You can achieve your business goals by implementing just one thing: email marketing best practices.
Of course, you need to do it right, but having a highly targeted email list gives you a direct line to your target audience. Marketers can also use it to connect with their current customers to retain them.
As an agency owner dealing with B2B email clients, the rules are slightly different for you.
In this article, we’ll first cover the most common email marketing mistakes agencies make, along with helpful tips to help you need your email marketing campaigns.
3 Most Common Agency Mistakes With Cold Emailing
We get it: Cold emailing isn’t easy – but it doesn’t have to be very difficult.
There can be many reasons why your cold email strategy isn’t working. Below, we’ve compiled a list of the top three errors.
Mistake 1: Focusing on a Long but Not a Current Email List
Your email list is the heart of your email marketing campaign. And to ensure a steady heartbeat, you need interested subscribers.
While agencies know not to add any Tom, Dick, and Harry to their email list, they often forget to focus on keeping the email list current. Your email list should comprise people who are genuinely interested in what you have to offer and won’t be tempted to hit the unsubscribe button or worse — mark your email as spam.
Also, if you keep track of your campaign metrics, you can find the emails that haven’t been opened and the ones that may be in spam folders. You can, of course, try re-engagement strategies to entice these prospects, but if they’re still uninterested or don’t open your emails, it’ll be better to remove them from your list. Try to include double opt-in subscribers or those who actually fill in sign-up forms. They want to see content from you.
Plus, working on this will work wonders to boost your email open rates and click-through rates.
Mistake 2: Thinking Personalized Emails Only Need First Names
You must personalize your email messages as it helps the recipient see you want to connect with them. Unfortunately, email marketers and agency owners often simply use first names and hit send.
It certainly doesn’t do the trick, and just looks lazy.
Instead, you should first work on prospect segmentation — create different email lists based on the person’s purchase history, visit frequency, geographic location, and so on. The next step would be to work on your email design and include these factors.
Don’t be too creepy, though.
So instead of talking about your subscriber’s children or the last restaurant they visited, focus on the podcast they shared or a tweet they posted.
Mistake 3: Not Taking Surveys Seriously
B2B clients have the technical know-how about their industry niche, which is why you have to be careful about the content of your email template and ensure your email newsletters provide value to them.
One of the best ways to know what your target audience likes is to take a survey. Not only will this give you a direction for your email list segmentation, but it also helps you understand what you can improve or implement to achieve your organizational goals faster.
You don’t have to make your emails fancy – simply include a basic template and a call to action or CTA button.
You should, however, make sure your email sounds human (Use active voice, emojis, etc). Even better if you can offer exclusive discounts or a giveaway to anyone who completes the survey.
Best Marketing Tips for Email Marketing
Now that we’ve discovered what you shouldn’t do, let’s touch base on what you should. Let’s take a quick look!
Have a Consistent Email Schedule
Create and maintain a consistent email schedule. You can consider the day and time you send it on, but we have to point out that this won’t make much of a difference. Having a consistent schedule and impactful email content takes priority over the date and time.
An erratic schedule won’t leave a good impression on the user. It’s much better to have 2-5 email campaigns per month to stay fresh in your recipient’s mind.
QuickMail natively integrates with MailFlow, which is a free email warm-up tool that helps you nurture relationships with your current and prospective customers. It also allows you to exercise control over the number of emails sent as well as maintain email deliverability checks to ensure everything works in your favor.
Embrace Email Automation
You may already use automation tools for your social media or content marketing, so why not apply this to your email marketing strategy as well?
We’ve already discussed the importance of personalization, especially if you want to connect with your new subscribers on a more personal level. But this can be incredibly time-consuming – something that you cannot afford as the owner of an agency.
Additionally, once you get more than 10 clients, you’ll need a system in place to manage multiple accounts efficiently without committing any blunders.
Time investment, however, won’t be a problem if you automate your campaigns. Without any extra effort on your part, email marketing tools will mail a specific number of prospects every day at the same time and even follow-up when needed.
QuickMail offers a unique Schedules feature that also allows you to predict how many replies you’ll get regularly and then use it to provide a continuous stream of qualified leads for your agency and your clients.
A/B Testing New Emails To Suit Different Marketing Channels
Your client will understandably have expectations from the campaign. They may want more leads, boost their conversion rates, add more email subscribers, and whatnot.
Keep in mind that subscribers from different industries require different content too. For instance, the email copy for your client in the eCommerce niche will be different for a client in the insurance niche.
To deliver on these expectations, you need to work on creating effective emails that appeal to the recipient. But for this, you should know how they react to your emails. One of the best ways to ensure this is through A/B testing.
Carry out A/B tests to identify what CTAs, email subject lines, and email copy have the potential to skyrocket your engagement rates. QuickMail offers its users the ability to test emails by using the Variations feature.
You can set up two variations weekly, and at the end of every week, pause the losing variation and then create a new one for the upcoming week. This can enhance your marketing efforts considerably.
Work on Your Automated Welcome Campaign
Every subscriber who signed up for your email list should receive at least one welcome email that educates them about your brand and products or services.
It would be even better to refresh your strategy and create a series of 2-3 great emails spread over a couple of days to keep the customers engaged and invested in your brand.
Your welcome emails should inform subscribers about little-known deals or product benefits, have links to exclusive content like a webinar or whitepaper, and most importantly, have a friendly tone of voice.
Don’t forget to optimize these emails for mobile devices! After all, a huge majority of your readers will be reading your emails on cell phones.
Watch Your Business Skyrocket With Email Marketing Best Practices
Digital marketing is very comprehensive, with interconnected parts. If you make your email campaign successful, you’ll see a positive difference in your overall marketing campaigns. The above best practices can offer tangible results.
Remember, if you use the right tools, email marketing won’t be a hassle. QuickMail, for one, will make the whole process a piece of cake with its several innovative features that can ensure you better results. Sign up for a free trial to see for yourself!