When it comes to marketing, you have many tools available for reaching your customers.

You can use print ads, billboards, radio spots, Google Ads, and TV commercials. However, one form of advertising remains highly effective when it comes to expanding customer awareness and closing sales.

We’re talking about email marketing. Your target market carries their cell phones everywhere, even into the bathroom.

Guess what? Most of them look at their email constantly each time they swipe their phones open. That means an email can reach thousands of potential customers at any time with just one click.

If you’re looking for a way to get your message out without spending big bucks on expensive ad campaigns, try investing in an e-newsletter campaign today.

In this article, you’ll learn what’s required to create an effective email marketing strategy.

What’s an Email Marketing Strategy?

An email marketing strategy is a blueprint for how to use email newsletters in your business to help broaden customer awareness and increase sales.

It might include simple things like creating a list of topics customers seem interested in. Or, it can turn more complex, including subscriber preferences based on demographics and how well they respond to your emails.

Why You Should Invest in an Email Marketing Strategy

Don’t you already have a marketing strategy? You might think, “I do!” but perhaps it doesn’t work as effectively as it should.

Think about this: You pay for that single issue only if you send out a print ad. If it doesn’t perform well, you try something new the next time around.

Next, think about your email marketing strategy. You don’t have to worry about dead trees or printing presses generating an expensive bill at your business each month because subscribers are paying you directly with their attention.

If you don’t invest anything in email marketing, you’re making less profit because your customers are getting distracted by email campaigns sent out by competitors.

Why should you set aside money for email marketing?

Simple: You can increase conversions and grow relationships with current clients to help them become raving fans.

That’s why email marketing is vital to your company’s growth.

How to Create an Effective Email Marketing Strategy

The main reason for creating a strategy is that it helps identify who your target audience is. That information determines what content to include in your emails. To do this, use these steps.

Step 1 - Identify Your Best Fit Clients

Start your process by building a list of potential customers. These are people showing interest in your business, whether they’ve purchased from you before or clicked on one of your ads.

Your email newsletter is not for random visitors to your website or social media pages. It’s meant for the people who trust and like you enough to opt into the list.

Step 2 - Build a List of Email Subscribers

Once you’ve identified the people in your audience most likely to opt-in and eventually buy from you, it’s time to find them.

You can start by looking through your website analytics to see where people engage with your website. Do they keep scrolling down to the footer after reading an article or blog post? Do you see them clicking through to specific pages on your site?

Strategically place email newsletter opt-in forms and popups on your website to capture new subscribers.

Step 3 - Segment Your List from the Beginning

As you build your list, make sure to group them in a way that makes it easier to send personalized information. For example, you might want to create lists based on which articles they read on the website.

You can set up these segments through an email service provider like Upscribe. A tool like this also helps you send bulk emails, track subscriber activity, and more.

Step 4 - Map Out the Best Time to Send Your Newsletter

You can use your chosen email service provider to schedule when to send your newsletters. Different readers want different things from their inboxes. Many will judge an email by its timestamp.

If your newsletter arrives in the early morning, it’s probably going to get devoured by the early-bird style readers. On the other hand, afternoon emails can sometimes work better for particular niches.

Use analytics to find when your audience is most likely to open emails

Step 5 - Plan for Delivering Successful Emails

Your audience is looking for helpful information and helpful tips. Find out what they’re interested in by closely monitoring their behavior on your website or social media pages.

Look at how long they stay on a page, what kind of posts they click on, and other such metrics. Use this information to decide which types of content you’ll include in your newsletter.

Remember, you can’t please everyone all of the time. Don’t get discouraged if you send out a newsletter and it’s not well-received or experiences more unsubscribe than expected. Make changes to your following newsletter and see what happens.

Send Quality Content in Each Email

Let’s review more tips about how to maintain high-quality email marketing content.

Avoid Extremely Long Emails

One important email marketing strategy is to keep your newsletter short. Make it easy for readers to get the main idea of what you’re sending out.

Every email should include valuable content. The word “valuable” doesn’t necessarily mean “short.” However, some people can ramble on and take up too much time with their messages.

Instead of writing at length, try using bullet points and short, concise sentences. If you don’t want to go through and edit your emails yourself, use a tool like Hemingway App to help tighten up your writing style for optimal results.

Remember How People Read Emails

People read their email differently depending on which device they’re using and even when they receive it. Some subscribers might read your newsletter all at once. Others might see your message but need to do other things in the meantime.

Do you think you do need to send long content once in a while? Consider breaking up your message into several parts and releasing them one at a time. A process like this allows you to keep each email message more manageable to digest. It also creates anticipation for subscribers to receive the next email.

Use Plenty of White Space

Another essential strategy is to add plenty of white space to your newsletters. This makes it easier for people to read and enjoy what you’ve written.

If you include a few short paragraphs with blank space in between, readers can process the information without getting overwhelmed by all the text.

Include Useful Images and Videos

Another simple email marketing strategy is to include images and video. Sprinkling in video or pictures helps to keep your emails shorter. It also gives your readers more reason to click through and explore the messages you’re sending out.

Overall, adding images and video helps you impact your audience by providing content that breaks up the written copy.

Include Links to Valuable Content

A final strategy is to include links for readers to access additional content about the message you’re sending. If someone is reading an email about sunscreen, for example, they might want to know where they can buy it or how to use it correctly.

Include calls-to-action in your emails and give readers a chance to learn more about something that interests them. If they click on a link, this will help you maintain a strong customer base that continues to interact with your brand.

Pay Attention to Your Subject Lines

Commit to studying copywriting. Apply what you learn to the email content you send inside your newsletter. Use it primarily with your subject lines. You must write engaging subject lines to encourage subscribers to open your emails if you expect to build a winning email marketing strategy.

Measure Success Using Analytics

After every campaign, it’s important to measure how successful your efforts ended up. You should keep notes about what you did and improve your email marketing strategy with each campaign.

One way to measure success is by using analytics tools like Google Analytics. You can see how many people are clicking through to read your messages. It also provides data about what kinds of devices they’re using to read your newsletter.

Measure the success of your emails by the number of people who click through, read your message, or share it with friends.

Conclusion

These tips should help you get started on your path to creating a winning email marketing strategy. When you do this right, your customers will look forward to opening up their inboxes and seeing what you have for them every day (or every other day).

Keep in mind that email marketing success doesn’t happen overnight. It takes time and patience to build a successful email list that can benefit your business.

However, if you’re serious about email marketing, you can eventually see tangible profits each time you send out your newsletter to engaged subscribers.