Email Marketing for Businesses and Charities: Tips For Success

Email remains a core component of your digital marketing toolkit, here are some tips for making sure it works for you. 

Email marketing: a brief overview

Email marketing is all about capturing the email addresses of potential customers for your business, or donors for your charity, and then using these to stay in touch with the goal of driving people towards taking actions that benefit your organisation.

Sometimes those actions can be very near-term, other times they require a longer period of nurturing.

Email marketing works so well because it provides you with a way to communicate with people directly, on a two-way basis, in a timely and personalised manner.

According to research by Litmus, email marketing delivers a strong ROI - an average return of $40 for every $1 spent. Statista tells us that 77% of B2B buyers prefer to receive marketing communications by email, while SalesCycle suggests that 59% of purchasing decisions made by consumers are influenced by marketing emails.

There's more on list building here, some insights into using your website as a lead generation tool by providing more conversion choices here, and a deep dive into nurturing with email marketing here.

Top tips for successful email marketing

Grouped into 7 key areas, these hints, tips, hacks, and tricks will help you make the most of your email marketing for your business or charity.

1. List Building

Opt-in forms; Placement is key: Experiment with pop-ups, embedded forms, and dedicated landing pages.

Incentivise sign-ups: Offer lead magnets like free ebooks, checklists, exclusive content, or discounts.

Mobile optimisation: Ensure forms are responsive and easy to use on any device.

Content upgrades: Offer exclusive bonus content related to your blog posts in exchange for email subscriptions.

Social media promotion: Run contests, use targeted ads, and include clear calls to action to drive followers to your sign-up forms.

Offline list building: Collect emails at events, conferences, or in-store with tablets or sign-up sheets.

2. Improving Open Rates

Subject lines: Keep them concise and intriguing. Aim for 6-10 words and use power words that evoke curiosity.

Personalisation: Use the recipient's name or location etc to increase relevance.

A/B testing: Experiment with different subject line variations to see what resonates best with your audience.

Avoid spam triggers: Refrain from using excessive exclamation marks, all caps, or misleading phrases.

Sender name: Use a recognisable name that builds trust and avoids confusion.

Preheader text: Utilise the preview text to provide a compelling reason to open the email.

Sending time: Experiment with different days and times to find when your audience is most engaged. Consider using tools to automate this

3. Getting More Clicks

Compelling call to actions (CTAs): Use clear and actionable language such as 'Shop Now,' 'Learn More,' 'Download Here.'

Manage expectations: Tell people exactly what will happen when they click - will they go straight to a product page on your ecommerce website, find information, and will their download trigger straight away or will they need to visit their email inbox again?

Design standout buttons: Use contrasting colours and whitespace to make them prominent.

Include multiple CTAs: Repeat your CTA throughout the email.

Engaging email content: Use visuals - break up text with images, GIFs, or videos to enhance visual appeal.

Place testimonials near CTA buttons: provide 'social proof' to reassure people that clicking results in something good.

Keep it concise and scannable: Use headings, bullet points, and short paragraphs.

Personalise content: Segment your audience and tailor messages based on their interests and intent.

Mobile optimisation: Ensure emails are responsive and that links and buttons are easily clickable on mobile devices.

4. Segmentation and Personalisation

Demographic segmentation: Group subscribers based on age, gender, location, etc.

Behavioural segmentation: Segment based on past purchases, website activity, or email engagement.

Interest-based segmentation: Create segments based on expressed preferences or content interactions.

Personalised content: Tailor email content, offers, and recommendations based on segment characteristics.

Dynamic content: Use technology to automatically display different content to different segments within the same email.

5. Email Marketing Automation

Welcome email series: Automate a series of emails to nurture new subscribers and introduce them to your brand. It's CRITICAL that people who join your email lists receive some correspondence from you soon after, or they'll quickly become disenfranchised.

Abandoned cart emails: Send automated reminders to customers who left items in their shopping cart.

Post-purchase or donation follow-up: Automate emails to thank customers, provide order updates, and request feedback.

Re-engagement campaigns: Target inactive subscribers with personalised emails to rekindle their interest.

6. Analysing and Improving Performance

Key metrics: Track open rates, click-through rates (CTR), conversion rates, and unsubscribe rates.

A/B testing: Experiment with different email elements to identify what drives the best results.

Email analytics: Use analytics platforms to gain insights into subscriber behaviour and campaign performance.

Regularly review and refine: Continuously analyse your data and make adjustments to optimise your email marketing strategy

7. Email Deliverability

This is a critical aspect of email marketing that often gets overlooked. It focuses on ensuring your emails actually reach your subscribers' inboxes instead of getting lost in spam folders or bounced back.

Maintain a clean email list: Regularly remove inactive or invalid email addresses to improve sender reputation.

Authenticate your domain: Implement SPF, DKIM, and DMARC authentication protocols to verify your sender identity.

Monitor your sender score: Track your sender reputation and address any issues that may be affecting your deliverability.

Avoid spam triggers: Familiarise yourself with common spam triggers in email content and subject lines.

Use a reputable email service provider (ESP): Choose an ESP with a strong track record of deliverability and robust infrastructure. This blog contains our list of the Top 10.

Warm up your IP address: Gradually increase your email sending volume if you're using a new IP address to establish a good sender reputation.

Provide an unsubscribe option: Make it easy for subscribers to opt out of your emails to comply with regulations and avoid spam complaints.

BONUS TIPS!

Always ask people who unsubscribe if they really meant to: people sometimes make mistakes and unsubscribe from emails when they didn't mean to. So, whenever someone hits 'unsubscribe' automatically email them to ask if it was intentional and explain how they can reverse it if so.

Treat unsubscriptions as an opportunity: as well as making sure people aren't unsubscribing in error, use your automated email to try and cross-sell or upsell something (it may be your last chance).

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