Do you want to see your business grow in 2022? If you answered yes, it’s time to start thinking about how you’ll market your product and engage with your target audience. Email marketing allows you to do both of these things and so much more.
You may have heard some marketers say that email is dead and social media is the way to go. I’m here to tell you this is not the case. Don’t get me wrong, you need a solid social media marketing strategy if you want to see consistent growth, but email marketing is just as important, if not more.
Email allows you to connect with your audience in unique ways and gives you plenty of opportunities to put your brand’s value proposition on display. If used properly, you can create an email marketing strategy that allows you to turn subscribers into customers while bringing back existing customers for repeat orders.
Today, I will share 5 email marketing tips you can use to prepare your business for 2022. I believe these tips are applicable for business owners across all industries and can truly help you grow.
Let’s dive in!
Actively Segment Your Audience
First, let’s talk about why segmenting your audience can make or break your email marketing strategy. Segmenting is the act of dividing your leads based on interests, goals, or pain points. For instance, an eCommerce store that sells sporting goods would segment its email audience based on each persons’ preferred sport.
This strategy makes it easy to personalize content and offers for your subscribers, which can dramatically impact your success. Research shows that 4 out of 5 shoppers want to engage with businesses that deliver personalized experiences.
There are several ways you can segment your leads before and after they sign up for your email list.
You’ll want to allow users to self-segment while they are filling out a subscription form. I suggest including an optional question after you gather the name and email address of your visitor. If we used the example mentioned above, the form might ask, “Which sports are you interested in?” with the option to choose multiple sports.
It’s also possible to segment your audience based on the lead magnets they decide to download from your website. I suggest creating themed magnets that resonate with different segments of your audience. When you use this strategy, you can separate your audience based on their specific goals and interests.
Segmenting customers is an excellent way to drive engagement and sales. In fact, business owners and marketers who use this strategy tend to see a 14.31% boost to their open rate.
Share User-Generated Content (UGC)
User-generated content (UGC) is defined as any unpaid content shared by one of your customers. So when someone buys a product from your store and raves about their positive experience on social media, their feedback is considered UGC.
UGC can help you build social proof with your subscribers, which can considerably increase engagement, traffic, and sales.
The first step to sharing UGC in your emails is to find out what other people are saying about your product, services, or brand. You’ll want to check your social mentions for positive comments, as well as your inbox across all social media networks.
I also suggest allowing customers to review products directly on your website. This can become an excellent source for UGC. Studies show that 88% of shoppers are influenced by reviews. So, this strategy can help you generate more sales on your site, but what about email?
When it comes to your email marketing strategy, it’s a good idea to make UGC a part of your message, but not the entire email. Imagine you’re emailing subscribers about a flash sale on one of your most popular products. Along with the copy that explains to users why your product or service is worth their time, you can include a section called ‘What other people are saying,’ followed by a few impactful, engaging reviews.
Send a Monthly Newsletter
Have you ever subscribed to an email list, only to get nothing from the business for months at a time? This common occurrence leads to consumers forgetting they ever found a brand in the first place. We don’t have to tell you how this can negatively impact how people engage with your emails.
Instead, let’s talk about what you can do to avoid disappearing into the inbox void. I recommend sending out a monthly newsletter that contains everything from your articles to information on upcoming products or flash sales.
You’ll want to comb through your blog posts for the month and include content that’s relevant to each subset of your audience. content is powerful is in this situation because a whopping 77% of internet users read blog posts. You can convince email subscribers to come back to your website by sharing value-packed posts.
I like to announce flash sales that are only available to our email subscribers. Once our newsletter goes out, readers will see that they can get a percentage off their order (usually 20%) for a limited time if they quickly place an order.
Mobile Optimization is a Must
Did you know that the average person spends around 3 hours and 40 minutes on their smartphone every single day? This startling statistic shows us that mobile optimization is vital for your email marketing strategy.
If someone opens your email and is met with a choppy, disorganized mess because your email isn’t optimized for their device, there’s a good chance they will back out and refuse to open future messages from your business. You never want to put your audience in this predicament.
The good news is there are a few ways you can make sure all of your emails are optimized for subscribers that prefer checking their email with their smartphone.
Most email marketing software comes loaded with pre-made responsive designs specifically for mobile users. When you’re setting up your email campaigns, make sure to use these features to your advantage. You can even create your own mobile template with some applications, which gives you more freedom and flexibility when composing emails for your audience.
You can also improve engagement among mobile users by writing short and impactful subject lines. Smartphones show users a shortened preview when your message hits their inbox. If you want to convince these users to open your email, front-load the headline and preview with information that will compel visitors to click-through and read your message.
A/B Test Everything
Finally, let’s talk about the importance of A/B testing. Simply put, A/B testing is the process of making incremental changes to your strategy to achieve stronger results. For example, a business owner may test their forms by removing unnecessary fields in an attempt to get more conversions.
There are quite a few ways to test your email strategy and gradually improve performance. One of the easiest things to split test is your subject line. If you try two different subject lines for the same email, and one dramatically outperforms the other, you can learn what kind of phrasing resonates with your subscribers.
Similarly, you can split test the offers you include inside your marketing emails. In this example, you’ll want to pay attention to which promotion leads to more subscribers making a purchase.
We’ve learned a lot about our target audience and their interests through A/B testing. I’ve found that you should let each test run for at least two weeks. You don’t want to make a decision before you have enough data.
You’ll likely see more engagement and conversions as you make changes to your emails through A/B testing because your content matches what subscribers expect from your business.
Final Thoughts
It’s clear that email marketing is here to stay. If you want to grow your business and get more people to engage with your emails next year, the tips offered here today will get you started.
It’s worth mentioning that you should continually monitor your email analytics so you can understand how your audience chooses to engage with your content. As your brand grows, you’ll undoubtedly come up with plenty of clever ways to take your email marketing strategy to the next level.
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Syed Balkhi is an award-winning entrepreneur and online marketing expert. He is the co-founder of OptinMonster, WPBeginner, MonsterInsights, and WPForms.