5 Strategies to Improve Your Email Marketing

Building an email list is no small feat, and once you have customers on your list, you want to keep them interested in what you have to say and what you have to sell. Review the following tips to be sure your email marketing tactics are bringing in foot traffic and resulting in sales.

1. Don’t use tricky subject lines. Chances are your recipients signed up to receive your emails because they are interested in sales and special opportunities. Advertising awesome deals in subject lines can get clicks, but if what’s inside the email doesn’t deliver, then you could risk losing subscribers and customers. Also, be aware of certain words that may send your message straight to the spam folder.
2. Be sure you’re following the law. Laws about how you communicate with customers through email marketing can be confusing. If you use an email marketing service or customer management client, the emails you send automatically include an unsubscribe link. Be sure your customer list is regularly maintained so you aren’t accidentally adding people back to your list after they have unsubscribed. Check with attorneys, business consultants or digital marketing specialists if you have questions about how to properly manage your subscribers.
3. Host a sign-up drive at events. Be sure you have signage and promotional material ready for your next in-store event to advertise your email list. Create bag stuffers, update the text at the bottom of receipts and put out table toppers to encourage sign-ups. Raffles are always a great way to get new subscribers, too. Partner with other local businesses for perks; customers who sign up for email lists for your business and the local coffee shop get a free $5 gift card to your store and a free cup of coffee from the shop.
4. Take advantage of A/B testing. Use analytics to help your email marketing reach as many potential customers as possible. A/B testing allows business owners to try two versions of an email and see which gets the most engagement from subscribers. Your email marketing system probably has A/B testing capabilities built in, so you can try out different subject lines, times of the day to send a message and other factors to see what works best for your audience.
5. Don’t overdo it. While you should send emails at regular intervals so you are consistently putting your brand in front of your customers, don’t do more than you can manage. If you struggle to make time to send messages twice a month, it’s OK to cut down to once a month. It’s better to send one quality email a month than to send several emails that don’t offer any substance and potentially cause readers to unsubscribe.