Email marketing is a wonderful method of direct marketing. It offers self-employed people a lot of potential. Because thanks to emails, you reach potential customers on a very personal level. Once you get hold of a person's email address and your mailing flutters into their private inbox, you're already a big step ahead of many competitors. But smart email marketing doesn't consist of simple newsletters or clumsy sales texts.
Don't get us wrong, status updates and sales emails are also allowed to be sent every now and then. However, it is important that they are in the context of other emails that build on each other in a meaningful way. In addition, the mailings should be perfectly tailored to your target group, offer added value and trigger interactions. Sounds complicated? Don't worry, email marketing is actually easy to implement. In this magazine article, you'll get seven golden rules you should follow to realize your full mailing potential. Let's go!
You can save yourself some subject lines; for example, those that contain the term "save". These usually only convince one person - the spam filter. Popular or unpopular words that are most likely to end up in spam are also:
The list of negative terms could go on and on. Instead, we'd rather explain what an inviting subject line looks like: It triggers the reader and encourages them to open your email. It's creative, piques the reader's curiosity, and makes them want to read the content at all costs. It's irresistible, so to speak, so the reader has no choice but to want to learn more. A really good subject line sometimes requires some practice to create, but it is extremely effective. So practice pays off!
Now the content of the mailing has to deliver what your stunning subject line promised earlier. And that works best with strong content that's entertaining, informative, or otherwise helpful. If you rely solely on sales copy, one email subscriber after the next will run for the hills and leave your mailing list. And that would be quite a shame, because any contact once lost will probably never come back. The golden rule is: create mailing content with added value! Because if you help your readers on a regular basis, you will be rewarded and get ahead yourself.
Of course, you can only create tailored content for your target audience if you know them intimately. That's why segmentation is extremely practical. Instead of sending the same email to everyone in a large mailing list, you should send different emails to several small mailing lists that you have previously sorted by age, location, industry, interest, behavioral characteristics or similar factors. This way you can address the respective persons even more personally, pick them up even better and deliver absolutely appropriate content to them. Bingo!
Regularity is the key to successful email marketing. That doesn't mean you necessarily have to increase your frequency. But continuously sending emails to your individual mailing lists will definitely help build trust with your readers and convince them of your expertise. So be sure to stay on the ball and send entertaining, interesting value-added emails on a regular basis!
A mailing without a call to action is like the internet without a computer - pretty useless. After all, you want to direct your readers to a landing page, a sales page, or any other page. Nevertheless, your mailing must not resemble an advertising pillar, i.e. it must have call-to-actions all over it. The same goes for headlines, buttons and images that irritate your readers. The focus should always be on useful content, which at best acts as a kind of teaser text and links to an external page. At the end of the teaser text, you may of course also insert a call-to-action. Or in other words: Use a CTA now!
Your mailings should be well structured and clearly laid out so that they are convincing at first glance. Even if your subscribers don't read every sentence, they still get an overall impression. And if this appears untidy or even chaotic, this could lead to negative conclusions about your product or services. But it's not just the structure of the individual mailings that's important, but also an overall strategy. For this purpose, it can be helpful to create an (automated) email funnel.
Whether it's the perfect subject line, the right topic or the number of call-to-action buttons: In the end, every target group ticks differently and you can only find out what your target group finds particularly appealing through diligent testing. Therefore, conduct regular A/B testing and run different elements (e.g. subjects, dispatch times, content) against each other. Ask your readers for feedback, check important success parameters such as the click-through rate and optimize your mails in this way so that they become more effective step by step.
No email master has fallen from the sky yet. But with a little practice, diligence and perseverance, you can create exciting, informative and interesting mailings that your readers will enjoy consuming. The potential to convert readers into customers is great. Now it depends on you! Work your way into the topic step by step, put yourself in the shoes of your target audience, and then write useful, entertaining content that you yourself would love to read. That's the secret to successful email marketing. Now it's time for implementation. We hope you have fun with it!
