When you think of it, email marketing looks pretty simple. But don’t be fooled – it’s still an incredibly effective and powerful marketing tool. As such, learning email marketing in 2023 is a must if you want to stay competitive.
With “the number of active email users forecasted to reach 4.6 billion in 2025”, email marketing will remain an invaluable asset for businesses and entrepreneurs alike. The right email strategy can help you build relationships with existing customers and acquire new ones. As such, it is key for any brand trying to increase ROI and acquire more leads.
Staying up-to-date with the most recent trends to choosing the best email marketing software, there’s a lot to learn when it comes to email marketing.
But here’s the drill: to excel at email marketing, you need to invest in the right email marketing software — not just the best in the market.
Choose the right software, especially when scaling!
As a business that is on a hockey stick growth, you must choose email marketing tools that can handle the growth in the number of contacts, campaigns, and emails.
ActiveCampaign, for example, is excellent for marketing automation. But it is not always the ideal software for agencies on a growth trajectory, and that needs a lot more to scale.
Looking at ActiveCampaign platform alternatives — HighLevel, SharpSpring, ClickFunnels, Keap, Mailchimp, SendX, AWeber, and ConvertKit are worth considering as well.
Every email marketing software in the market comes with a set of features, most of which fall into these five essential areas:
- Automation & Triggers
- Segmentation
- Personalization
- A/B Testing
- Analytics & Insights
But depending on your specific needs and goals, you may also need some more specific features. For example, abandoned cart reminders, email list cleaning & verification, dynamic content personalization, drag & drop email builders, email addresses search, and more.
As you start to evaluate different software options, consider what features you need and the associated email marketing cost.
Lastly, as good advice be sure to choose reliable and secure software. You need an email marketing tool that won’t have any security breaches or outages.
Now that you have the basics out of the way, let’s get into the nitty-gritty details. Here are some essential email marketing skills to know in 2023.
Think strategically
Email marketing is more than just about sending emails — you need to have a clear plan and objectives for your strategy.
Ask yourself: what is the purpose of your emails? What are your recipients’ needs and desires? Set specific goals and objectives and define what you want to achieve with each email sent.
Know your target audience
Goes without saying, but it is important to get to know your target audience.
Who are they? What are their interests? Knowing your target audience will help you create emails tailored to their needs and interests. As an example, you can segment your email list according to location, job title, gender, age, etc. This is more effective than sending out generic emails. After all, everyone likes to feel recognized for their individual needs and interests.
Brush up copywriting skills
You need to be able to write short, persuasive, and captivating emails.
When writing email subject lines, keep things interesting and eye-catching — try to think of something that makes the recipient want to open it, but not too clickbait-y. Your email body should be written in a way that’s informative, engaging, and interesting. Use persuasive yet natural-sounding language — no one likes to be ‘sold to’.
Keep up with the trends
To stay ahead of your competition, stay up-to-date with the latest trends in email marketing.
What are the trends for email design? What about email automation? Is the latest email marketing tool worth investing in? Keeping tabs on the latest trends will help you stay ahead of the curve and make sure your emails stand out and feel relevant to your customers. The top blogs to follow are — Litmus Blog, Iterable’s blog, SendGrid Email Deliverability Blog, EmailOctopus blog, and Klayvio blog.
Track them, always
Data is key to success.
You should track click-through rates, open rates, unsubscribe rates, and all other metrics related to the performance of your emails. By monitoring the data, you will know what works and what doesn’t and be able to make tweaks and adjustments to your email strategy. For instance, if you’re noticing that your open rates are dropping, you might want to rethink your email subject lines or add more visuals or gifs to your emails. It is all about testing different approaches and optimizing your email campaigns
Go beyond email
Email marketing doesn’t end with emails.
Don’t forget about other forms of communication like social media, webinars, live events, and special offers. Integrate these channels into your email strategy and find out what works better for your target audience. A well-crafted cross-channel email strategy can significantly increase the success of your campaigns.
Manage lists effectively
It is important to have separate email lists for different groups or topics.
For instance, one list should be for people who have watched a webinar and another one for customers who have made a purchase. Having well-segmented lists helps you send personalized emails, increase engagement, and show your recipients that you recognize their individual preferences.
User experience matters too
Make sure your emails look great on any device — desktop, mobile, and tablet — no matter the size.
Email design and usability have come a long way and your recipients will expect the best when it comes to design and user experience. For instance, using dynamic text sizes, buttons, and typography can improve readability and user experience.
Build genuine relationships
No, we are not talking about the ‘Dear name’ kind of emails use for building relationships.
We are talking about genuine, personalized interactions that show your customers that you truly care. Make sure you know your customers’ names, interests, and any other personal details that can help you better understand them.
You can also use personalized automated emails that are triggered when a customer takes certain actions and replies to customer emails in a timely manner.
As a classic example, for an e-commerce store, you can send out a personalized follow-up email 48 hours after a customer has purchased something, thanking them for their purchase and offering customer service.
Small things like this will help you build trust and loyalty with your customers.
Nurture those relationships and watch your email campaigns soar.
Update your HTML and CSS Knowledge
This might sound intimidating to you particularly if you are a non-developer. But HTML and CSS are essential for coding emails and webpages.
Keeping track of best practices and updating your knowledge of HTML and CSS is essential for success in email marketing. Thankfully, there are plenty of tutorials available online to help you sharpen your HTML and CSS skills. This in particular is an area of email marketing that isn’t going away anytime soon, and it would be worthwhile to invest time and energy into learning the basics.
Email protection and authentication
In order to keep your email campaigns safe from malicious attacks — you need to make sure your emails are authenticated and encrypted.
You should also be aware of recent developments in email authentication protocols like SMTP, SPF, DKIM, and DMARC to prevent email spoofing and phishing attempts.
These are just a few tips to help get you on the right track to becoming an email marketing expert. There are plenty of additional methods and tricks to learn, and the best way to do that is to keep learning and keep trying different strategies.
Email protection and authentication
In order to keep your email campaigns safe from malicious attacks — you need to make sure your emails are authenticated and encrypted.
You should also be aware of recent developments in email authentication protocols like SMTP, SPF, DKIM, and DMARC to prevent email spoofing and phishing attempts.
These are just a few tips to help get you on the right track to becoming an email marketing expert. There are plenty of additional methods and tricks to learn, and the best way to do that is to keep learning and keep trying different strategies.
Collect customer feedback
In order to make sure your email campaigns are up to your recipients’ expectations, you need to collect customer feedback.
Ask customers what they would like to see in your emails and make sure you take those suggestions into consideration when creating future campaigns. You can also collect feedback through surveys and A/B testing — make sure to track the results.
Become an expert with email-specific technology
It is important to learn how each email-specific technology works.
If you are familiar with specific marketing automation software, you’ll be able to understand the nuances and potential of each program to best leverage them for your campaigns. Similarly, you should become familiar with your email deliverability platform — understand the different techniques for increasing your deliverability rate and ensure your emails reach the inbox and not the spam folder.
Become an email marketing pro
2023 is here — and it is a great time to start investing in your email marketing goals and practices. Don’t let your campaigns suffer due to a lack of knowledge.
Take the time to learn, experiment, and master the techniques of email marketing. Keep an eye on the latest trends and techniques, and invest your time and energy in becoming an email marketing pro.
And don’t forget to invest in the right email automation technology to help you maximize your results!
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