Secret Email Marketing Tricks Used by the Pros

We all know what an email does and what it looks like to receive one. Most of us would say we receive WAY too many emails in a given day. How do we ensure that our emails are the ones people look forward to and want to engage with?

It’s as simple as sending the right email to the right people at the right time. It sounds pretty straightforward, right? But if it were this easy, many of us wouldn’t dread checking our inboxes.

Following are our top email marketing tips to help you get the most out of your next email campaign.

Sending Your Email To The Right People

We’ll start by considering the audience you’d like to target with your email. You never want to send an email to an unintended audience. Under some circumstances, sending the wrong email message to an incorrect audience can damage your reputation. Understandably, many of us have accidentally emailed the wrong person or forgot to copy someone important in the carbon copy area. Now, consider the repercussions of multiplying that mistake by hundreds, thousands, or more by mass emailing an incorrect message to your entire email list!

Build a Targeted, High-Quality List 

To ensure you are sending your email to the right group, we recommend segmenting your entire database list based on specific parameters. If you are using a solid CRM or email marketing system, it should allow you to segment your list by data points. For example, you might want to email only people within a specific state or, based on how recently you’ve communicated with them. People who have recently heard from you will be more likely to open and read your email than people who haven’t heard from you in quite some time.

Sending Your Email At The Right Time

If you send emails at the wrong time, people might miss it in their inbox. Consider the last time you received a flood of emails. Did you read through all of them? Or did you mark them as “read” and then move on with your day?

Other people do the same thing. The trick is knowing what times to avoid sending your email and what times are the most popular with your intended audience. 

Specific Date & Time

For any email campaign, you’ll want to consider the timing. When is your audience most likely to open your email? Are there any geographical barriers? For example, Are you planning to send an email based on your time zone or factoring in where your customers reside? Pre-scheduling is a great way to plan your email campaign to go out at an optimal time, even if you are still sleeping! Consider the following when planning an optimal date and time to send your emails: 

• What is the busiest time of day to avoid?
  • Lunchtime might be too busy to send an email based on the volume of other people’s emails during the lunch hour. 
    
• When is your customer most likely to read and respond to emails?
  • If you’re dealing with business owners, early morning might be a decent time. Or late at night. But during the day? They’re likely away from their desk and too busy, meaning your email will get buried by the day’s end and be hard to see.
    
• What’s the best day of the Week to send an email?
  • Tuesdays, Wednesdays, and Thursdays are often the best days for open and click-through rates. Why? People are just trying to get through the inbox on Monday, and on Friday, people are trying to wrap up the week!

A Word About Automation

For those of you dealing with an even more advanced email system, there are email campaigns you can create that automatically run! Consider this – for any forms on your website, you can set up an automatic string of emails. That’s right, your emails send automatically, without you having to hit “send!” 

And since we are relying on automation, you can pre-plan the timing so your emails always go out at an appropriate follow-up time–which will improve your open rates! Before setting up automation, make sure you plan for your automation campaign, test the emails by sending them to yourself, and make sure everything looks and sounds good in advance of publishing.

Sending the Right Email

Since we’ve discussed the importance of sending your email to the right people and also at the right time, now comes another critical step: the creation of the email.

Subject Lines

Subject lines are the first thing people will see when deciding whether or not to read your email. So, your subject line needs to be engaging. You’ll want to consider what will spur someone to take that extra action. For example, we recommend alluding to something they will get out of opening up your email. Keep this in mind: WIIFM (What’s in it for me?)

Here are a few sample email subject lines designed to evoke an emotional appeal:

Example 1: Is Your Boat Ready for Winter?

Example 2:  Are You Prepared for a Water Emergency?

Example 3: Get More Quality Time with the Kids This Summer

Main Email Content

You could have the best audience, timing, and subject line in the world, but if the content of your email isn’t engaging, that’s where it all ends. Within an email, you must ensure it looks good, and the words bring value to your customers. 

Design

Beauty may be in the eye of the beholder, but there are still a few big no-nos to avoid.

• Stick to your overall brand colors. You should have at most five colors in your email. Rainbows may look pretty but won’t represent your brand very well overall. Too many colors are distracting and will make reading the email difficult.
  
• Stay organized! A cluttered email is difficult to read and will result in readers getting lost.
  
• Use appropriate images to help appeal to your audience.
  

Written Content

You’ll want to avoid big, blocky textbook text. This kind of stuff is tedious and difficult to read.

• Consider quick and easy bullet points or lists
  
• Get to the point
  
• Stay on topic, and match the subject line

Calls To Action

Consider what actions you want your reader to take. You should avoid asking for too many steps – you don’t wish to invite “analysis paralysis” by offering too many options. The more prominent you make ONE call to action in the email, the better your odds are that your recipient will take action. If you want a phone call, prompt your customers in the test, and put a big CALL ME button prominently in the middle of the email.

Leverage Email Marketing For Your Dealership

Email marketing is often an overlooked way to propel your business forward. When done correctly, email marketing is an ideal way to market your business as part of your overall remarketing strategy. Remarketing is a cost-effective way to increase your sales, as you are targeting customers already familiar with your brand instead of introducing yourself to cold leads.

Email Remarketing Is One of the Most Cost Effective Ways to Increase Your Sales

Additionally, it can be generally easy to grow your email marketing efforts over time. Say you only have 100 emails – think about how many people you’ve sold to in the last month. Add that to your list. Then think about next month and add that on. Consider over time the size of an email list you could get each year – it doesn’t take much to build an extensive email list that allows you to have a vast, engaged audience!

Remember, successful email marketing is not about quantity but quality. Focus on building relationships, providing value, and understanding your audience needs to create email campaigns that people genuinely look forward to engaging with.

If you are struggling with your marketing efforts, don’t worry! We can help you–whether you are looking for consultation-only, help with your email marketing setup, or complete email marketing services, including help with the following:

• Email List Segmentation consultation
• Design and training of drag-and-drop email templates
• Creation of targeted, automated email blasts & drip campaigns
• Schedule email blasts for specific times, dates, or segmented leads
• Create & schedule targeted drip campaigns for specific segmented leads

Contact us to schedule a free consultation on your digital marketing strategy today!