How to create and implement an email marketing strategy

More than half of consumers (51%) say that email is the best way for brands to communicate with them. 

But this channel is not just effective for consumer-facing brands. 50% of B2B marketers also report that email has been their most impactful channel, even as they implement a multi-channel marketing strategy. 

But what makes email marketing so impactful? And, how exactly can you run effective email marketing campaigns in a strict cookie-less world governed by privacy laws like GDPR and CCPA? 

This article will show you how to build an effective email marketing strategy and share real-life examples of successful campaigns.  

Why create an email marketing strategy

Here are five reasons to add an email marketing strategy to your marketing arsenal.

1. Saves time and money

Email marketing is one of the most cost-effective marketing strategies you can have. This is mostly thanks to the growth of AI-powered email marketing platforms.

Most email service providers, including GetResponse, provide free plans to get you started. And yes, the free plans come with some limitations on the number of subscribers you can contact and the features you’ll be able to access.

Still, they provide a powerful launchpad, especially for smaller businesses that want to stay in constant contact with their audience. And once you’re ready to upgrade to a paid plan, these platforms will charge around $15 per month. 

Not only is the cost of entry low, but email also has one of the highest returns on investment of any marketing channel at around 3800%. 

It doesn’t stop there. Email marketing platforms like GetResponse also provide automation workflows and drag-and-drop email builders. 

Automation workflows let you automate critical customer communications. For example, you can set up workflows for welcoming new customers, confirming orders, and reminding customers of abandoned carts.

Meanwhile, the drag-and-drop builders mean you don’t need technical skills or hire designers to create your emails. These visual builders, combined with the email templates, allow you to create email designs that align with your branding style in minutes. 

Additionally, email marketing techniques like segmentation save you time and money by making sure you’re targeting the right audiences with the correct messaging. 

2. Can be aligned with other marketing campaigns

Email integrates perfectly with other marketing channels to ensure consistent brand messaging. 

For example, GetResponse’s marketing automation can track user behavior on your website. Then, depending on the products a user interacts with, it can include relevant product suggestions in the marketing emails sent to each user. 

You can also use email to support other marketing campaigns. For example, you can promote social media contests and giveaways to your email lists.

You could also use your email list to build hype around specific campaigns like Black Friday sales and new product launches. 

Email platforms also integrate with customer relationship management solutions. That means customer interactions via email are also captured and recorded in the CRM. You could also use new insights in the CRM to initiate specific email campaigns. 

For example, if the CRM data on a specific potential customer shows that they have downloaded a particular lead magnet, a lead-nurturing email drip can be deployed automatically. 

This seamless integration of email with other channels ensures that you do not lose out on opportunities to connect with and potentially convert prospects. 

3. Increases customer loyalty

Email presents one of the best channels for building customer loyalty. The fact that you have direct contact with each customer means you can personalize your interactions and make every customer feel seen.

You can use this channel to educate your customers after the purchase. Show new customers how they can get the best out of their investment in your product. This educational content helps you deliver additional value to the customer and nurture your relationship.

There are also the little details, like using email to recognize important occasions. For instance, you can use emails to congratulate each customer for hitting specific milestones. This is where you see brands send happy anniversary and happy birthday emails. And the best part is that you can automate all these campaigns. 

Email newsletters are another item that can help you build customer engagement and boost loyalty. Quality and regular newsletters will make sure customers always look out for your next email. Use these newsletters to share educational content and remain top of mind. 

4. Boosts customer lifetime value

Email can help you boost the customer lifetime value through several campaigns. For starters, you can use email to run upselling and cross-selling campaigns. 

After the customer has bought an item, send them follow-up emails suggesting products that would provide additional value or go well with the item they’ve just bought. 

Email can also be used for re-engagement. Some customers can go a long time without interacting with your brand. Email re-engagement campaigns like the popular “ We miss you” and “Are we breaking up?” can help you re-engage these customers and get them back to your store.

For SaaS brands, email is one of the best ways to guide users up the value ladder. Say your systems detect that a certain user has been exhausting their credits on the free plan. You can email them acknowledging this and telling them why they ought to unlock more value from the paid plans. 

If your software provides a free trial, use email to engage the user throughout the free trial period and show them the value of upgrading to a paid plan.

These are only a handful of the email campaigns that can boost CLV. You can also use email for other things, like promoting your loyalty program and collecting customer feedback. These activities will also contribute to a higher CLV. 

5. Enhances brand awareness

Email is mostly seen as a lead-nurturing and customer-communication channel. What most marketers do not realize is that they can also use email to build awareness. 

Think about it. The more a customer is exposed to your content, visuals, and brand tone and voice, the easier it’ll be for them to recognize your brand anywhere else. 

Plus, you can use email to tell your story and explain your brand values and mission. This helps potential customers know and understand your brand more deeply. 

These customers can go on to become your brand evangelists since they’ve come to understand and hopefully, resonate with your values and mission.  

5 Steps to create an email marketing strategy

Creating an email campaign strategy doesn’t have to be so complicated. Here is a 5-step guide on how to approach this process.

Step 1: Set measurable goals

Goal-setting should be the first thing you do when creating your strategy. A clear goal gives your entire strategy a solid foundation and purpose. You’ll know exactly what success looks like. 

Second, specific goals make it easier for you to know what to track. You’ll know the key performance indicators (KPIs) you need to keep an eye on to see if you have a successful email marketing strategy in your hands.

Therefore, start by deciding what you want to achieve with your emails. An ecommerce may want to use emails to increase CLV or reduce cart abandonment, for example. SaaS brands may want to use email to increase the conversions from freemium to paid plans.

That said, goals will evolve as your business grows. 

As your brand grows, you’ll inevitably need separate email campaigns. For example, an ecommerce brand could have separate campaigns for a regular newsletter and a cart abandonment recovery campaign. 

In such cases, it would be best to have specific goals for each campaign.

Your goals must also be measurable. Use the SMART goal-setting framework for this. 

• Specific – The goal must be well-defined and clear to every team member. 
• Measurable – There should be a way to measure success. 
• Achievable – The goal must be realistic given the available resources at your disposal.
• Relevant – The goal should align with your broad business goals.
• Time-bound – There should be a timeframe within which you want to achieve the goal.

Here are two examples of SMART goals.

Example 1: To reduce cart abandonment by 10% in the next quarter by implementing a 3-part cart recovery email sequence.

Example 2: To increase the click-through rate of our eCommerce newsletter by 3% in the next 90 days through smart targeting and segmentation. 

Step 2: Define and research your target audience

One of the secret sauces behind the impressive ROI of email marketing is targeting. Email marketing is extremely good at targeting specific audiences with specific messages based on their profiles. 

But, how can you create those profiles if you don’t have a well-defined and researched target audience?

Before you even start creating your content and email campaigns, ask yourself who your ideal customer is.  And this requires going beyond the basic demographics of their age, gender, and locations.

You also want to know: 

• How they discover your brand (the channels they use)
• Why do they buy from you (and not your competitors)
• What pain points are they struggling with
• How do they use your product
• How frequently they buy from you

You need this data to create an accurate customer profile to inform your email marketing strategy. 

How can you get the data?

Analyze your existing customer database, review industry reports, interview your customers through surveys and polls, and do competitor research.

If you are a big business, chances are you’ll need to create several profiles for the different audiences in your customer base. 

With this audience data in hand, you can now personalize your interactions and speak to each customer at an individual level. But you’ll need to segment your email list first. So let’s talk about that next.  

Step 3: Create segments

Email list segmentation groups your subscribers into distinct categories based on shared interests or traits. 

For example, you may create different segments based on the average order value, i.e., high spenders vs low spenders. This helps you pinpoint your high-value or VIP customers so you can target them with specific types of content, like exclusive deals and early access to new products or features.

Another option is to segment your audience based on engagement levels. You’ll have highly engaged customers on one end, and customers who are almost dropping off on another. This helps you target the customers you’re almost losing with specific win-back campaigns. 

Other standard segmentations include:

• High spenders vs discount spenders
• Geographic-based segmentation (i.e., based on age, gender, or location)
• New leads vs active customers vs at-risk customers
• Recency, Frequency, Monetary (i.e., last purchase data, purchase frequency & spend)

As you can imagine, you could go about segmenting your audience in many ways. But don’t fall into the trap of creating too many segments. Oversegmentation can result in unnecessarily complicated and expensive email campaigns with diluted results. 

Instead, go back to the goal you have for each campaign. Then, think about the specific email segments that could help you achieve the goals for that campaign. 

For example, one of the campaign goals we highlighted above was to boost the CTR and engagement of an eCommerce newsletter. Segmentation based on engagement levels could be super effective in achieving that goal. 

So you’d have highly-engaged vs disengaged segments and target each of them with different content types to achieve optimal results with both.

The second campaign goal example was to reduce cart abandonment. You could create segments based on the cart value (high vs small). You could then proceed to target them with different content, e.g., a high-value cart abandonment may justify more compelling incentives like VIP support and reassurances like warranties. 

Step 4: Determine your content theme

This step should be relatively straightforward once you have all your campaign goals, audience research, and segments set. 

You just have to create the content that meets your audience’s needs as identified during the audience research. You then make sure the content aligns with your campaign goals. Finally, personalize the content so it resonates with each audience segment you have. 

Generally speaking, you can create several content themes like :

• Educational content – The purpose here would be to educate your audience on how they can resolve their pain points or achieve their goals. Educational content about your product can also fall here.
• Customer spotlights – This is where you’ll highlight customer success stories, reviews, and user-generated content. 
• Exclusive offers – This content pillar will promote different offers or sales. 
• Brand stories – Discuss your brand here and share behind-the-scenes content to give your brand some personality and make it relatable. 

It’s also important to tie your content theme to the customer journey. Target customers with different types of content depending on whether they are new, first-time, recurring, or dormant customers. 

For example, new leads would benefit more from educational and customer spotlight content. First-time customers would also require customer spotlight content and some discount-related content. Meanwhile, recurring customers are likely to find exclusive offers more engaging. 

The content plan should not be set in stone. Adjust your plan accordingly based on new insights. For example, you can adjust the type of content you share based on subscriber engagement. 

If a subscriber is no longer engaging with certain types of content, it’s worth changing gears to something else. 

Step 5: Create a content calendar

Frequency is the first thing you’ll need to consider when creating your email content calendar. How often should subscribers expect your emails in their inbox?

Pick a consistent email sending frequency to build a reliable cadence with your audience.

But don’t send your emails too frequently, as this can negatively impact the user experience. 

Our email marketing benchmark report shows that the majority of marketers send emails 1-2 times per week. This frequency yields optimal click-through rates and conversions.

Once you’ve identified the ideal frequency for your audience and campaign goals, go through the entire calendar year and identify crucial dates or months for your brand or industry. Customers will expect specific types of content from you during these dates.

For example, brands in the education industry will need to create a “back-to-school” content theme for August and September. 

Besides this, note other key dates like the New Year, Valentine’s Day, Black History Month, black friday, and Cyber Monday. Even niche events like St. Patrick’s Day, World Mental Health Day, and Pi Day may require specific content themes.

Note all the important dates and months for which your brand will need special content themes. Once you have those cleared out, create your content calendar for the rest of the year. 

One easy way to plan your content calendar is to create unique themes for each month. This can simplify the content creation process since you’ll focus on just one theme each month.

10 ways to implement your email marketing strategy perfectly 

Let’s now look at what you can do to build a successful email marketing strategy. 

1. Build a quality email list

A quality email list is made up of subscribers who have knowingly opted into your newsletter and given you permission to send them emails. So, if your question was “should I buy an email list?” The answer is a resounding no.

Not only is that against data protection laws, but buying an email list leaves you trapped with consumers who don’t know about your brand. Most recipients will unsubscribe, while others will report you as spam. 

So, you must build your own list if you want a successful email marketing campaign. 

Use incentives like coupons, discounts, free downloadable assets, and other similar lead magnets to collect email addresses. 

Make sure your email signup form or the pop-up clearly states the benefit of joining your email list. This will increase conversions. 

But quality is not just about the numbers. Your email list should comprise the right people who will likely get value from your content and products. 

So, don’t create generic lead magnets that’ll attract just about anyone. Provide relevant incentives that align with your ideal customer profile. 

You can also use a double opt-in option. This requires the subscribers to confirm their email address before they join your list. It’s a great way to ensure you don’t end up with invalid email addresses. 

Lastly, make it a habit to clean your email list regularly. This should help you remove outdated email addresses from your list. It also allows you to remove email addresses of customers who no longer interact with your content. 

A clean email list results in optimal email deliverability. That means more emails will hit your recipients’ inboxes. More importantly, your audience will actually engage with the emails since they chose to be on your mailing list.

2. Focus on content personalization

Use marketing automation to tailor your email content to each recipient. Look at how customers interact with your brand and emails, the product categories they use, and their purchase history. Use that data to personalize future emails. 

You can also ask customers directly what they want to hear from you. You could do this on the sign-up form or in a follow-up email after they’ve joined your email list.

This removes guesswork and ensures you cover topics and send product recommendations that your email subscribers are interested in. 

The result? Increased engagement and more revenue.

For some context, 49% of customers will do an impulse buy if a brand sends a personalized recommendation. Another 40% have bought a more expensive product than they intended to because of a personalized experience. 

3. Write effective subject lines

47% of email recipients decide whether to open an email or not based on the subject line alone!

You could have the best email copy in the world, but it wouldn’t matter if the subject line is ineffective.

That’s why you must spend time testing different subject line formats and styles to pinpoint what works best with your audience. 

AI tools like subject line generators have made writing subject lines much easier than it used to be. You can also follow the subject line best practices to increase your chances of success.

For example, make sure your subject line is 40 to 60 characters long. Try to personalize the subject lines where possible and create a sense of urgency or pique the readers’ interest to encourage clicks.

That said, the only way to know what subject lines resonate the most with your target audience is through A/B testing. GetResponse provides a free subject line generator as well as an A/B testing feature to help you with these. 

4. Optimize your CTAs

CTAs influence the percentage of email readers that will take the desired action, like buying a product, booking a seat, signing up for a demo, etc. The more effective your call-to-action button, the higher your email conversion rate.

Write clear and compelling CTAs that capture the benefit of the reader taking the desired action. You can test different types of CTA text to determine which one generates the highest conversions. For example, you could test to see if including the percentage of a discount in the CTA increases clicks. 

You can also test using text with hyperlinks vs colorful CTA buttons vs including both in an email.

The other thing to think about is the number of CTAs. Avoid including too many CTAs in a single email, as this can overwhelm users and hurt conversion rates. Less is more here. 

But there’s a slight difference. While you want to keep the number of CTAs to a minimum (ideally just ask for one specific action), you can include that one CTA multiple times in the email copy.

This is especially vital when you have a long email copy. Include the CTA at strategic locations within the email body to make it easy for readers to click it when they’re ready to take action. 

That’s what we’ve done with this email. Notice the three bright CTA buttons asking for the same thing? 

CTA writing best practices should guide you when executing your email marketing plan. However, don’t take them as the gospel. Just because a red CTA button works for most marketers doesn’t mean it’ll do the same with your audience. Test your theories to see what actually works for you.

Read our comprehensive guide on how to write CTAs that boost conversions for more details on this subject.

5. Always add value to your content

Collecting email addresses is one thing. Getting users to open and engage with your emails consistently is something else entirely.

A great email marketing strategy demands high-quality content. Your email copy must consistently deliver value to keep readers engaged.

One of the best ways to achieve this is by varying the content type you share. Remember how we said you need several content themes? 

Right, combine the different themes to make sure subscribers do not get the same type of content all the time. Recipients will lose interest in your brand if every new email pushes a sale or a discount.

Combine educational content with exclusive offers, brand stories, and user-generated content. This keeps things interesting.

At the same time, make sure the content itself is full of value. Avoid sharing generic content that your readers are already aware of. Use your expertise to create thought-leadership content that shares actionable insights.

Lastly, remember to go back to your audience research. Produce content around the pain points or interests you identified. Also, if you ask your subscribers about the type of content they want to receive, place them in the right segments to ensure they only get relevant content.

6. Design mobile-friendly emails

Over 60% of emails are opened on mobile devices. Your email design must be responsive to deliver a pleasant experience to these users. 

A responsive email design ensures your images, text, and CTAs fit perfectly across all screen sizes. Users should not have to deal with cut-off words or horizontal scrolling when reading your emails. 

But there’s some good news here. All top email marketing services provide mobile-friendly email designs right out of the box. The email templates are readily optimized to be responsive. Plus, these platforms let users preview their emails to see how they’ll look across all devices.

Therefore, if you choose a good email software like GetResponse, you won’t have to write any lines of code or do some technical design work to build responsive emails. The templates you use, as well as our drag-and-drop, will help you create and customize an email that is already mobile-friendly.

7. Identify the best sending time

This is another area where you can use industry benchmarks to guide your email marketing efforts. But you must do your own testing to see what works with your unique audience. 

Our study on finding the best time to send emails showed that 4 AM was the best time to send emails if you want the highest open rates (22.05%). 

Meanwhile, the best time to send emails for optimal click-through rates was 6 AM (3.24%).

But these are global figures, and one interesting thing we realized is that the best time to send emails changed as we moved from one region to the next.

For example, the best time to send emails in the LATAM region was at 2 AM. Meanwhile, 7 PM was the best time to send emails in Central and Eastern Europe (CEE).

The results were also different for the Asia Pacific region.

And it’s not just the times that kept on changing. The best day to send emails also changed from one region to another. 

Emails sent on Monday performed really well in CEE. But in the US and Canada, we noticed marketing teams saw the highest open and click-through rates when they sent emails on Friday and Tuesday, respectively.

You can find more details of this in that study. 

The bottom line here is that you must identify the best time and day to send emails for your specific brand. Track your open and click-through rates to get this data. 

GetResponse also has a Perfect Timing feature that automatically tracks the best send times and schedules your emails to be sent at that particular time. This feature is particularly useful if you have a global audience. We’ll track and make sure that each reader receives your emails at the most optimal time for them.

Send emails when your contacts are ready to open

8. Do A/B testing

We’ve talked a lot about A/B testing in this article, but what exactly is it? 

A/B testing is a technique where you compare two versions of something (e.g., an email subject line) to see which one performs better. It’s also known as split testing.

Test the following items to create a truly effective email marketing strategy:

• Subject lines
• Email copy
• Email design (i.e., visuals, layout, color schemes)
• Call to actions
• Offers 
• Send times and days

Start by testing the items that can result in the most significant differences. For example, a small tweak in your subject line or email CTA could result in significantly higher open rates or click-through rates.

Also, test just one vital element at a time to make sure you correctly attribute the results to a specific change. 

Test your campaigns continuously because customer behavior changes all the time. 

9. Automate your campaigns

Automation saves you time and money, but that’s not even the best part.

The best part of automating your email marketing campaigns is that you get to respond to customer behaviors instantly. 

A marketing automation platform can detect when a user has viewed a particular product, abandoned a cart, or downloaded a specific resource on your website. 

It then responds by delivering a relevant email while the intent is still high. This can increase conversion rates significantly. 

Now imagine doing that at scale!

That’s why you must pick an email service provider that supports automation workflows. 

10. Track results and adjust your strategy

Finally, track your email marketing strategy to ensure you remain on the right track. There are two levels to this.

First, you’ll want to track general email marketing metrics. We’re talking about conversion rate, open rate, unsubscribe rate, bounce rate, and spam complaints. These will give you a bird’s eye view of how your email campaigns perform. You can then adjust your email strategy based on the data.

The second thing is to track your goals. Remember the email marketing campaign goals you set in the first step above? Everything ties back together, so track the specific metrics related to that goal to see whether you are hitting the mark or if something needs tweaking. 

3 email campaign examples to inspire you

Here are three brands following the email marketing tips and best practices we’ve discussed above.

Example 1: GetResponse

At GetResponse, we run several email marketing campaigns to keep our audiences engaged. Users receive different types of campaigns depending on how they’ve joined our mailing list.

For example, customers who sign up for a free trial will receive a specific campaign that nurtures and educates them about our platform. 

The campaign starts with this email.

We’ll stay in touch with the customer throughout the free trial period. 

The campaign combines different types of content, including some purely educational emails like this one.

And emails with exclusive offers and discounts to encourage upgrades like this.

This campaign is exclusive to folks who’ve signed up for our free trial. For others who join our list through other methods (like downloading a lead magnet), we’ll send them relevant content related to that lead magnet before we start promoting our product.

Example 2: Huel

Huel runs an incredible email marketing strategy. This strategy starts with a clever quiz funnel. The quiz serves two purposes. First, it helps them understand each user so they can match them with the right products and content. Second, they use it to build their email list.

As for the emails themselves, Huel designs eye-catching emails that align with their dark branding style. 

They run different email campaigns sharing exclusive offers, educational content, and even their brand story.

Example 3: Casper

Casper is another brand that has an inspiring email marketing campaign. The brand uses the same playbook as Huel by using a quiz funnel to build their email list. 

Besides the quiz funnel, they also have a checkbox on the checkout page where they ask permission to send relevant news and offers as required by privacy laws.

For the email content, Casper combines educational emails like this one..

…with sales emails like this. 

Implement your email campaign strategy with GetResponse

There’s a reason all big brands go out of their way to collect their customers’ email addresses. But a big email list won’t be helpful unless you have an equally brilliant email marketing strategy. 

This article has shown you how to build a winning email marketing campaign. 

You’re also going to need a powerful platform that can support this. 

GetResponse is an advanced marketing platform with different tools to support your email marketing efforts. Our solution provides an email marketing software with a drag-and-drop editor and responsive email templates. We also have an autoresponder and a marketing automation solution you can use to automate your campaigns. 

Sign up for free today to access these and other marketing tools.