A Digital Marketer planning an email marketing campaign

How to create exceptional email marketing campaigns in 5 steps

Email marketing is still one of the most successful ways of generating leads for B2B businesses. They are a fantastic way of generating business for B2C businesses too. Anyone can send emails, but it takes skill to send ones that resonate with an audience enough to keep them subscribed, yet alone purchase a product or service. Here is how you can get one step closer to achieving your email marketing goals, with these five easy steps.

Create attention-grabbing, concise subject lines

To create the best subject lines, you must put yourself in the shoes of your email recipients. There are countless email apps and providers, each with their own way of displaying emails. It is because of this that your attention-grabbing subject line is kept short and to the point. Email marketing platform Mailchimp suggest you use no more than 9 words or 60 characters, but in my personal experience, the fewer, the better. If you can get your message across in less than 5 words, you are making it easier and easier for your reader to consume and understand.

Avoid giving too much away, make your readers want more

This is probably one of the most important rules you should stick to. It can be so tempting to write out a great article going into detail about a certain topic, which make your subscribers happy – but if you are giving them everything they want, they will not go searching for more. If your goal is to generate a lead or make a sale, encourage your readers to finish the rest of your article on your website. That way, they are encouraged to visit more pages and learn more about what you offer.

A person receiving marketing emails through their phone

Find the perfect balance between quality and quantity

Sending campaigns daily or even biweekly can frustrate your subscribers, even the ones with the most interest. It is important to drip feed content, not force it upon them. Sending a brilliant campaign once a week is going to resonate better than 5 average ones. Quality over quantity. This is essential in keeping your unsubscribe rate as low as possible. Only you can find out what the best balance is for your company, however.

Integrate your call-to-action (CTA), try not to bolt it on at the bottom

Your call-to-action is the single most important part of your email; without the ability to learn more, sign up or purchase a product, your email marketing campaigns are not going to be a useful part of your digital marketing strategy. How your call-to-action is implemented is important. A lot of email marketing campaigns tend to place their call-to-action towards the end of every email, creating a clear divide between your sales pitch and your content. You must remember that most people do not read the full email, so by placing your call-to-action at the end, you are missing out on many potential conversions. You can be clever with your implementation; try to drop hints about what you offer in the context of the main body of the email.

Try to keep your word count low but do not sacrifice quality

Research shows that some of the most successful email marketing campaigns contain some sort of media, such as video. If people have opened your email, you are lucky if you still have their attention past the first few lines of text. A video software company found that using video in email marketing led to a 300% increase in click-through rates. People do not mind reading, but sometimes they just do not want to keep reading, or in a B2B scenario, sometimes they just do not have time to keep reading. Try to mix things up with some moving parts – but avoid sacrificing on quality just to achieve these goals.

Conclusion

Try to remember that, to stand out among the crowd, you must do something differently. People remember things that are out of the ordinary, and if you are unique and excelling in your own area, you will be remembered, and your company will be considered down the line for potential business. Create those concise and impactful subject lines, find that perfect balance between quality and quantity, intelligently integrate your call-to-action and try not to write too much. Good luck out there, fellow marketers.