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Simon Washbrook

4 Simple Steps To Improve Your Email Marketing

Even though many of us know email marketing from our daily interactions with newsletters, marketers often struggle with email marketing as they experience high unsubscribe rates and low open rates. In this article we will tackle such problems and give you 4 suggestions that could help you design better strategies, generate better email ideas and write a better copy for your sales emails and newsletters. Have a good read!

Step 1: Plan Your Email Marketing

I know that this may sound obvious but it always amazes me how many marketers ‘wing it’ by planning what they are going to send out on the day they are going to write it. By developing a simple plan, where you look at what is going to be most relevant to your readers over the next 3/6/12 months, you can deliver content that adds value to your readers when they need it.
A few things to consider when you do this are: Topics (obvious I know, but I had to put it in here), Holidays, Trade Shows and Promotions. Once you have got the framework together for your content, start working on a few Subject Lines. Don’t worry about perfecting them yet, but having a few ideas lined up will make it a lot easier when it actually comes to writing your final masterpiece. And finally, keep your communications regular, it will help you plan your time and ensure that you are always at the forefront of your readers’ minds.

We have developed a really simple and Free Email Marketing Planner, where you can start jotting your ideas down to allow you to quickly and easily develop your Email Marketing Plan – Click HERE to download it.

photo for email marketing article displaying email marketing plan
Photo by Halacious on Unsplash

Step 2: Keep Your Email Marketing simple

Now you know what you are going to be writing about don’t get carried away. Firstly, keep your Emails short and sweet, allowing your readers to skim your Emails will allow them to pick out the information that interests them. If you make them work too hard to find what they want, they are more than likely not to bother opening your Email next time. They best way to do this is to make the phrase ‘Read on…’ your best friend and finishing a sentence half way through will increase intrigue and link them through to your blog with the full article on it. Not only will this increase the on-going open rate and clicks, it will give you the analytics, so that you can understand what your readers are interested in.

Step 3: Ask Questions

A wise man once said that we have two ears and one mouth, and we should use them proportionally. Okay, so I know that we are doing outbound Marketing and it can often feel like a one way conversation, but try asking your readers what they want to hear from you, this may be about a product or service, or an article that they would like to see in your next Email, but by asking a question, you are starting a conversation, which will only lead to good things. Also, don’t expect your responses to come back in the form of an Email, it might be that you see an increased number of clicks on a specific link, increased sales, comments from your prospects or an increased open rate on your next Email, either way, it’s all good.

Step 4: Experiment With Email Marketing

Test and Measure is the secret to success! Just because industry statistics highlight the best way to do something, does not mean that it is the best thing for your business. Use these statistics as a guide to build the foundations of a successful campaign and then start breaking the rules. Try tweaking an element at a time, but make sure that you measure the results so that you can continue to hone your Marketing for greater success.

popcorn is a smart, easy-to-use and efficient platform that not only helps you compose beautiful emails and newsletters but also helps you manage your sales funnels and leads. If you would like to test popcorn and see if it could help improve your email marketing game, you can sign-up for the free trial here.

Enjoyed this article? Comment below or read through our blog for more sales and marketing insights.

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