism and expertise. A quick spell check or asking a colleague to proofread the email can help reduce the potential for spelling or grammatical errors, ensuring your valuable content isn't undermined by mistakes.
 
7. Optimise for Mobile
In 2019, Campaign Monitor found that over 63% of emails are read on mobile devices. It's crucial to ensure your emails look good and are easy to read on mobile. Sometimes, columns and images don't display correctly, or the text may be too small. Sending a test email to yourself and viewing it on a mobile device can help ensure everything appears professional and legible.
 
Email marketing can be compelling, but it requires thought and planning, just like your other marketing channels. Before you hit 'send' on your next newsletter, consider whether the content is interesting and useful, whether the email looks professional and is mobile-responsive, and whether the segment of your mailing list actually wants to receive it. This approach can help increase open and engagement rates, portraying your business as professional, helpful, and trustworthy in a crowded inbox.
 
[1] [Litmus Email Marketing ROI](https://www.litmus.com/resources/email-marketing-roi/)
[2] [Campaign Monitor Annual Report 2019] (https://www.campaignmonitor.com/company/annual-report/2019/)

Is Email Marketing a 'faff'?!

Email marketing may seem like a faff, but it can be incredibly effective.  According to a Litmus survey on the state of email marketing[1] (carried out in 2019), the average return on investment for email marketing was 42:1, with some organisations achieving even higher levels of success.  As a cheap and efficient marketing tool, it’s worth investing time and effort into growing a mailing list of existing and potential customers and emailing them effective and engaging content that keeps your business ‘top of mind’ and encourages them to come back to your business when they need a product or service that you offer.

So, what constitutes an effective email marketing campaign? Here are my top tips:

1. Make sure that people have consented to being on your mailing list.  Receiving unsolicited emails from a business is not the best first impression, so ensure that people who sign up for your newsletter, or download a free lead magnet from your site, or reach out to you via email a.) are happy to be emailed and b.) know exactly what they are going to receive from you. Advising them that they are going to be receiving ‘occasional’ emails, and then spamming them with daily sales content is going to result in a high unsubscribe rate, which, if you are using an email marketing tool, could negatively affect your ability to send out emails in the future.
2. Send people the content they want to hear. If you can offer people the choice of exactly what they want to hear from you, it can really help to boost open and engagement rates for your emails.  Some people give subscribers the choice between ‘latest news and views’ and ‘offers and new products’, for example, so that people can opt-in to receive the information that is most relevant and interesting to them.
3. Send useful information as well as sales content. Even if your customers do want to receive 'salesy' content, make sure that you offer something that is useful and ‘free’ in each email, even if that is just a productivity top tip or link to a useful free tool.  This gives your emails additional value and encourages people to open the emails in order to receive your helpful advice, as well as read about your latest offers.
4. Carefully consider how often you want to email your customers. For some businesses, monthly emails can be enough to keep your business ‘top of mind’, gently reminding customers of your continued presence without coming across as forceful or persistent. For businesses who regularly have offers or new stock, weekly emails may work.  I would strongly advise you to avoid daily emails unless you have something exceptionally interesting to say on a daily basis, as your presence in the customers inbox could lose it’s positive impact and result in a reduction in open rates.
5. Think about whether you can automate some of your key processes (i.e., onboarding or offboarding clients, etc.). Email marketing isn’t just great at keeping in touch with your customers, it’s also helpful to make some of your business systems and processes more efficient.  If you have an email marketing tool that allows you to create automations, and there are certain repetitive processes in your business relating to emails (i.e., client onboarding, when certain requests for information from customers, as well as useful information about your own working processes, need to be shared with every new client), you can easily create an email automation that sends out these emails for you with a simple ‘click’, helping save you valuable time and effort, and giving you more time for all-important client work.
6. Proof read your content! Your emails are designed to convey your professionalism and expertise, and a quick spell check (or asking a colleague to proofread the whole email for you) can help to reduce the potential for spelling or grammatical errors detracting from the valuable content that you are sending out.
7. Make sure your emails are optimised for mobile. In 2019, Campaign Monitor[2] found that over 63% of emails are now read on a mobile device, so it’s incredibly important to make sure that your emails works on a mobile too! Sometimes, columns and images don’t look quite right when viewed on a mobile, or the text can be too small to read – sending a test email to yourself and opening it on a mobile device can help you to ensure that everything looks professional and is legible.

 
Email marketing can be incredibly powerful, but it requires thought and planning, just as the rest of your marketing channels do. So, before you hit ‘send’ on your next newsletter, think about whether the content is interesting and useful, whether the email looks professional and is mobile responsive, and whether the segment of your mailing list that you are sending it too actually wants to receive it.  This can really help to increase open and engagement rates for your email marketing, and convey your business as professional, helpful and trustworthy in a crowded inbox.

[1] https://www.litmus.com/resources/email-marketing-roi/
[2] https://www.campaignmonitor.com/company/annual-report/2019/