Email Campaign: 6 Unavoidable Steps to Create a Successful Campaign
Email Campaign
An email has become an essential distribution channel. Almost all companies set up an email campaign aimed at consumers.
Faced with this mass of e-mails received every day, the recipients are more and more demanding.
They won’t pay attention to a commercial email that they find at first glance unattractive, or completely useless.
To help you avoid the missteps that would lead your email campaign directly to the trash, I’ll walk you through step by step to create an email marketing campaign a success.
You’ll also see 5 Useful Tips To Improve The Quality And Performance of Your Email Campaigns as a bonus.
What you’ll learn today!
- Choose an emailing software
- Define the objective of your email campaign
- Define the target of your campaign
- Create the content of your email campaign (Copywriting – Design)
- Call To Action
- Plan the email campaign
- Analyze the results of your email campaign to do even better next time!
- 5 Useful Tips To Improve The Quality And Performance of Your Email Campaign
The 6 important steps to create your email campaign a success
1 – Choose an emailing software
The very first piece of advice for your email campaign is to choose your marketing campaign software.
Indeed, marketing automation software is essential to designing and sending an email campaign with ease and efficiency.
This software allows you to create modern designs and offer templates that can be used as a basis for your emailing.
They also allow you to automate and plan the sending of your commercial emails (planning to send a newsletter, systematic sending of email) according to the actions of your visitors such as when they register on your site for example.
They allow you to automate all your shipments down to the smallest detail, in order to personalize your exchanges with your customers as much as possible.
Most of this software also offers features allowing you to analyze your campaigns, and tests before sending them in order to constantly improve the performance of your emails, such as the deliverability and open rates of your emails.
To choose them, you will have to take into account:
- the functionalities offered by each software,
- the seriousness of the solution and the presence of technical support,
- the security of the sending servers (your email potentially contains personal data),
- the ease of use, and
- the budget you want to devote to this essential investment.
2 – Define the objective of your email campaign
Before designing your email, you must start by defining the precise objectives that you want to achieve.
Emailing can be set up to win new customers, or to keep in touch with your buyers and retain them.
You can also seek to increase the average basket of your buyers and boost your sales. You may also simply need to communicate about an upcoming event or an ongoing promotional offer.
Your approach will necessarily be different depending on your expectations, and you will have to filter your recipient lists according to their profile.
You will not approach a loyal customer in the same way as a potential customer, for example.
3 – Define the target of your email campaign
After having identified the objectives, the second step of your emailing campaign is to define who it will address.
You will need to create a mailing list that only contains recipients who may be interested in your email.
To do this, you will be able to use all the socio-demographic data that you have collected on your recipients and list the purchases they have already made from you.
Indeed, depending on your sector of activity and the information you want to convey, you will not necessarily address all of your customers.
The age, sex, profession, or place of residence of your recipients can define the information that will be useful to them.
By segmenting your databases, you will prevent your email from ending up directly in the trash without being read, and you will also reduce your unsubscribe rate.
You’ll also get more sales if your campaign reached recipients who are receptive to your offer.
4 – Create the content of your email campaign (Copywriting – Design)
The content of your email is decisive. Your email must be interesting, even impactful.
You must make your readers want to visit your website by including links to relevant pages of your site.
But above all, you need to make a good impression before they even open your email.
For that, choose carefully the name under which you will appear. Will you choose the name of your company or that of a member of your team?
The subject line of your email and the Preheader (the first line of your email that will appear in your email inbox) should clearly make your customer want to open the email, or even drop by directly to the purchase.
It’s a catchphrase that makes all the difference and attracts the curiosity of your recipients.
Then, personalize your commercial email as much as possible. Show the name of your recipient (“Dear Wills, … for example”).
Ensure to include information that really interests them (based on their personal information), and above all, be direct. Also, highlight essential information so that it can be read at a glance.
For more information, you can refer to “How to write copy that sells”
Call To Action
Now is the time to choose the ideal location for your CTA (Call to Action).
This is the crucial information in your email marketing campaign that will push your recipients to action to achieve the goals you have set for yourself.
The CTA must really stand out, it must be as visible and clear as possible.
Its ideal place is in a clean place, which will jump in the eyes of your readers as soon as the e-mail opens.
Your email should also have an attractive design. It must be modern and allow important information to be highlighted.
The choice of colors, images, and location will be decisive.
To avoid making mistakes, and to save time, it is advisable to use templates on emailing software.
They can be identical to previous emailing campaigns, or they can be generated from a marketing solution.
GetResponse
GetResponse is the All-In-One marketing solution for micro-businesses. It is an easy-to-use email marketing service with a free plan that allows unlimited contacts and 300 emails per day.
You can for an upgrade plan in case you want your list as you can send up to 40,000 shipments per month with no daily shipping limit
5 – Plan the Email Campaign
Is your email ready now? Now you will have to determine when it will be more convenient to send it to your recipients.
With the huge amount of emails received each day, your email marketing should not risk being drowned out among all the others.
To do this, it is better for it to arrive at the top of the list in the inbox and therefore be sent as soon as possible when your recipients open their mailbox.
So, put yourself in your target’s shoes for a few moments. Ask yourself when they will have the most time to spend reading their emails.
It mainly depends on whether they are professional or private customers. Indeed, you will have the full attention of professionals during the week from 8:30 am to 6:00 pm. You know 9 to 5 job, right?
Avoid Monday because a lot of emails could have accumulated during the weekend and will be deleted directly. If they are individuals, you will prioritize free time.
Does your target have time to read their emails? Surf your site during their lunch break, or rather in the evening?
The right timing for sending your email will, therefore, be when your target will have time to read your message and click on your links.
You might feel like a challenge to send your very first email marketing campaign.
This short action plan will help you prepare and make an impact on your target audience. It’s easier than you think.
Follow the steps mentioned in the free guide from GetResponse in order to run a great email marketing campaign that gets successful results.
6 – Analyze the results of your email campaign to do even better next time
This last step of your emailing campaign is essential to consider improvements for your next marketing campaigns. You will have to measure the results obtained.
By analyzing in detail the effects of this campaign on your website traffic and on your turnover, you will understand what pushes your audience to buy.
To support you in these fairly in-depth analyzes, emailing software is an essential tool.
They measure “pre-click” performance. Say, the reception rate of your email, its open rate, and the interest shown by your recipients to the links in your emails.
Example of statistics:
You must analyze the “post clicks” performance to quantify the effects of your emailing on your sales.
The answers to the following questions are what your recipients could do after clicking on the links in your email.
- Have they gone to purchase?
- Have they contacted you? Or
- Did they come straight out of your website?
For this, you must set up, in your e-mailing, specific links created via the UTM parameters of Google Analytics. This will allow you to track the behavior of your recipients.
5- Useful Tips To Improve The Quality And Performance of Your Email Campaign
Tip # 1 – Do A / B tests (and especially object tests)
The A / B test consists of sending 2 separate email campaigns for the same final objective, to two samples of targeted recipients.
You will be able to define what type of content, what catchphrases, and what sending timing is ideal for your campaign to succeed.
This test can also help you determine which offers your customers are most sensitive to. For instance, discounts, gifts, coupon codes, etc.
This test will allow you to adapt your campaign according to the results obtained and ensure you send a powerful email.
Tip # 2 – Remember to test the rendering of your emails on different email clients
Today, we can open our emails from all our mobile devices. It is, therefore, advisable that your email campaigns are readable on any medium. Also, ensure that your links will also work on all internet browsers.
You must, therefore, test your emailing on all media before sending it to your recipients.
Also check the images and layouts open perfectly well on all messaging platforms such as Gmail, Hotmail, Outlook, and Yahoo Mail.
To facilitate this almost impossible task, you better use the Litmus solution as it will allow you to quickly perform this opening test.
Discover Litmus
Tip # 3 – Improve your customer knowledge so you can better target your email campaign
To limit your unsubscription rate, gather as much information as possible on your database.
In addition to the e-mail address, try to collect information such as the names and surnames of the recipients, their addresses, age, gender, occupation, hobbies, etc.
Anything that may be relevant depending on what you are marketing, in order to allow you to target your email marketing campaigns.
Also define the last purchases and frequent purchases of your customers, in order to offer them renewals and/or complementary products.
Keep the information safe in your CRM software, and update it regularly. To obtain this information, include it in your registration forms on your website, or on your loyalty program.
You can also send a questionnaire to your customers so that they answer all your questions if they wish.
You also have the option of creating fun quizzes that your recipients will be happy to answer.
Tip # 4 – Clean your database regularly
Regularly sort through your customer contacts. Remove from your database all customers who no longer wish to receive commercial emails. Also, those who have unsubscribed from your newsletters.
Be careful, do not delete other customer credentials. In your CRM software, you must be able to check whether or not your customer accepts to be canvassed, and by what means.
Make sure this option is correctly checked. Also, remove any e-mail addresses for which the sending of your e-mailings has failed.
They may simply no longer exist, so there is no point in keeping them. This will optimize your deliverability rate and your open rate.
But, you will also be in good standing with the GDPR law which requires you not to canvass people who have expressed their desire to no longer be part of your mailing lists.
Tip # 5 – Choose an attractive and reassuring name for the sender
The name of the sender will be a determining factor in the opening rate of your email campaign.
This name must be reassuring, with all the risks of hacking and phishing, your recipients will not open just any emails.
You can choose to make the name of your company clearly appear. But you can also add the name of a person in order to make your email warmer.
This gives a more human dimension to your email. Plus, it’s still a fairly rarely used option, which will make a big difference in the inbox.
This name can be that of a communications officer for your company, a director, or simply be a name that you will give to a fictitious character who will be the spokesperson for your company for all your email marketing campaigns.
Wrap Up!
We hope the tips in this article will help you create a high-quality and successful campaign without too much hassle. Just remember that a lot of preparation, dedication, and testing is required to achieve great results, but it’s worth all your efforts!
Showing your prospects you really care about them, and them only will get you a long way. The email is supposed to be read because it is interesting, relevant, and most importantly, valuable to your prospects.
This will create trust and respect between you and your prospects. And that will most likely lead to a closed deal at the end of the day.
Do not hesitate to go through my other articles dedicated to email marketing where you’ll find lots of useful tips & tricks.
