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20+ Expert Tips To Master Email Marketing

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Daniel

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Email marketing is the most critical medium for any company who wants to focus on customer relationships. Studies show that 81 percent of SMBs still rely on email as their primary consumer acquisition platform, and 80 percent using emails for customer retention. Building an email marketing program will accelerate your customer relationship, strengthen your brand message, and generate cost-effective revenue for your company.

I’ve gathered these more than 16 valuable tips turning your email marketing into a success in 2021. If you want to learn about how to succeed in email marketing, this list is for you. Let’s dive in!

Expert tips for successful email marketing
Expert tips for successful email marketing

1. Offer something in exchange for email subscription

If you haven’t offered an email exchange yet, your whole email marketing is about to change. When it comes to email marketing for companies, this is one of the most important tips in your arsenal. According to Brian Dean from Backlinko, when he began implementing email subscription, his conversion rate skyrocketed by 785 percent.

The best thing about email exchanges is that it is so flexible. It can have just about any content as long as it has meaning. It could be a resource list, a short free course, multiple chapters of an eBook, or a previously unpublished case study. You don’t give away this stuff for free. Yeah, technically you are, but there’s an exchange going on. To get the content, your reader must enter their email address. This is it. The reader is pleased to have high-value material. You’re pleased because your list of email subscribers continues to expand.

2. Use email marketing apps

Use email marketing apps
Use email marketing apps

Managing addresses, writing emails, recording open and click-through rates, etc There’s a lot to do in the field of email marketing. Using email marketing tools to make your work and life easier. I’d recommend you to use our Avdada email marketing. Our email marketing app offers drag-and-drop email newsletter design (with rich HTML formatting and many pre-made templates to choose from), contact management, audience segmentation, performance monitoring, cart abandonment reminder, and so on. And it’s FREE! AVADA email marketing will enable you to automate lots of important email marketing tasks, so you can save time for other things.

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3. Repurpose Your Old Content

Do you have an article that you wrote went viral? It may have appeared on your own site, or maybe on a client’s site. Either way, hundreds of views, shares, and comments were amassed. You can also create a digital brochure from your favorite posts and add it to your newsletter.

If you want to catch the magic in a bottle, so to speak, then try reproducing your old stuff. Then you can base your next email newsletter around the post. There are many reasons to re-use your high-performance material. The first is that you should fill some holes in your editorial calendar. Like every email marketer knows, there are holes to fill. You may be sick or busy with other projects… Repurposed materials will buy you an extra week or two.

You can also produce great content in the form of a reproposed post. Think about all the movies that are being re-created now. What’s the point of doing this thing? These remakes bring a new generation to an old classic. Your repurposed material is doing the same thing. If you want a short post longer or a list post with new examples, get to work with some of your own material.

4. Add videos to your email

According to the video marketing resource Animoto, having videos in your email will minimize subscription drops (26 per cent) while increasing click-through rates (65 per cent) and open rates (19 per cent). Somehow, we’re still at a stage where not every brand is bringing videos into email updates, but that won’t last much longer. This means that the market is not oversaturated yet and that your video can make a positive impact.

As an email marketer, you’re probably good at scriptwriting. Why do you not pass your expertise to a video medium? Videos are readily digestible and are more likely to be watched. A 2018 WordStream article revealed that people are watching a lot of videos. For example, on a daily basis, YouTube users can enjoy over 500 million hours of video content.

It spreads beyond just YouTube. Almost half of those surveyed weekly (45 per cent) said they’d spend an hour or more watching clips on both YouTube and Facebook. And on Twitter, videos are popular. WordStream found that 82% of those surveyed would be viewing video content on social media websites. You can add video to your newsletter content or make a short clip of recent content. However, you do it, just make sure you use videos.

5. Become a Reliable Email Sender

If a tree makes noises in the woods and there is no one around, does the tree make a sound? You might write the most captivating and entertaining emails on the Internet, but if no one reads them, it doesn’t matter. You don’t make a sound, either.

Countless research and reviews have been made about the best days and times to send emails. The reality is, there is no particular time that can reliably yield awesome results every time. That said, according to the latest data on OptinMonster, earlier in the day is better. Take a look at these maps and see what we’re talking about.

Good hours for sending emails
Good hours for sending emails
Good hours for sending emails
Good hours for sending emails

It seems like a common time to open emails before lunchtime. Ok, that makes sense. Most of the people are going through a slump in the morning and they’re trying to kill time until lunch. Throughout the afternoon, the rate of interaction is slowly diminishing as work finishes and a person’s personal time starts. In terms of the best day to send emails, that’s a little more concrete. Studies OptinMonster has decided that Tuesday or Thursday is the day.

Good days for sending emails
Good days for sending emails
Good days for sending emails
Good days for sending emails

Do what you want with these insights. No matter which day and time you plan to send your emails, be consistent. This way, your readers will always know when to expect your most recent updates.

6. Autoresponders Are Your Friend

Another powerful email marketing tip is the use of autoresponders. Specifically, I suggest that you create a collection of autoresponders for your audience. They can be sent out weekly or biweekly, and they contain all your content wrapped up in a clean, tidy little bow. If you have an offer with several pieces of content inside, autoresponders are also useful. Check out what I’m trying to explain below.

Autoresponders
Autoresponders

By introducing your content like this, you give people a reason to sign up. If you give away all of your best materials on social media or your blog, there’s no reason for a reader to sign up for your email newsletter.

7. Don’t Ignore Automation

You may be reluctant to give control to automated software because you think the human aspect will be erased, but it won’t be. Trust me. You can still customize emails your way, but the email automation program sets it up for you. It even sends emails so that you can take a much-needed computer break. Don’t forget that AVADA email marketing can do just that for you!

8. Optimize your emails mobile devices

Of course you’re an email marketer, not a graphic designer. But, you can’t let your mobile optimization fall between cracks. A Campaign Monitor article found that failure to optimize your site could seriously harm your email marketing effort.

How is that? It’s no surprise that mobile Internet use is at an all-time high since the birth of the Internet. Campaign Monitor says that in comparison with desktop use, there has been a threefold rise in the rate of email usage on mobile devices. If your content isn’t mobile optimized, most people (52 percent) won’t read something you’re offering.

Well, that’s right, if it ever gets to that point. Most email users in the study said they would get rid of email almost instantly (less than 3 seconds) if they saw it wasn’t designed for mobile usage. It’s the same thing as sending your emails at 6 a.m on Saturday. If your content is fantastic, but your methods are not, you’re not going to hit your maximum audience.

9. Show off Your Guest Posts

If you’ve allowed someone to write guest posts on your blog, then you’ve probably posted on their websites as well. That’s how a successful guest blogging relationship is expected to work. Instead of showing all of the guest articles on your blog (which your audience might have already seen), share your guest posts in your email newsletters. Although you’re sure to redirect your audience to someone else’s site and therefore send them traffic, the guest posts are supposed to be mutually beneficial. You’re going to make up for the traffic.

10. Check Your From Field

Here’s another tiny but powerful way to create trust: look at the “from” field in yoru email. Where are the emails you’re sending coming from? Will the name in the field be your business or yours? It’s a lot more reliable if it comes from a human.

11. Content Curation Adds Value to Emails

Here’s another helpful tip for those busy weeks or times you’re encountering a writer’s block: send out an email newsletter with curated materials. This is not your own content, but the perspectives and news from across the Internet that cater to your consumer base. In order to select which content will be best for curating, follow the following guidelines:

  • Newer is better. The content you choose doesn’t have to be breaking news, but it’s the best if it is.
  • The content that you post should be in line with your industry or niche.
  • Anything you share should be worth reading. Your readers should be informed, educated or entertained by the content.

If you intend to curate content for the upcoming newsletter, we suggest you prepare ahead of time. Parse through the latest news from the industry coming down the pipeline. Bookmark or otherwise set aside some of the most useful materials. Don’t just send a giant list of links to your email readers. You can also share your own thoughts and opinions on the news from your industry.

12. Don’t Ignore Your Subject Line

I would say that, above all else, your subject line is the most important aspect of your email. Doubt that? HubSpot has stats to back up this theory:

  • The subject line is enough to persuade 35% of people to click an email.
  • Emoji are becoming popular in subject lines these days. Businesses that used them experienced an improved open rate of 56 percent.
  • Around 2015 and 2016, emojis appeared in e-mails at a rate of 775 per cent.

Your company might be the sort that loves good emojis, or you’d rather add the recepient’’s first name to the email headline (this is also effective). Just pay attention to your email subject line, as it is one of the easiest ways to get your emails opêd. And don’t get lazy just because you’ve got email subscribers. You still have to fight for their attention. On average, the customer receives more than 120 messages every day. Why should yours be opened? It all begins with a strong subject line.

13. Promotion Is Key

Speaking of Facebook, Twitter, YouTube, and so on, that takes us to our next point. You have to get yourself known, and social media is one of the easiest ways to do so. If you don’t post frequently on social media, that’s the first thing you need to do. Although your target is to get more subscribers, it shouldn’t be your primary focus. You’ve got to give people a reason to want to sign up.

By sharing viral, entertaining and/or insightful content, you show your audience that you can deliver value. This content may be yours or someone else’s. Your likes and followers will increase over time with frequent, high-quality posts. That’s great, but how do you get these likes and then convert to more email subscribers? One of the tactics you might try is to embed an email signup form on social media. This is possible on Facebook (see picture below). Your followers will subscribe to your email newsletter without leaving Facebook. This makes it easier for them to sign up, which improves the chance of them doing so.

Promotion
Promotion

14. Write Creatively

Part of what makes blogging so special is that you can write in a creative and succinct way. You’re going to use your imagination while remaining accurate. Don’t save this type of writing to your blog. Creative writing has a role in email newsletters. Which one sounds more interesting to read? A dry copy of a sale masquerading as a newsletter or a true story? I hope you already know the answer to that.

Just in case you don’t, here are statistics from Maildocker, a transactional email platform. The storytelling of brands is desirable. Most consumers (80 percent) expected less dry emails from businesses. The majority (66 percent) also required stories about actual people.

15. Master the CTA

Action calls or CTAs are mostly shown as a button, but they may also be written. Since you’re a writer, writing CTAs shouldn’t be too hard. You know that shorter is best for CTAs, but sometimes it’s all right to flex your imaginative muscle a bit. Take this example from Darius Foroux, author and productivity expert.

Email example
Email example

It’s a paragraphs-long CTA. This isn’t going to work all the time, because it requires a lot of attention from your customer. The bold, colored lines are the most critical sections, with the brief paragraphs in between supporting the bold statement.

16. Give Stuff Away

We’ve been going through how you can have some free content, but keep other parts of it to yourself. Here’s a new tactic. Freebies and giveaways are some of the sure ways to draw attention to your blog/social media presence. Everyone loves free things, and if you’ve got it to sell, you’re going to build interest quickly. You should host a contest if that’s something you’re capable of. If you aren’t, you can always send out free content. Check out this example from Wonderlass. This innovative entrepreneur and business site was created by a woman named Allison. She knows what she’s doing, like when you log on to her blog, that’s the first thing you’re greeted with.

Giveaways
Giveaways

Yes, this is a deal right at the gate. It’s free and can help you improve your own online company. Who might have passed anything like that? Here are some tips for good giveaways:

  • Make sure that the giveaway is in line with the desires of your audience.
  • The offer should be of high value.
  • It’s all right to send a snapshot of something, be it a few good chapters from an eBook or maybe the first half of a long thesis. This allows the user to sign up to get more.

How many internal links do you include in your typical email? You shouldn’t add too many, since you do not want your email to be mistakenly classified as spam. You may be doing a disservice to yourself. A 2014 Campaign Monitor article found that the click-through rate would improve by adding more links. By including just one or two, you could see a 55% reduction in the subscription rate.

This doesn’t mean you should start littering your email newsletters with useless links just for the sake of having them, though. Campaign Monitor ‘s article made it very clear that each link must be valuable. Sorry, but the five-fold link to your product page is not going to cut it. There’s certainly a cap, too. You should stick to the range of 3 to 5 links per email to see good results (the click-through rate would be about 17% with this).

18. Use RSS Feeds

You’ll want to make it easy for your readers to enjoy your content, don’t you? An RSS feed can do the job beautifully. Follow the simple design principles when you render the RSS feed button. Hold the button above the fold and watch the colors you pick. This is the basic but good one to use as a guide.

RSS feeds
RSS feeds

19. Get Conversational

“Nurturing” and “Engagement” are probably the two terms that you hear a lot in this content marketing field. They’re much more than just buzzwords, but rather ways to communicate with your audience. To keep your subscribers satisfied and engaged, you need to connect with them. Today, yes, that means reacting to as many comments on social media and blog posts as time allows for. In addition, you can also write in a conversational way. See this email to get a sense of what I’m talking about.

Email example
Email example

How intimate does that email feel? It sounds more like you’re talking to an old friend than someone who’s trying to sell you something. Not only does this writing style strengthen your relationship with subscribers, it also fosters a sense of trustworthiness.

20. A/B Test

If you’ve done several email marketing campaigns, then you should be familiar with A/B. If you add a pop-up, video, press, or some other item from the tips above, A/B must test all of them. While each of the tips we shared promises higher conversions, the results can differ. You want to make sure that what you do is working for your business. And the only way to know is by testing.

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Final Words

That’s it! I hope that this article has provided you with valuable tips to master your email marketing in 2021. Please feel free to leave comments below for further discussion on this topic.


Sam Nguyen is the CEO and founder of Avada Commerce, an e-commerce solution provider headquartered in Singapore. He is an expert on the Shopify e-commerce platform for online stores and retail point-of-sale systems. Sam loves talking about e-commerce and he aims to help over a million online businesses grow and thrive.