E-Newsletter vs. Email Marketing Campaign
First things first, let’s take a look at the difference between an E-newsletter and an email marketing campaign.
An e-newsletter is a regularly occurring email that contains strong informational content that relates to your readers and their lifestyle or interests. Newsletters are not advertisements and do not push products or services. Instead, these emails develop and build relationships with your audience by relating to them on a personal level. This content will be related to your business or market and drives website traffic which can lead to conversions.
An email marketing campaign consists of many different types of emails used together in a strategy to persuade the recipient to take an action such as making a donation or purchasing a service or product. An e-newsletter is considered a part of an email marketing campaign, in addition to other email types such as welcome emails, promotional emails, retention emails, and nurture emails. We will discuss these different email types further, but for now, just think of an e-newsletter as one tool in an email marketing campaign.
Now that you know the difference between e-newsletters and email marketing campaigns, we can discuss how to develop and implement a successful email marketing campaign.
Running a Successful Email Marketing Campaign
Email is still one of the largest communication tools used today, with 90 percent of adults and 74 percent of teenagers using email regularly according to the company OptinMonster. This makes email one of the most efficient ways to reach your customer base. Here are the steps you can take to create a lucrative email marketing campaign.
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Set Your Goals
Before beginning to design your emails, it is important to set goals you want to achieve with your campaign. These goals will vary depending on your business but some of the common goals are:
- Welcoming new subscribers to your campaign which involves informing them about who you are and what you do. This begins the relationship building process.
- Strengthening existing relationships with current subscribers by providing them with useful information and incentives.
- Touching base with inactive or less active subscribers to try to get them to reengage with your business or organization.
- Encourage engagement with strong content and calls to action to drive conversions.
- Target your subscribers by segmenting them based on data you collect to deliver relevant content to the right people.
Keep in mind your conversion goals when developing your email marketing campaign goals so one can help the other.
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Create Strong Opt-ins
Opt-ins are how you will initially get and grow your audience. These are forms strategically located on your website where visitors can sign up to receive your emails. It is important that these are eye-catching, well designed and prominent without being annoying or overpowering. Having a pop-up when people navigate to your site, a visible form that stands out on your homepage, or an exit pop-up when people are leaving your site are good ways to catch the attention and drive your call to action(CTA) for subscribers.
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Use Different Email Types
As we discussed earlier, there are different types of emails that can be used as a part of your campaign. These email types will work together to help you reach the goals you have set.
- Promotional Emails are offers and sale information that promote your business and can include coupons or special events.
- Transaction Emails include welcome messages and confirmations for sign-ups, orders/purchases or information changes.
- Relational Emails are where your E-newsletter come into play. These emails deliver relationship building content and appreciation to your subscribers (free gifts, thank you notes, etc.).
- Follow-up Emails are emails that can be scheduled to follow promotions or newsletters to keep your subscribers active.
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Crafting Your Email Designs
Content and design are very important aspects of a good email marketing campaign. Without strong content, catchy subject lines, and professional, clean design; your emails will be overlooked, go unread, or you could even lose subscribers. Strategies such as personalization, valuable information, polls and surveys, and incentives can be used to help drive open and click-through rates. It is also very important to include a call to action in your emails that encourages your readers to take an action like making a purchase, partaking in an event, or becoming a paying member. These are best when short, clear, and to the point and will work for you if your content and design are strong and relevant.
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Use Tools, Tech, and Software
There are many programs and services available to help create email templates, automate email scheduling delivery, track success and goal completions, and help to segment your audience. Services like Mailchimp provide all of these aspects in one place and can help you make sure your campaign runs smoothly. Tools like these are necessary to keep track of where you stand with your goal completions. This can also allow you to test new ideas and gauge the success rate of these ideas, giving you much control over your own success.
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Test Runs and Tracking
Anytime you are sending a mass email it is always smart to do a test run. This can involve sending your email to people designated as test readers, such as an inside marketing team; to check for errors, broken links, and to see what your audience will see. You can also do test runs with your audience to test things such as send times, calls to action, and subject lines. You will always want to track email activity with your subscribers so you can see what works and what doesn’t. This way you can keep doing things that are working with your subscribers and change and test things that might work better. This will be key to helping you reach your set goals and drive conversion goals as well.
For more information or help with your email marketing campaign visit us at www.arc3communications.com or contact Patrick Burns at pburns@arc3communications.com. We look forward to working with you to achieve your goals and develop successful e-mail marketing strategies to help you grow.