Thursday, 25 October 2012

How to build a successful email marketing campaign

Working with a number of different clients on a regular basis, we at eSellution have found that one of the best marketing tools at a business's disposal is still email marketing. Although some people believe email marketing to be ineffective and intrusive, if done correctly email marketing can still be one of, if not the most effective way to direct traffic to your ecommerce store. 

So how do you go about creating the best marketing email possible for your business?

Research

First you need to think about what you are going to send and who you are going to sent it to. Is it going to be a promotion email? is it going to advertise new products? or a sale you are running? Once you have determined what the message of your email is going to be, you next need to look at who is going to be your target audience. Determining who your target audience is involves looking at many different factors. Is the email going to be sent to current customers or people you are looking to bring to your store for the first time? Also, are the majority of your customers a specific gender, age or people who have certain interests? If so, then you are going to want to create an email campaign that has a certain message such as what style you are going to write it in, what colours you use and what images you are going to include. 

Attention

Grab their attention
right from the off
Right out of the gate you need to grab the attention of the reader. This not only needs to stand out in the subject heading and at the top of the email, it needs to also be written in a way that is going to entice the reader in and compel them to read through the rest of your email. The best way to think about this is to imagine you are reading a newspaper. When you scan through a newspaper, what compels you to read an article? Usually it will be either the headline or the image that goes with the article. The inbox of the recipient is exactly like a newspapers, lots of messages all vying for their attention. You need to choose a subject heading that is going to allow your email to stand out from the rest. 

However, while you want to make it as interesting as possible, don't over think it or try to be funny. Simplicity is key. While you may think something is funny and clever, the likelihood is that your recipient won't. Keep it clear and to the point, while also being able to get them interested. 

Interest

Once you have their attention, you next need to perk their interest. This basically means you should start giving them the information in regard to what it is you are offering. For example, if you are running an online clothes store, you may be sending out an email advertising a new clothing range or an offer you are running on your site. To grab their interest you will begin to give the reader more information about what it is your store offers and what promotion you are currently running.

As success for your ecommerce store comes in enticing customers to purchase your products through high quality images of your products, don't forget to include this in your email. Having various images portraying the message of the email is a great way to increase a reader's interest and make them desire what it is you are offering.

Desire

Creating desire is the crucial part of any email. You could grab their attention, perk their interest, but if you can't seal the deal and make them want what you have, you're not going to bring them to your site. You need to make them feel like they have to have what it is you are offering. Again, using the 20% off promotional email idea, you have already explained to the customer the type of store you run and perked their interest by letting them know you are having a 20% off sale, now you can create that desire by telling them exactly what products are part of this promotion. Even if you aren't actually trying to directly sell them something, the principles work the same no matter what the overall message of the email is. You need to be able to tell them why they need to act on this email. 

Call to action

Leaving them all worked up with no where to go is going to be a waste of time for them reading through the email and for you creating it. At the end of the email you should have a direct link, allowing the user to act on their desire. If it is an email advertising the products in your store, you would add a direct link to your ecommerce site. If it is to try and boost your social media followers, you would include links to your relevant social media pages. Whatever the message of your email is, there needs to be an appropriate call to action that allows them to carry out some form of action. 

Split testing

To allow you to get the best possible results from your email marketing campaign, you may want to carry out a number of split tests. Depending on the ecommerce software you use, split tests allow you to essentially send a small number of recipients emails containing different messages and different subject headings. You can then see which subject heading and which email content provided you with the most opens and the highest CTR. You can the combine both of these aspects and send them as one email to the rest of your recipients, ensuring you have an email that will be as successful as you can possible make it.

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