5 Keys to Growing Your Brand with Email Marketing in 2024

Email marketing is one of the most effective ways to grow your business. Email marketing has been around for decades and it’s only growing in popularity with each passing year. In fact, 64% of small businesses use email marketing to reach customers. (Hubspot)

The key to successful email marketing is remembering that it’s not just about sending out a barrage of promotional emails. To get the best results from your emails, take the time to develop a strategy and follow these 5 keys:

Choose your ESP (email service provider)
Develop an Email Strategy
Personalization Matters
Engaging Content
Targeted Messaging

Email marketing is one of the most effective ways to grow your business

There are many benefits of using emails to market your product or services like increased sales, better customer retention, increased brand awareness, etc.

Whether you are a service provider or have a product for sale, email marketing is something you should consider to grow your business.

Email marketing is especially effective for small businesses, not just big box stores. Email marketing is a great way to connect with your customers and keep them updated on your latest products, services, or promotions. 

It’s also a great way to build customer loyalty and increase sales.

Having this kind of marketing channel allows you to stay top of mind with your customers and turn cold/warm leads into paying customers!

Choosing an email service provider Your email service provider (ESP) is an essential part of email marketing.

I’ll keep this section brief, but this is definitely the FIRST thing you need to do to ensure your email marketing is effective: The ESP you choose will determine the overall success of your emails.

It’s best to find one that fits your budget and provides the tools you need to send high-quality emails. It’s also a good idea to find a company with a reputation for reliability and security.

When selecting a provider, be sure to ask for recommendations from other business owners. You can also check out reviews on the internet to see what others are saying about the company.

My two top recommendations: Flodesk and MailerLite. I have used both (still do!). Other notable mentions are Convertkit, ActiveCampaign, Mailchimp (which is my least favorite from a user perspective).

Want to try Flodesk? Get 50% off your first year with code PENGUIN or Click here!

Want to try MailerLite and get 30 days of their premium features (and then you can use their forever free plan if you want!) Click here!

Develop an Effective Email Strategy

One of the most important aspects of email marketing is developing an effective strategy. It’s about more than just sending out a barrage of emails to promote your business – it’s about doing it in a way that will be beneficial for your business and your customers.

Start by setting goals for what you want to accomplish with email marketing.

For example, are you trying to increase sales? Do you want to generate leads for your product or service? Or, do you want to get people to simply subscribe to your newsletter?

Once you know what you want to achieve with email marketing, figure out how you can meet those goals by creating different messages and campaigns.

A basic email strategy can look like this:

A very basic email strategy you can start with is to send a series of emails to your customers over time to remind them of your product or service. If you have a new product launch coming up, for example, you could send an email to your customers telling them about the product launch (people who have purchased from you are more likely to purchase again!). 

Define your goals
Create a content plan
Build your list
Build relationships with followers
Deliver on your promises
Measure results

Before you get started on your next email campaign, ask yourself these questions:

Why is this content important to my audience? What do I want them to take away from this email? How can I convey this information in the most compelling way possible?

These are the questions you need to answer when you’re working on your next email campaign.

Personalization Matters

If you want to make sure that you’re engaging your subscribers with the right content at the right time, then personalized email is key. 

Need cold hard facts? A case study by Campaign Monitor shows that emails with personalized subject lines are 26% more likely to be opened.  (Campaign Monitor)

This is a big one: Personalized emails have 6x higher transaction rates. (Experian)

Tailoring emails based on customer information is one of the best ways to make sure they stand out from the rest of your competition. By personalizing your emails, customers will feel like they’ve been spoken directly and will be more likely to stay engaged with what you have to say.

This also helps increase the likelihood that they convert into warm leads or sales because they feel valued and taken care of.

Personalizing emails doesn’t just mean inserting their name into them – it means understanding who they are as a person and adjusting any content based on that information (data will be your best friend here!).

Engaging content matters

Engaging content is the key to creating a strong, cohesive marketing campaign. However, it’s often the overlooked step when it comes to crafting the perfect email.

From a visual perspective, consider using videos, infographics, or GIFs to captivate your readers. Get creative with images Images are a powerful way to get your message across, but it’s important to remember that not every email must include a picture, your message and how it’s communicated is the real sweet deal.

As email becomes an essential part of modern marketing, marketers are coming up with ways to make their messages stand out from the crowd and keep prospects and customers engaged throughout their email campaigns.

Your email copy can be as long or as short as you want it to be. It can even be in a number of different formats, depending on the email service you are sending to.

The size of your email doesn’t matter when thinking of effectiveness. What does matter is that your message is clear and concise, easy to read (and well written!!).

Also, don’t forget to have a call to action that is relevant to the goal of your campaign AND to the email you just sent! 

And a must-have: a good subject line. It has to be short, to the point, and not too long. You should try to keep it under 80 characters.

A trick to make it stand out even more? Put the first name of the person you are sending the email to in the subject line (personalization!). 

This way, you will stand out in your inbox and get the response that you need. 

Targeted messaging matters (Segmentation)

Segment your list and deliver the right message to the right person at the right time. Marketers who use segmented campaigns note as much as a 760% increase in revenue. (Hubspot) 

What is segmenting in email marketing?

Segmenting is the act of creating groups of people based on specific characteristics or criteria.

There are many ways to segment your audience, from age, location, profession, to simple interests (aka, what brought them to your list? How did they get here?). 

It all starts with your customer profiles (data!🤓). The more information you have about your customers, the more precisely you can segment your campaign. 

You need to identify who will open it, read it, and act on it. The better you can target these people based on the content of your email, the more likely they are to convert.

Start by identifying your target audience and what they want from you. Once you know that, you’re ready to design personalized emails that speak directly to them.

A practical example: a clothing retailer that wants to sell its products to college students. They might design one email for student athletes and another for student nurses. Using these two different personas, they can tailor the content to each group’s needs; which increases their chances of success. 💰

Ideally, with every campaign, you’ll be sending emails to the people who are interested in what you have to say. The more targeted and specific you can be with your messaging, the better!

That’s why it’s important to segment your audience and send messages that will resonate with them the most.

Segmentation is also important when you set up your email forms (for signups) and automation. For example, you may want to send different types of emails to your customers, depending on whether they purchased, what products they purchased, and the frequency of their purchase.

In conclusion, email marketing is one of the most cost-effective ways to grow your brand. The point of email marketing is to create a channel that makes it easy for people to do business with you.

So to recap briefly:

Build a relationship with your audience by getting to know them.
Understand what drives your audience and what drove them to your list.
Keep your message relevant and personalized.
Create a plan for how you can improve (check your data!).

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