Email is an essential part of your digital marketing strategy. Unlike with other channels, such as social media or paid advertisements, everyone checks their emails on a regular basis. Not only is it a cost effective method for building relationships, it often has a higher conversion rate than other channels, as your subscribers have opted in as “hand raisers”.
On Tuesday, May 12, PartySlate CEO and Co-Founder, Julie Roth Novack, hosted a digital event that shed light on the power of email marketing, along with five best practices for a strong open rate. PartySlate Senior Director of Marketing Lauren Mandel joined in to share PartySlate’s own email marketing strategies.
To get started, Julie explained how important it is to select your marketing email platform, such as MailChimp or Constant Contact. After that, it’s essential to define and segment your target audiences — as clients versus prospective clients will be interested in different information. Lastly, you will want to create your content strategy and schedule for optimal organization.
When it comes to best practices, Julie notes that the first step is writing engaging email subject lines. Adding personalization, along with a thoughtful question and powerful language, will draw attention to your email and make people want to read what’s inside. Aside from the sender, the subject line is the biggest reason why clients choose to open an email.
The second important step is to segment and personalize your emails. Segmentation keeps it relevant to the participant, while personalizing content drives up engagement. Simply naming who referred a company, for example, results in three times the engagement compared to a generic campaign.
The third step focuses on offering value to incentivize action. Offering a free consulting session or educational content, for instance, gives your targeted audience a reason to engage with the email. Other forms of valuable content include webinars and trend articles.
The fourth step is to create a clear call to action (CTA). Before you send out an email, it’s essential to know what exact action you want people to take after opening it. While too many CTAs can dilute your messaging, it’s important to include multiple CTA formats — such as text and buttons — to achieve your objective.
The fifth and final step is to invest in great design. Make sure to keep the most important information up front and center. Always choose your best and most visually-arresting photos. It is also equally important to optimize your emails for mobile devices, as people often check their emails on the go.
Julie goes on to inform listeners on how to grow their email list and measure their email performance. She ends the digital event with a detailed email marketing action plan that you can use to create a successful email marketing strategy.
If you are interested in receiving an email strategy template or a list of email examples that follow best practices, please send us a request via email.
You can watch the full digital event recording below, or open the recording with YouTube.