Email Marketing Tips
Having a newsletter or email subscribers can be an invaluable asset to a small business. This is a captured audience that has signed up to hear from you. Unlike social media, no one can take it away from you.
What is the purpose of sending out emails? Emails can be a great way of building connections with your audience, creating a sense of community, and sharing valuable information.
When should you send out emails? It is beneficial to have some kind of consistency so that your audience knows when to expect to hear from you. How often, is up to you. You want to keep in contact with your audience but not annoy them. I like to send an email a week with a monthly newsletter.
HOW?
When creating a newsletter it is helpful to use an email marketing platform. The benefit of using a platform for this is that you can create templates, upload branding, collect analytics, create automations, and schedule your emails.
I personally use Mailchimp but there are other great options such as Constant Contact and Flodesk.
I like to create templates to make creating emails much faster. I use Canva to design graphics and headers for my emails. I like to break up my emails into sections I frequently talk about such as events, new products, blog posts, and free stuff. When designing emails you should first ask yourself, “Why should they care?”. Address this question at the beginning of your email. Next, make sure your email is easy to read and skimmable. Instead of big blocks of text, use headings, bullet points, and images. Think about the emails you enjoy reading and how you read them.
WHAT TO INCLUDE:
An email is made up of the subject line, preview text, and body copy.
Subject Line: Make this concise and entice the reader to open the email, feel free to use emojis if it is appropriate for your brand. Think of this as your hook.
Preview Text: This is a little snippet with a little more information to hint at what is included in the email. Remember to think about why they should care.
Body copy: This is the bulk of your email and usually includes text and images, possibly some graphics.
CTAs
Your email should always have a call to action somewhere in the email, what do you want your readers to do? Reply? Purchase something? Follow you on Instagram? Add buttons for your CTAs as people often like to click buttons. Make sure to include links to your website and social links. You can also incorporate affiliate links into your emails for opportunities to make money.
DATA
After sending out emails, it is always good to collect analytics and data to make improvements.
BRANDING
Keeping your emails branded can help build brand recognition and trust with your audience. This means you should have a set of fonts you use, brand colors, as well as your brand tone. Does your brand communicate with a humorous tone, an informative tone, or a friendly tone? If using a platform, you can usually upload all of your fonts and branding elements.
GETTING SUBSCRIBERS
Ways to get people to subscribe:
Add a link to sign up on your social accounts
Create a sign-up form on your website
Create leads or free products that people have to sign up for your newsletter to get.
AUTOMATIONS
When using a platform you can often set up automations. I usually schedule my emails to be sent out at an optimal time which is an automation available for some platforms. It is also helpful to set up a series of email automations such as a welcome series. This is a series of emails that are sent out over a designated amount of time when someone first subscribes to introduce them to your brand. Another series you may want to set up could be an abandon cart series for when people don’t complete their checkouts on your e-commerce store.
Best Practices:
Make sure you have permission to add people's emails to your newsletter
If you include affiliate links, add a disclosure and let people know
Make sure your email looks good on both a computer and on a phone
Use at least 14-point font for readability
Make sure the photos aren’t too big that your email opens slowly
Add social links
TIPS
Save emails you enjoy and use them for inspiration
They don’t have to be perfect, just send them out
Try A/B testing to see what works best with your audience
Most email platforms offer a free account or trial to test them out