Master Email Marketing: Key Strategies for Small Business Owners
Go beyond the basics with these advanced email marketing techniques for a competitive edge.
It wastes your valuable time to collect emails from potential customers if you never send them emails.
Consider this.
You put a “subscribe to my email list” button on all your social media posts. Your readers follow your instructions, and then...
Silence.
No emails. No communication. Only silence.
No wonder you struggle to convert email subscribers into paying customers. You have ghosted them.
Email marketing continually proves to be a worthwhile investment, and yet so many businesses fail to leverage this tool effectively.
Did you know that email marketing has the highest return on investment compared to other channels? It’s true. In fact, for every $1 spent on email marketing, $36 is earned.
There’s a reason your inbox is always full – email marketing works.
But it only works if you’re doing it consistently and effectively.
As a professional copywriter, I often hear business owners say they avoid sending regular emails to not bother their subscribers with 'another email in the abyss of the inbox.’
So don’t be just another email in their inbox. Stand out from the rest and wow your subscribers with useful content.
Let’s partner together and elevate your email marketing strategy from zero to hero.
Schedule a free 30-Minute Discovery Call and we can dissect your email marketing strategy. We’ll discuss what’s working and what needs improvement.
Even when business owners like you understand the impact of email marketing, they often struggle to unleash its full potential. This article covers everything you need to master email marketing like a boss.
Email Marketing Basics: What You Need to Know.
How to Effectively Build Your Email Marketing List
Email Marketing Metrics to Track
5 Emails Business Owners Can Send Customers
Uniting the Art of Copywriting with Email Marketing
Walk away with practical tips for:
Elevating your marketing campaign
Creating emails to captivate and convert your readers
Maximizing your ROI
Let’s start at the very beginning.
Email Marketing Basics: What You Need to Know.
Email marketing lets you stay in touch with your customers. It lets your customers get to know you and even more importantly, lets you get to know them.
What better way to:
Connect with current and potential customers
Increase brand awareness
Create customer loyalty
Improve marketing strategy
Keep customers engaged between transactions
Share a new product or service
Offer valuable information
Encourage subscribers to take a specific action
If you believe sending multiple emails a month is too intrusive, here are some reasons to rethink that philosophy.
Email marketing:
Drives Traffic to Your Website: Direct your subscribers back to your website in each email. Include a call to action taking them to your website's latest blog, webinar, or service page.
Improves Communication: Essentially, email is a form of communication. However, most emails fail to engage the reader in the conversation. Engage your readers by asking them a question and encouraging a reply.
Builds Rapport With Your Customers: People do business with people they know, like, and trust. If done correctly, email marketing builds these three attributes for you. For best results, make emails personalized, consistent, and full of value.
Gives You Control Over Contact Info: Unlike social media followers, you own your list of subscribers. You won't lose these emails like you might lose followers. If your main social media platform shuts down tomorrow, you will still have your email list.
Tracks Your Results: One of the biggest benefits of email marketing is you can track how well you’re doing. Tracking metrics like open rates, click-through rates, and conversion rates tell you what’s working with your email campaigns, and what’s not.
There are five fundamental components of an effective email campaign.
Clear Strategy and Focus.
Before sending an email, have a clear goal and purpose for the email.
Is your email campaign growing brand awareness? Is it intended to boost engagement with your subscribers? Or are you trying to drive sales? The goal could be as simple as keeping your subscribers from unsubscribing.
When you know the why behind your campaign you can craft effective copy to achieve your goal.
2. An Attention-Worthy Subject Line.
Without sounding overly dramatic, your subject line is the most important part of your email. 64% of people decide if an email’s worth opening based on the subject line alone. (2)
Think about how many emails you get in a single day. A good subject line sets your email apart from the others and catches your subscriber's attention.
Your subject line acts as a teaser for the email. It should pique your reader’s curiosity, create a sense of urgency, or offer a valuable benefit in exchange for opening the email.
A few tips when writing subject lines include:
Keep it short and sweet.
Use between 30-50 characters so it doesn’t get cut off.
Avoid spammy keywords or phrases such as “100% Free”.
Ask questions your readers want answers to.
Don’t overuse emojis and capitalization.
A good subject line should be relevant to the email and give your reader a reason to open and read it.
3. Provide Valuable Content.
Adding value to whatever you choose to publish or email is the most fundamental part of an effective digital marketing strategy.
Your readers are constantly flooded with content – social media notifications, digital ads, text messages. Stand out from the noise by providing valuable content that is helpful, insightful, and engaging.
Your readers aren’t interested in your company’s latest achievements and awards…unless you can showcase how this benefits them
Let’s say your law firm was just voted “Top Family Law Firm in 2024”.
Of course, you want all of your email subscribers to know this fantastic news. But the trick is doing it strategically.
For example, include in your email copy:
“When you choose us to represent you, you’re not just selecting any law firm. You’re choosing a team of attorneys committed to excellence and reliability. We’re dedicated to providing you with the highest level of legal counsel. And as a testament to our commitment, we’re proud to share that we've been voted the Top Law Firm in the Area for 2024.”
Always provide valuable content that impacts the reader – even when doing a humble brag.
4. Segmentation of Your Subscribers.
Segmenting your email subscribers is a way to categorize them based on specific criteria. Segmentation lets you make your emails more personalized. Dividing your subscribers into subsets lets you cater your messaging specifically to them.
Subscribers can be segmented into groups based on:
Location
Interests
Stage on the buyer journey
Purchase history
Demographics
Abandoned cart
Segmenting your email list improves customer experience, which impacts your campaign results. And therefore, increasing your return on investment.
5. Personalization in Your Copy.
Segmenting your subscribers makes it possible for you to personalize your content.
Have you ever gotten a text message that’s clearly been copied and pasted and sent to dozens of people? The message loses its value because it’s impersonal, detached, and inauthentic.
The sender didn’t care who the message was sent to. They only cared that the message was sent.
And that’s the problem.
Emails with personalized messaging have a 29% better open rate. (3)
Assuming you’re already personalizing the name in your messaging, here are a few more tips:
Send emails from a person rather than a company.
Remember anniversaries, birthdays, and other important dates.
Use copywriting techniques to make your emails conversational.
Personalize your subject lines.
Schedule emails to be sent at the ideal time for your audience.
Sending personalized emails makes your readers feel acknowledged, engaged, and valued.
How to Effectively Build Your Email List.
Building your email list should be one of your top priorities as a business owner. Every email you collect is a potential customer and should be treated as such.
Here are some ways you can build your email list.
Create an Opt-In Pop-Up for Your Website: You’ve probably seen these before. A pop-up opt-in appears 10-15 seconds after visiting a website. They’re used as a way to capture your email in exchange for something. It could be a webinar, download, or ebook.
Pros: They’re cheap, easy to see, and increase conversion rate.
Cons: They appear spammy, annoy visitors, and can be blocked.
Use Social Media: Encourage your followers to subscribe to your email list. Adding a link in your bio, using paid ads, and creating a lead magnet are all great ways to connect with your audience and capture their email.
Pros: You’re able to reach a larger audience, it’s cost-effective, and you can get instant feedback from your customers.
Cons: You have no control over algorithm changes and it’s time-consuming to stay up to date with trends.
Offer Giveaways and Freebies: The first rule when creating a freebie – it needs to be valuable enough for your reader to surrender their email in exchange. Before you create a freebie, do some research on what your audience deems valuable. With this insight, you can create a checklist, ebook, guide, calendar, spreadsheet, or host a giveaway.
Pros: A great way to build trust and credibility with your customers.
Cons: People can give fake email addresses and some only opt-in for the freebie itself.
Ask for Referrals and Shares: Have current subscribers tell their friends, family, and other contacts to subscribe in exchange for something. This can be a reward, discount, free product or service, or some other valuable incentive.
Keep the referral process simple for your subscribers. Share this on your social media channels as well.
Pros: Keeps your customers loyal, makes it easy to promote on all platforms, and is cost-effective.
Cons: Quality of leads is not as high, takes time, hard to track metrics to know if it's working.
Host an Online Contest: Who doesn’t love a good contest? Online contests are a great way to promote brand awareness, share new products or services, and get to know your audience better. The goal is to capture emails with the hope of converting them into customers.
Contests can be based on events, polls, trivia, or giveaways.
Pros: They’re a great way to sell your products and services without being too “salesy” and can earn you new followers and customers.
Cons: They can cost you time and money depending on the contest and it can feel extra defeating if it isn’t as big of a success as hoped for.
Guest Blog: Research blogs within your niche that have a larger audience and ask to guest blog. Not only does this grow your audience, but it also helps build your authority in your industry.
Rather than sending your new audience to your home page, be strategic in what you want them to do next. For example, you can ask them to subscribe to your email list for more high-value content.
Pros: Guest blogging improves your SEO, opens the door for networking opportunities, and establishes your credibility.
Cons: It can be time-consuming and you aren’t guaranteed results.
Growing your email list is a continuous process.
Doing it once or twice isn’t enough. A successful digital marketing strategy incorporates many of these strategies and includes analyzing the results.
How do you know if your emails are working? There are a few metrics you can use to track your success.
Email Marketing Metrics to Track.
There are plenty of metrics to track. It can get overwhelming if you’re new to email marketing.
Here are the most important metrics to track.
Email Open Rate.
This may be the most important metric because it shows how effective your subject lines are.
To calculate the open rate:
Open Rate = Number of emails opened ÷ Number of emails sent X 100
If you send out 1,000 emails and 100 are opened, your open rate is 10%.
This is a good time to test out your subject lines. Switching the subject line but keeping the email content the same gives you valuable information as to what’s working and what’s not.
2. Click Through Rate (CTR).
CTR indicates how many people click on links in your email. While the open rate shows if your subject line is effective, CTR reveals how well your email content engages readers.
To calculate CTR:
CTR = Number of links clicked ÷ (Number of emails sent - Number of emails bounced) X 100
A healthy CTR is between 2-5% but depends on your industry.
3. Click to Open Rates (CTOR).
This metric combines open rates and CTR. CTOR lets you know how well your email campaign is doing overall.
It tells you if your copywriting skills are effective at getting your readers to do what you want them to do.
To calculate CTOR:
CTOR = Number of unique links clicked ÷ Number of unique opens X 100
Unique refers to the first time. When one email subscriber opens or clicks on a link for the first time, that’s unique. If that same subscriber goes back in and opens and clicks a second time, this isn’t unique.
For example, if you send out an email to 2,000 subscribers. 400 subscribers open the email. Then, of those 400 people, 200 click a link.
Your CTOR would be 200 ÷ 400 x 100 = 50%.
14% is average, but again, CTOR varies based on industry.
Let’s discuss email campaigns you should have set up for your customer base.
5 Emails Business Owners Can Send Customers.
Welcome Emails.
A welcome email is exactly as it says – it welcomes your subscribers to the community they’ve just signed up for.
This email sequence introduces your potential customers to your brand, creating a 'first impression.' Welcome emails can include videos, the latest blogs, freebies, or other friendly content to establish a relationship with the new lead.
Welcome emails play a huge role in the customer onboarding process.
Components of a well-written welcome email sequence include:
Attention-worthy subject lines
Introduce yourself
Next step actions
Personalized offers
An option to unsubscribe
Explanation of what they can expect
Welcome emails set the tone for your subscribers and lay the foundation for what is hopefully a lasting relationship.
2. Newsletters.
Newsletters are emails sent periodically and update your readers on the latest news, and share helpful tips or other valuable information.
Think of newsletters as a way to educate and entertain your readers rather than selling your products or services. You want your newsletters to feel like your subscribers are getting an update from a friend rather than a hardcore salesperson.
If executed correctly, 49% of subscribers say they enjoy receiving newsletters weekly from brands they love. (4)
Topics you can write about in your newsletter include:
Upcoming events
Surveys or feedback
Behind-the-scenes content
Little-known information about your product or service
A personalized tip of the month
Newsletters are a great way to stay top of mind with your readers. Showing up consistently and providing exceptional content is key.
3. Promotional Campaign.
A promotional campaign informs subscribers about limited-time offers, discounts, or exclusive information on your products or services.
It’s easy to confuse a promotional campaign with a marketing campaign.
The objective of marketing is to increase brand awareness and get in front of your target audience. Promotions are the last step in the marketing process to convert your leads into actual customers.
Promotional campaigns should include:
A clear goal or objective
Knowing your target audience
Effective visuals and compelling copy
Clear rules and guidelines for the promotion
Trackable data
Promotional campaigns can include promo codes, referral and loyalty programs, gift cards, and product bundles. These all drive brand awareness and increase sales.
4. Abandon Cart Campaign.
If this campaign isn’t a part of your digital marketing campaign, it should be.
Abandoned cart emails are sent to customers who almost made a purchase. But ultimately, they left their cart. The goal of this campaign is to entice them to complete the sale.
These emails are automatically sent when customers leave the final checkout page before completing the transaction. Or when they place an item in their cart and then abandon it.
Abandon cart emails are your last-ditch effort to take any hesitation or doubt out of the equation and get your customer to buy.
An abandoned cart email campaign should include:
A catchy subject line (noticing a pattern yet!)
Items left in the cart
Either a promo code or special offer
Next steps or a call to action that takes them to the checkout page
Customer testimonials or other feedback
With the right kind of copy and branding, you can earn your buyer’s trust and increase conversion rates with abandoned cart emails.
5. Re-Engagement Campaign.
Re-engagement email campaigns are sent to subscribers that aren’t active.
You may have 1,000 subscribers, but if half of them are unengaged, that’s a problem. The goal is to get these subscribers re-engaged with your emails.
There are two reasons people ignore your emails. Either you aren’t providing value and meeting their needs, or your reader’s needs have changed. It’s important to take a minute and figure out why your subscribers aren’t connecting with your emails.
Effective re-engagement email campaigns include:
Understanding where your subscribers become unengaged
A way to segment your audience
Researching the right day and time to send emails
Email copy that’s personal, engaging, and concise
Tracking results and making necessary adjustments
Re-engagement campaigns remind your subscribers why they decided to join your email list in the first place. They improve your reputation, increase sales, and build rapport with your customers.
Uniting the Art of Copywriting with Email Marketing.
If there’s one thing that every email marketing campaign has in common it’s effective copywriting.
Without a catchy subject line, your email never gets opened.
And if the intro paragraph doesn't focus on making a connection and capturing the reader's attention, they won't read the rest of your email.
But a skilled copywriter knows it’s not just about putting words out there.
It’s knowing how to connect each email to the next and understanding the role your email campaign plays in your greater digital marketing strategy.
As a professional copywriter, I make sure each sentence in your email serves a purpose – to educate, interact, and persuade your readers to take action.
Elevate the messaging in your emails with copywriting that:
Excites and captivates your audience, turning them from casual readers into committed subscribers.
Optimizes engagement and boosts your open and click-through rates.
Reflects your brand’s voice and identity, building you a loyal customer base.
All of these contribute to making your email campaigns more effective
Schedule a free 30-minute Discovery Call where we can analyze your email campaigns. Let's create a strategic plan for your next email marketing campaign to ensure each email has a purpose, goal, and call to action.
Don’t let another week go by without connecting with your subscribers.
Schedule a Discovery Call and let’s get to strategizing.
Resources
(1) Litmus
(2) Mailmodo
(4) Statista