Sure-Fire Email Marketing Practices for Online Businesses

Today, online businesses use a wide range of online marketing practices from using social media sites, purchasing ads on popular websites and search engines, and using email marketing to stay connected with new and existing customers.

Email marketing is one of the oldest forms of online advertising and has been around long before we had Twitter, Facebook, and Instagram.

So, what are some email marketing best practices an online business should know about and understand?

Let us take a closer look at email marketing, what it is, how it is done, and then finally review some tips that everyone should know before starting their first email marketing campaign.

Email Marketing Explained

Email marketing is an easy and direct way to communicate with your existing customers and new potential customers.

An effective email marketing campaign should engage your followers with well-written and interesting content to provide information about new products and discounts.

Also, an effective email marketing campaign will convert potential customers into returning customers.

Why is Email Marketing Important?

Even with the creation of Facebook, Twitter, and Instagram, email marketing remains one of the best ways to convert leads into new customers and to maintain a customer following.

Email marketing is more effective, but the average person also spends over twice as much money purchasing products through an email campaign than a social media campaign.

Email marketing has a “returns on investment” of 4400%.

In addition to being more effective, far more consumers have an email account and check it every day. In contrast, many consumers may not have a particular social media account or only check their social media every few days.

How Do I Begin an Email Marketing Campaign?

The first step to successful email marketing best practices is building and maintaining an email list of all your current customers and potential leads. Requiring an email address at checkout on your website is the best way to collect every individual’s email addresses who make a purchase on your website.

You can then create special offers and discounts, put on sales, and use these to entice customers to make additional purchases from your website in the future.

To find new customers to put on your email list, it is good practice to offer something for free in exchange for signing up for your mailing list. These free offers can come in an ebook, a free trial or sample, a coupon, a free quote or consultation, and even a webinar or informational video.

For example, suppose you are selling Peruvian textiles. In that case, you may want to create an informational video explaining how and where the textiles are made and the traditions that helped shape the Peruvian textile industry in Peru.

A person interested in learning about how the textiles are made and about the people that make them would then sign up with an email address to access the video. Any future promotions you have involving discounts and special offers on your Peruvian textiles will then be put in the form of an email promotion.

The person who wanted to watch your informational video will receive the offer in their inbox. Chances for converting a sale are much higher in these circumstances since the customer already has shown interest. Once you have your free offer, you also will want an “opt-in” form on your website.

This is how users will subscribe to your mailing list in exchange for the free offer. Your “opt-in” form should be brief, and its purpose should be clear. It would be best if you make the form simple, have some visuals and a catchy headline.

The form should also appear somewhere noticeable where users will see the free offer and the “opt-in form and where it will have a high potential for success. Do not bury it on your site. Have the form available on the splash page, in the site’s header, on the sidebar, in your footer, or have a designated sign-up page.

Should I Use an Email Marketing Software or Service?

We highly recommend that you use an email marketing service to help you create professional and creative emails. The email builders within these types of software will allow you to drag and drop images, text and pick a template from their large selection of professional and creative looking templates.

Other tools that email marketing software contains include autoresponders and automated workflow builders. Additionally, these types of software will allow you to segment your email list however you see fit and send out different emails to different segments of your list if necessary.

These programs will also automate your workflow by allowing you to schedule when emails will go out and which emails go to which segments of your email list, but they also track the success of your email campaign.

Tracking examples include those who opened the email, clicked on links inside the email, and purchased products, who deleted without reading. This is vital information to gauge your emails’ success and help you determine if you need to change your next email campaign approach.

Some Final Tips About Email Marketing

Conclusion

Email marketing is still the most effective way to reach your customer base and to convert special offers and ads into real sales on your website. Using these email marketing best practices will increase your chances for success and help you begin utilizing email campaigns to increase traffic to your site.

The tips and advice outlined in this article are only the tip of the iceberg as there is much more that you can learn and ways to explore how email marketing can contribute to real growth in your online business ventures. We encourage you to seek additional information and advice and to use everything you learn as you begin to discover how email marketing can work for you.

FAQ

Q. What email marketing services are recommended?

A. When researching which email marketing service is best for you, we recommend looking at the following companies: Constant Contact, Sendinblue, Drip, AWeber, CovertKit, Mailchimp, and MailerLite.

Q. How can I make the “opt-in” form on my website more successful for gathering people’s information?

A. For a successful “opt-in” form, remember the first thing is to have a free offer that is undeniable and put it somewhere on your website where it is not buried and easy to access and see.
The second step to a successful “opt-in” form consists of these following elements: have an enticing headline, a brief and clear description, attractive visuals, make the form simple, and have a compelling subscribe button that sticks out from the rest of the “opt-in” form and website.