Tips to Master Your Email Marketing and See Better Results

Starting a business or nonprofit is an exciting journey, but the road to success is often filled with challenges. One of the most effective tips to master email marketing is to integrate it into your strategy from the get-go. This digital tool is more than just a way to communicate; it’s a powerful engine for growth and community engagement.

Email marketing offers a plethora of advantages. For starters, it allows you to target specific segments of your audience, ensuring that your messages reach the people who are most likely to engage with your brand. This targeted approach saves time and maximizes the impact of each campaign. Consistency is key; regular emails keep your brand fresh in people’s minds and offer opportunities for increased exposure through easy sharing. Best of all, email marketing is incredibly cost-effective, delivering a high return on investment without draining your budget.

Whether you’re a startup looking to make a splash or a nonprofit aiming to make a difference, email marketing can be the linchpin that holds your promotional strategy together. But mastering this tool doesn’t happen overnight; it requires thoughtful planning and a commitment to excellence. Read on to discover how you can elevate your email marketing efforts and achieve better results.

Three Main Steps You Need to Take to Master Your Email Marketing

Develop a Plan

• Create a series of emails for each goal
• Test deployment frequency, and plan accordingly with your findings. Then redeploy messages to those that did not open the first time.
• Make sure the effort you put into an individual equals their value to your organization. Why waste time and energy on a disinterested viewer when you can be focusing on someone who will be more likely to contribute or turn into a client?
• Stick to your schedule. Time frames and windows of opportunity are important to keep track of.
• Grow followers by having sign-up forms on each page of your website and at live events. Your emails will constantly reach a wider audience through easy access to your brand.

Make Your Emails Engaging

• Make sure your email copy and design are centered on your goal
• Have engaging or catchy subject lines that highlight a benefit or two that readers can expect just by supporting your nonprofit or working with your company
• Give your readers the chance to engage by driving them back to your website through calls to action (CTA) like “Read More” or “Browse Now.”
• Use powerful images to motivate action. Visuals can spur the imagination toward making an impact.
• Use testimonials and case studies to illustrate how you’ve made a difference and helped your clients

Track Your Results

• Look at the open rates, and keep a record of them, so you can tell which efforts get the best results
• Track click-through rates to see which ideas get the most interaction, so you can take advantage of what works and stay away from what doesn’t work in future campaigns
• Keep an eye on unsubscribes, so you can measure how your readers value your email marketing efforts. This way you can build stronger campaigns that cater to the interests of your readers. Moreover, don’t be afraid to reach out to unsubscribes to remind them of your core beliefs and why they should stay.

Marketing through email is a quick way to reach out to potential clients and nonprofit supporters. A study by Statista found that 39% of its subjects checked their email one to three times a day. This means that you have a considerable opportunity to connect and spread your message. However, this chance at exposure needs to be well-thought-out. Remember to establish a solid plan of action, create appealing messaging, and then manage your performance throughout the entire process. You’ll quickly learn what works and what doesn’t. 

Though advertising your organization through email might seem “old-fashioned,” it still represents a direct way to engage with potential clients and supporters without breaking the bank. Nonprofit organizations, in particular, can benefit from this marketing avenue because it allows them to develop stronger relationships with both old and new supporters while spreading their true message. All businesses and organizations should take advantage of a strong email marketing strategy that will bring results.

Now that you have a plan in place to develop your emails, make them engaging and track results, you must focus on a few more specific things that will guarantee better results with every email that is sent. Almost every person has an email and, in numerous instances, it is a necessity for things like work, school, or certain online purchases.

Therefore, it will constantly be a reliable medium of marketing for your company, you just need to know how to take advantage of it.

5 Additional Tips to Ensure Better Results with Your Email Marketing Strategies

Don’t Waste People’s Time

The average person gets hundreds of emails a week and won’t hesitate to delete any that don’t immediately grab their attention or are relevant to them. Even worse, if you continually send long-winded, mediocre emails week after week, you risk losing subscribers altogether.

Be sure your message is engaging (like we mentioned above), clear, concise, and to the point and make sure viewers know exactly what they should do next (i.e., “Use this CODE to Receive 50% off Your Order”, “Click Here to View the Next Big Idea in Solar Energy”, “Register Today and Save 25% Off Your Entry Fee”, “What You Need to Know About New York’s Highest Court Expanding the Definition of Parenthood.”)

Adding content appropriate images and infographics can help cut down on the amount of text you’ll need, plus it’s more eye-catching to the reader.

Remember this rule of thumb: If you churn out emails that resemble spam, you’ll get treated as spam.

Write Your Emails as if You Were Writing to a Friend

Emphasis on the singular “friend.”  You want to have your emails seem personal as possible.  An email that is perceived as written for a unique subscriber will invoke greater urgency and stand out among the crowd of other, more general, emails.

Stay Consistent With Your Brand

If you’re engaging in email marketing, you most likely have a company.  And, if you have a company, or even a nonprofit, you’re even more likely to have an image, voice, style—in other words, you have a brand. Any email you send acts as an extension of your company, and the more consistent you are with your branding, the more recognizable you will be.

This should include everything from your corporate colors and font styles to logo placement and landing page design. The more recognizable your emails are, the more comfortable your subscribers will feel.

Track Analytics and Measure Results

We mentioned this briefly above, but it’s worth mentioning again. Most email marketing services have analytics capabilities built in. You can take advantage of these tools in numerous ways, and you don’t need to know much about analytics to do so.

Just by simply looking at one parameter like “open rate” you can gather loads of valuable information. You can test the frequency of emails sent and compare which ones had the highest open rate: daily, weekly, bi-weekly, or monthly.

• How about which day of the week garners the most opens?
• What time of day are your subscribers most active and likely to view your next email?

Tweaking even one of these parameters would take you only a few minutes to implement and, in return, possibly double or triple the effectiveness of your email marketing campaigns!

Make Sure Your Emails Are Mobile Friendly

In August 2016, over 56% of all emails were opened on mobile devices, and this number is most likely even higher today. If you aren’t taking the necessary steps to ensure your emails are designed for mobile, then you’re losing over half of your subscribers the moment you send one out. It is absolutely imperative you put this feature in place and test every email blast on several mobile devices (and tablets!) before sending them out.

Computer code can get a little wonky when translated for mobile devices, which can turn a beautifully sculpted email blast into an ugly, illegible mess. When testing, make sure the call-to-action buttons are clear and BIG, to make sure your subscribers can click through with ease.

Each year, more people utilize their phones for viewing email, so if you aren’t keeping up to date with the latest Internet trends, you’ll just be another pixel in the wind. Make sure your email marketing strategy is taking advantage of the mobile presence you’re developing.

For any clarifications about mastering your email marketing and seeing better results with the emails you send out, please contact our team today. We are happy to help and want to see your business or organization grow through strong and strategic marketing strategies.