Understand the Value of Your List
Your email list is better than, and worth more than your Facebook Group, more than your LinkedIn Group, more than your YouTube Channel and even more than your blog alone. The reason is that even your target audience often needs to get to know you better before buying your offerings or taking you up on your recommendations.
Email marketing is a simple and effective way to do all that. Plus, when these other platforms die, you will still always have your email list because you can download it from your chosen platform to use on other platforms such as through creating “look-a-like” audiences for Facebook Ads.
Develop Targeted and Timely Content
The best way to ensure that you always send the right content to your email list is to plan. When you plan your content; also, plan to use your email list to promote your blog posts, social media updates, webinars, and more. Your email marketing messages are informed by who your audience is, what their pain points are, and the solutions that you want to offer to them.
Each time you create or find a product you want to promote, create an educational email series of 7 to 10 emails that describes the problem and the solution. To keep emails short, link to details provided on the blog post. Email readers will go to your blog to read more. Hint: Do not forget to create matching social media messages too.
Develop Effective Subject Lines
If you want your audience to open your email messages, it is imperative that you learn how to create subject lines that get your subscriber’s attention. Not only do you have to get them on your list, but you must also get them to open and read your messages. Then, you have to inspire or intrigue them enough in your message to take action.
One way to get them to open your messages is to provide a reason to open them via the subject line. Subject lines should be clear, to the point, and use the type of keywords that trigger your audience to want to see what is inside the email. Subject lines should not be tricky, clever, or puns. They should state directly what the reader will get inside to be most effective and when appropriate, personalized to grab their attention.
Send Messages of Value Regularly
Once you get people on your email list, it is important not to ignore them. Send messages that are full of value regularly. Your email messages can be even more valuable than your blog posts in some ways because they are more direct and personal in nature even if they are usually shorter messages.
When someone first joins your list, they should receive a welcome message that explains what to expect from being a list member. Congratulate them for joining and being part of your exclusive list. To qualify them, further, send an upsell one-time offer on the following message based on how they got on your list. This type of segmentation will help improve your ROI exponentially by helping to weed out freebie seekers.
Test Messages to Ensure They Look Right & Work as Intended
Even if you’ve used your autoresponder numerous times, don’t get lazy. Always test every new message to ensure that the formatting is correct, that the links work, you send it to the right segment, and that the message works on the device or software that your audience uses.
Taking the extra step to test the messages will increase your ROI too. Other types of testing can include sending the exact same message to your list but sending half the message with one subject line and half with a different subject line. Also, remember that important messages shouldn’t only be sent one time. Send them to people who did not open them again with new subject lines so that you will get more opens and sales.
Don’t Forget the CTA
Always include some call to action (CTA) within your email messages. There are many ways to do this and different industries suggest different methods. One way to ensure that your messages have a CTA is to identify why you are sending the message to start with. What do you want your audience to do after they read the message? There should be no confusion about what your readers should do next, which should be the CTA.
When writing CTAs describe the value of the offer or what the results of the offer will be for the person who is smart enough to take advantage of it. For example, “Yes! I want more freedom now.” Another option might be, “Help Me Be Successful!” or something like that. Do not just say “buy now” or “sign up.” Reiterate the benefits of taking action. If you use images in your emails make the CTA button stand out. Add your CTA above the fold, in the middle, and at the end of the email message.
Check Your Analytics, Tweak, & Repeat
The fact of the matter is that you cannot succeed on a regular basis if you do not know why you succeeded to start with. Anyone can accidentally make a lot of money online without a plan, but the trick is being able to repeat it month after month. The thing is it’s not even a trick. With sound planning, testing, and data you can improve your email marketing by increasing your sales and grow your list continuously so that you get more prospects and more sales on a consistent and regular basis.
As you learn more about what makes your audience respond take note of it so that you can improve each future promotion effort. When you look at the analytics, depending on what it shows, you should be able to determine what the problems are and what the successes are. For example, suppose you sent an email message for a one-time offer (OTO), and 80 percent of your audience clicked through but no one took the offer. What does that tell you?
That tells you that something is wrong with the sales page or that what you said the offer was about within the email is so different from what they see on the sales page that they feel tricked. Alternatively, what if you send out an email and no one opens it? Does that mean it was a horrible email? Nope. It means that you need to improve the subject line, assuring that it is something of interest to your audience and send it out again.