Emailing is perhaps easy to learn but tough to master. As one of the most common digital marketing tools, it will become your bread and butter, and finding a way to engage customers with it will be a painstaking journey. And though we cannot give you a certified cure-all, we will try our best to help you with the road ahead.

This article will present not-so-subtle hints while keeping it real about email marketing. Let’s unmask emailing together.

YOUR BUSINESS, YOUR WAY

Regarding emailing strategy, there are just a few things to keep an eye on. But let’s not sugarcoat this – nobody, neither us nor any other blog out there, will offer bullet-proof strategies or hand out secret sauces for your particular brand. Because, you know, it is your brand, after all.

Well, why read this article, then? Because when you realize there are no shortcuts to making your own emailing shine, you are finally free of doubt and ready to do the work. Nevertheless, you still should be aware of all the possible tools, pitfalls, and angles to consider when tackling your emailing odyssey.

THE FICKLE WISDOM OF EMAILING

Some of these might seem somewhat broad statements, but we don’t want you to lose the bigger picture. Let’s get straight to the point.

1. Keep Your Own Counsel

If we did not stress this enough in the intro, here goes again: adhere only to your standards, and follow only your goals. Your agenda should be on your mind constantly, even though keeping an eye on current trends is necessary. 

Take every piece of advice (even this one, apparently) with a grain of salt: your customers have the final word. The same goes for competition; therefore, be cautious when taking inspiration from them. What might work for them does not have to work for you.

Set your emailing goals straight from the beginning. Believe it or not, simply writing your priorities on a whiteboard works wonders: keep it in sight. What do you want to achieve with your emailing? Product promotion, conversion, or building relationships with your customers? 

2. The Golden Middle Way

The following might as well be solid life advice generally, but here we are. Set conceptual extremes and always aim for the sweet spot in the center. This especially applies to audience segmentation, which must be precisely targeted but also large enough to matter. 

You may have stellar open rates, but you’re just chasing the stats if your target segment is a minor fraction of your whole customer base. Don’t be afraid of slightly worse numbers – you want to convert and retain as many customers as possible to make profits, right?

3. Don’t Leave the Customers Hanging

You don’t get to slack off when you fire up that email channel. Know your work capacity, the end goal, and your limitations. Communication must be consistent and stable but also manageable in crises. Do not bite off more than you can chew: you may end up better with a weekly newsletter than with a daily one.

Even in the worst-case scenario (turbulent times, sudden gap in staff capacity), you still need to keep the emailing going. Especially if emailing is the lifeblood of your digital marketing, strive for a reasonable strategy that can withstand sudden shocks to its integrity. Needless to say, some buffer emails go a long way. Have at least a few templates ready.

Restarting stagnant communication is a nightmare, a costly nightmare at that: if you suddenly send an email after a half-year hibernation, would your customers really care or even remember you? Gaining their trust would usually mean lots of careful customer interaction and additional effort from your marketers.

4. Segmentation with Common Sense

Segment your customers only so it makes sense business-wise. Consider your product specifications and how they can improve your customers’ lives. For example, imagine criteria like these when segmenting.

• Problems – what absence, what shortage do your customers experience, what do they lack, and what can you provide to alleviate that lack? Don’t just throw irrelevant product recommendations randomly at every customer: figure out ways to actually take care of their problems. It sounds logical, right? Sometimes the simplest solutions do the trick.
• Interest – what do your customers wish to do, and how can you provide it (or facilitate it)? Suggest awesome biker trip locations if your brand is oriented towards motorcycles and accessories. You don’t have to constantly push the product down your customers’ throats. Be useful and offer handy tips, maybe some little product recommendations on the side to supplement your content. 
• Activity – what are your customers doing in their free time? What is the everyday life of your customers? Possessing valuable personal data of your customers (profession, marital status, etc.) gained from surveys or zero-party data helps tremendously deduce what type of product/service they would enjoy and use in their free time.

5. Keep a Clean House

Email hygiene is an essential and oftentimes overlooked discipline. Keeping a squeaky-clean database is a must if you wish to optimize your email communication: no long-lost customers, duplicates, or wrong addresses. You’ll have to keep your reputation intact and deliverability in norms, thus keeping your affairs in order. No matter the business you manage.

As far as acquisition comes, consider double opt-in and complement it with additional validation, thus making sure your emails will hit the mark. 

Also, do not be afraid to lose the contacts that go cold: when your (now ex-)customer does not buy in a certain period of time, automatically remove them from your communication. The period itself varies according to the product, but the standard practice is waiting 2 years and then (regretfully) severing that connection. 

We recommend setting up an automation workflow for these interactions, which would send an incentive as a last attempt to revive the customer and potentially delete marketing consent if the customer really goes “cold.” And if automation is what you seek, we have just the thing.

ONE FINAL STEP

That wasn’t so hard, was it? Again, do not take these as absolutes, but always be on the lookout and exercise prudence. And since personalization and automation will be your best friends in the upcoming emailing quest, consider CDP CareCloud, which can significantly help you carry all that weight. Segmentation, automation, and email designer, all in one package.

There is no better companion on your emailing odyssey than CareCloud.