Employing an effective email marketing strategy is an essential tool for building up brand awareness.
Many online businesses tend to view email marketing solely in terms of sales, but that’s a short-sided view of what email marketing can really do for you. Email marketing is one of the most cost-effective marketing mediums, offering brands the opportunity to reach loyal customers regularly and directly.
Consumers subscribing to an email list are telling you they want to hear from you so use this to your advantage!
When employed well, email marketing can:
Foster serious customer loyalty by creating direct links with consumers
Leverage ROI of any marketing campaign
Establish a brand as a reliable reference point for consumers
Decrease email list unsubscribe rates
In short, email marketing provides one of the most powerful tools for encouraging long-term habitual interactions with a brand.
You’ve been given a great opportunity – don’t squander it!
Here are some things to keep in mind when developing your email campaign:
Personality and Tone of Voice
Should a brand be serious or friendly? Scientific or colloquial?
The personality of a brand’s marketing communication should be
consistent with all points of contact with the consumer.
By keeping to a tone that is representative of its values a brand will instill confidence and reliability in the eyes of their customers.
Email Campaign Template
People love consistency – especially when scrolling through a full inbox. Building up recognition is the foundation of strong brand awareness and loyalty.
The easiest way to establish this is with an HTML email template that is in line with the company’s objectives.
It is important to consider the following:
Do the fonts, colors, call-to-action and layout match those of the business?
Is the logo being used correctly and is prominent?
Are contact details clear and easy to see?
Does the email message contain a personal signature or the company name?
Email marketing templates are an opportunity to reinforce brand recognition. Making an email instantly recognizable will encourage consumer confidence.
Make Sure That Your Email Campaign Converts
You spend all this time putting together your emails, make sure thy convert.
Put the most effort into your subject line as this will determine whether or not a consumer opens to explore more – you need to grab their attention and pique their interest
Use graphics as these tend to perform better than the text-only transactional emails
Include the company logo prominently as users are more likely to open messages from brands they recognize
Put a compelling image in the top area of the email to convey a brand’s message and engage consumer
Place at least one call-to-action so that the receiver knows exactly what to do
If possible, split test all email campaigns. A split test could include testing a different call-to-action, graphic or layout.
Match the link to the message
The email marketing sales funnel is not complete without ensuring that you are sending the consumer to the right place.
From the customer’s perspective there is nothing worse than being presented with a scintillating offer, eagerly clicking on the call-to-action in the hope of redeeming the offer, only to be directed to a landing page where it’s hard to find the offer or worse still one that doesn’t contain the offer at all.
Keep it simple. Give them what they want.
Avoid Continuous Sales Pitches
Email campaigns are a simple way to communicate that a brand is an authority in their niche, but a brand that is only interested in sales will find that their email drop off rate is high.
By offering solution-focused email content customers will not only remain engaged with the brand but will be eagerly awaiting the next email follow up.
The sales will come later.
Send Emails Regularly
Consistency is key – not just in brand and tone, but also in frequency. Build a calendar and stick to it. Keep track of the days and times of days that convert the highest and incorporate those metrics into your planning. Track everything!
Segment and Personalize
Any company not working on list segmentation and deeper personalization are missing out on a method for solidifying brand awareness. Segmenting an email list into highly targeted micro-segments allows for more customer targeted product marketing.
The benefits for brand awareness include minimizing the unopened email rates, decreasing email list subscriber drop off and fostering confidence in the customer that the brand really understands what each individual customer needs.
Conclusion
The key to developing brand awareness through email marketing lies with consistency, providing solution-focused content, personalization, and highly optimized campaigns.
A well thought out email campaign can run for many months and keep customers coming back for repeat visits and repeat conversions.
If you’re not employing your email marketing strategy to its full potential, it’s time to get to work on content and mailers and start thinking about how to keep those customers coming back.