Today there are many different ways to market your product and services but it is not always easy to find the ideal approach towards marketing. Email marketing is one such marketing strategy that has proven its effectiveness repeatedly. However that is not to say that all businesses have benefitted from email marketing but that failure can be accredited to their shortcomings. 

Studies suggest that a business can generate $40 for every dollar they spend on email marketing efforts. Therefore companies must not be shy from leveraging the perks of email marketing and growing their business without any hassle. But how should a business go about with its email marketing efforts? Let's find out.

But First What Is Email Marketing?

Email marketing is a marketing strategy where businesses send out commercial emails to a list of leads or contacts who have expressed their interest in the product or service sold by the company. Businesses of all sorts leverage email marketing to inform their customers about the business's latest offerings build a loyal customer base for the brand and most importantly drive sales and enhance the revenue generated by the company.

However even marketing has evolved in its rights because it does not work anymore unlike the one size fits all mass approach used by businesses earlier. Instead today email marketing is more about segmentation consent management and personalization. This may sound like a lot of work but companies can now access automated tools that will take care of most of the hassle involved in the process.

Different Types Of Email Marketing

In simple words there are two different types of email marketing namely informative and promotional. However businesses can even send an email to serve any specific purpose in the buyer's journey.

1. Promotional emails: This is the type of email marketing leveraged by businesses to promote any new product or service special offers any gated content such as webinars or ebooks and promote the brand's image at large. These email marketing campaigns come with a CTA representing the action you want the customer or reader to take after reading the email. This can be anything from a simple visit to the website or purchasing a product or service. 
2. Informative Emails: These are the types of emails businesses use to inform the audience about something. Informative emails are generally found in the form of announcements or newsletters. A newsletter is used to share any relevant news about the business which could be anything from the capabilities of a new product or case studies about a product. On the other hand announcements inform the audience about any announcements from the business's end. This could be anything from relaying important information such as changes in the terms and conditions or any information about new product releases.      

Tips For Enhancing Your Email Marketing

Email marketing is an elaborative marketing process which means that it is essential to follow the appropriate strategy to drive results. Hence here are some effective and practical email marketing tips and suggestions that businesses can use to boost their sales and generate increased revenue.

1. Understanding The Target Audience: The most crucial marketing tip is having an augmented understanding of the target audience. This is the only way to eliminate any sort of guesswork from the entire email marketing campaign providing the business with a roadmap to plan for future campaigns. What a business sends out to its subscribers needs to be relevant to its interests. This is why understanding the target audience is so important as there is no other way around it. Every individual receiving your emails is different so sending them the same email will not yield any positive outcome. Emails that are relevant to the interest of the recipient generally drive 18 times more revenue as compared to generic emails. Hence always take a targeted approach to ensure that your emails drive results. 

1. Use The Subject Line To Your Advantage: The subject line plays a significant role in email marketing because this is the first thing the reader will notice when they receive the email. This makes it essential to ensure that the subject line reflects transparency and not anything shady. The ultimate goal of the subject line is to increase the chances of the email being opened by the reader. If the email is never opened its content also goes to waste. Therefore keep your subject line as straight as possible and build a trusting relationship with your target audience.  

1. Always Keep Your Emails Short And Simple: It is no secret that the attention span of your audience is concise and they will not spend their time reading an email that is too descriptive. Therefore it is highly recommended that you keep your emails concise and informative to ensure that the audience gets the message and acts on it without delay. This will help you garner a better response from your email marketing campaigns. Once you grab their attention their chances of visiting your website will increase significantly. More importantly people are more likely to open the email with their mobile devices during breaks or commutes. Hence beating around the bush will do no good instead one should get to the point at the earliest. 

1. Ensure Consistency: The last thing that any email marketer wants to be called is a spammer. However sending regular emails to the people who have subscribed for the same means that the emails will not end up in the spam folder. Therefore there is no harm in sending out emails to the subscribers on a regular basis. In fact most people check their email regularly so sending out automated emails regularly gives out a message that you are always there for your customers. This will also help you build and nurture a loyal base of subscribers who checks and reads your emails unlike spam. 

1. Make Use Of White Space: Businesses need to understand that their customers are busy people and when you have their attention even for a while it must not be wasted. This makes it very important to include a lot of white spaces in the structure of your emails. Hence make sure to keep the paragraphs short and concise use sub headers pointers and bullet points where ever necessary. This will ensure that you get your readers' undivided attention further increasing the chances of converting them into paying customers. There were also instances where you needed to send a long sales pitch or article. In such cases it is always better to add a small intro and direct them to read more or learn more with a link attached. This will certainly enhance the reader's experience.    

1. Personalization: The current state of business in the world clearly indicates a rise in competitiveness among businesses. The finest and most effective way to deal with this increase in competition and the short attention span of customers is personalization. This is the proven way to make customers feel special and exclusive encouraging them to further invest in the business. Hence the emails you send to your customers and prospects have to be personalized enough to ensure that the customer develops an interest in the product or service sold by the business. For instance if you have access to the first name of the prospect then make sure to use it in the subject line as this will certainly make a lot of difference. 
2. Repeat Successful Emails: Businesses often create email marketing campaigns that turn out to be a great success. Hence a business must leverage such emails because the chances of such successes repeating are very high. Further the customer could not make the purchase the first time; then it is very likely that they will make the purchase the second time. In addition the email marketing campaign could garner great results taking into account the customers who failed to open the email the first time. These emails can be twisted and tweaked leaving you with room for safe experimentation to help you determine what works and what does not.  

1. Split Test The Emails: One of the most effective email marketing tools saved for the last is carrying out an A/B test. This is the only way to eliminate any sort of guesswork from the entire email marketing campaign providing the business with a roadmap to plan for future campaigns. This is a simple way to divide customers into different segments and use the strategy that drives more results in terms of conversion. This way one can determine the effectiveness of an email marketing campaign and leverage the same to drive results and boost the business's revenue generation as a whole.

In Conclusion

These days social media and SEO marketing get most of the attention but in reality as long as a business can leverage all these tools together it is certain that they will drive enhanced revenue to ensure the sustainable growth of the business. Hence leverage the competence of a reliable marketing partner like Constant Contact and drive increased outcomes with your email marketing efforts.