One of the most powerful digital marketing tactics you can deploy is email marketing. In 2021, 4.03 billion people used email to communicate, and this is estimated to increase to 4.6 billion by 2025.*

Email is a powerful way to reach your prospects. By sending personalized emails with engaging subject lines to a curated list of prospects, you can really boost your marketing plan. But if you’re a new business owner or new to digital marketing, it can seem daunting. So, I’ve compiled 8 beginner tips to help you get started in the arena of email marketing:

1. Determine your audience. When it comes to building email lists, be sure you’re targeting prospects that would be most interested in buying promotional products. When you’re just starting your promo business, consider building an email list of friends, family or local contacts you know. You can also consider attending local networking events in your area or visit local businesses and begin to collect business cards. One important tip is to stay away from purchasing generic lists from companies who claim they can help you reach a huge audience. Build your contact list slow and steady of people you know, have met, or have expressed interest in your business.

 

2. Decide on your content. When thinking about what emails work best for prospects who buy promotional products, it generally falls into 3 categories. One is a sale you might be running on a particular set of products. Another is typically an email centered around an event or holiday like promotional products for graduations or summer promos for July 4th. Lastly, you could consider an email for promoting a specific product or product category like highlighting the hottest apparel trends, for example.

 

3. Write a subject line that captures attention. After you have your content, create a captivating subject line with the goal of getting your audience to open your email. Subject line writing is a whole segment of artistry that you could read millions of articles on if you have the time. But when you’re first starting out, we recommend keeping it concise, personal and conversational. I personally love subject lines that ask a question like: “Do you need promotional T-Shirts like these?” You also want to be sure your subject line matches the content of your email, so you don’t wind up on a spam list. For example, if you’re sending an email about mugs, try to include that in the subject line with something like “We have mugs for every occasion!”. One tip to keep in mind is to try avoiding using words like “free”, “cheap” or “sale”. Words like these could get your email trapped in spam filters, meaning your intended recipient will probably never see it.

 

4. Make it personal. Adding a personal touch like the recipient’s first name or the name of their business is an easy way to increase your open and click-through rates. Recipients are much more likely to interact with something that looks like it was tailored specifically for them, instead of a mass email sent to a huge list of leads. Your email service provider should have an option to add a personalization field into your subject line or email body so it auto-populates from your list.

 

5. Add a call-to-action. When you’re sending an email it's ultimately because you want your recipient to take an action, so make that clear in your message. Try including a button that says, “Show Now” and link the button to your website. Maybe you’re trying to get replies, so you say, “Reply to this email for a quote”. Keep it short and sweet and try to only have one action per email.

 

6. Proofread, then proofread again! This is possibly the biggest nugget of advice we can offer when it comes to email marketing. Read and then re-read the content of your email, the subject line and the sender several times before deploying your email. To be even more thorough, send a test proof to yourself and maybe even a trusted colleague to get more eyes on the email before it sends. This can save you a lot of headaches and a whole lot of embarrassment!

 

7. Track your success. Don’t forget to track your results and adjust your plans accordingly! When you’re using an email marketing platform such as Constant Contact or MailChimp, they’ll give you metrics of success for each email marketing campaign. Your open rate is the percentage of your list that opened your email. This can be a good indicator of how your subject line performed. If your subject line piqued enough interest, people will open your email. The next success metric is click rate, which tells you the percentage of people that clicked on your email. This is a good indicator of how relevant the content of your email was to your audience. Keep an eye on these 2 metrics and they’ll give you hints of what you can adjust or test to get those percentages higher.

 

8. Keep learning by researching email trends. As you get comfortable sending email campaigns, try something new by checking out recent trends! You probably receive several email marketing ads to your personal email every day. Keep an eye on these and start to think about what subject lines typically get you to open an email ad, or language/design elements within an email that you find to be particularly effective. Additionally, you can read up on email marketing trends through blogs published by huge marketing companies like MailChimp, Campaign Monitor and VerticalResponse.

 

What email marketing strategies have you found to be super effective? Hop on our Facebook page and let us know!

 

*Source: Errara, Rob. “Email Usage Statistics: A Look at How We Use Email in 2021.” July 30, 2021. tonerbuzz.com.