When implemented correctly, email marketing delivers $42 for every $1 spent. With ROI like that, it should be no wonder that email marketing campaigns are the cornerstone of many brands’ digital techniques.
However, without the right approach, delivering compelling email campaigns can be difficult, and simple mistakes can quickly cost you time and money.
In this blog post, we’ll outline eleven essential tips to help your business develop and launch successful email marketing campaigns that drive engagement in 2024 and beyond.
How to create an email campaign
Here are 11 steps to follow to make an email campaign to get your audience and fulfill your goals:
Think your stakeholders
Determine who the ultimate stakeholders of your company’s email campaign are. Email campaigns are typically joint efforts between the sales and marketing teams, and these people are often eventually responsible for the success of the campaign. Consider what tools, resources, and human capital are required to bring the campaign to fruition.
Satisfy with your creative team
Your innovative marketing team will play a vital role in the execution of your email campaign. Schedule regular meetings and touch points with the innovative team during the campaign drafting procedure to ensure that look and wording of the emails are compatible with your goals and campaign message.
Define your purpose for your campaign
Email campaigns can have numerous simultaneous purposes and objectives. They act as driving factors in the content creation and process of the campaign. Here are common reasons for using an email campaign:
- To entertain: An entertaining email campaign produces engagement through compelling and captivating means such as comedy, intrigue, or celebrity endorsement.
- To inform: An illuminating email campaign delivers new and fascinating information that can help persuade the reader of the value of a product or service.
- To persuade: A compelling email campaign provides evidence and anecdotes of the significance of a product or service, to persuade the reader into thinking that making a buy is in their best interest.
- To increase brand awareness: Email campaigns that center around brand awareness are utilized to bring a new company to the marketplace or to help establish a new sub-brand, product, or product line.
- To increase sales: At the heart of most email campaigns is the goal to improve sales both by engaging existing customers and developing new clients.
Identify what products or services you’re pitching
Clearly determining the products or services that are being pitched in the emails, allows the target audience quickly recognize and comprehend the intent and purpose of a message. Most people obtain a large number of emails per day, so brevity and directness are essential for connecting with customers and potential customers.
Know your target audience
Framing language in your emails that speaks straight to the motivations and wants of your audience is essential to email campaign success. Knowing the target audience and how to best interest and draw them is an essential component of how to design an email campaign
Compile a recipient list
Mining your company’s contact list of existing customers, former customers, and prospects is a critical step in compiling the recipient list of the email campaign. Contact details are regularly found in internal customer databases or tools such as a customer relationship management system.
Determine the specifics of your campaign
It’s essential to clearly define the specific logistical parameters of the email campaign. Here are five elements to think when designing your email campaign:
1. Length of time
Choose the length of time the campaign will last, as length may vary based upon the goal of a campaign. A campaign concentrated on a new product being launched may only run up to the day of launch for instance.
2. Total number of emails
Determine how many total emails you want to send to each recipient throughout the campaign and the length of time between them. With this method, you can monitor progress based on how long recipients have had access to your email campaign.
3. Overall message
Determining the overall message of the email through careful choice of wording, length, and tone is a critical success element in an email campaign. Think about creating a list of different mission statements that define your campaign’s goals and ask other people on the team for feedback to select the best one.
4. Time of day
Select the best time of day for maximum engagement with your emails. Research existing data studies on the times of day that most people open and read their emails to resolve this.
5. Design aesthetic
A visually catching and attractive design to the email itself can be a powerful factor in the recipient’s decision to engage with the message. If you have any graphic designers or innovative individuals on your team, think reaching out to see if they can create any custom logos, designs, or any other visual content to elevate your campaign
Create enticing and engaging material
The words and pictures you choose to use in an email campaign are extremely important. They contribute to the overall point of your design aesthetic, and they play an important role in the success of your campaign. Here are four areas to focus on when trying to create an enticing and engaging email campaign:
- Email subject lines
- Attention-grabbing copy
- Images that evoke specific emotions
- Easy-to-navigate links
Review marketing regulations for email campaigns
Many countries have laws and rules that companies must follow. These rules are created to protect email users from undesirable communications and spam. Confer with the company’s compliance team during the planning and design of your campaign to provide proper adherence to rules.
Test and review
Before officially establishing the email campaign, it’s essential to review, edit, and test the message. Ensure that it is free of spelling and grammar errors, the layout is perfectly being displayed across numerous platforms like mobile phones and tablets, and that all embedded links work and are directed to the right place. Consider conducting a small focus group to see how people react to the text, images, links, and layout of the email before going live with your entire distribution list.
Track your performance
Maintaining track of metrics and key performance indicators will deliver insight into the level of success of an email campaign. Here are four key areas to track:
- Click rate
- Open rate
- Sales from embedded links.
- Website traffic from embedded links