The Ultimate Guide to Creating a Successful Email Campaign

I'm sure you've heard it already—emails are one of our greatest assets as business owners. Not only is this where we can get in touch with our audience at any time we want, but it's also is one of our most engaged sources. Think about it: when someone trusts us to accept emails in their already busy inbox, that means they're genuinely interested in what we have to say. Learning how to create a successful email campaign is essential in driving action from your audience.Figuring out how to get started though? That can seem overwhelming—I get it. No matter what your goal is for your campaign, it should engage your audience, drive action, and ultimately create more leads and sales for your business.We've talked about creating attractive emails and GIFs that pull our audience in, but now how do we create that successful email campaign?! 

Read on to find out!

1. Know your goal

A successful email campaign always has an end goal in mind. What kind of email will you send? Some common goals include a welcome email, promotional email, or content emails.A welcome email is exactly how it sounds: it's an email that is automatically sent once someone signs up for your list. These are great for introducing yourself to your audience and offering any freebies or discount codes as a thank you. First impressions are always key, and a welcome email is perfect for familiarizing yourself with your audience.Promotional emails are probably one of the most common ones. When you sign up for a store or online shop, they're likely sending you lots of emails notifying you of discounts or sales. These are great, but be careful not to send too many to avoid sounding sales-y.Content emails are some of my favorite! These ones are packed full of awesome information that your audience likely opted in for. I send out monthly emails that quickly sum up my monthly posts and notify my audience of updates to the Freebie Library. I realize it's tough to stay up-to-date on a blog, so this is a perfect way to get my posts in front of my audience's eyes. Content emails are great for building brand awareness and trust with your audience.Keep your end mind in goal and create your email around it. Introduce yourself to your audience, notify them of current sales you have, or serve up lots of valuable content that will help them. 

2. Research your audience

If you've just started your email list and aren't familiar on who your audience is, there's great resources to help you out. Try checking your Google Analytics and explore the Demographics and Interests underneath the Audience tab. That's a great starting point to find out who is looking at your content and what they're interested in.If you don't have Google Analytics set up yet, checking your Facebook or Instagram business insights are also a great source to gather information.You want to get into the mind of your audience and deliver what they're looking for while also providing value. Serving as a resource for great information is what will keep them coming back. For example, if you look into your audience's interests and discover that the majority of them are female shoppers, then sending emails about latest trends could be a great starting topic. You can even pair these latest trends with products of your own that can drive them to your site!Study your audience, deliver what they desire, and give them a reason to click to your site with amazing content. 

3. Make it attractive

Let's face it—text alone typically isn't enough to excite us. To create a successful email campaign, we need images to entice our audience. Visuals help us remember information. They also help us digest information easier, too.Your emails should have stunning visuals to grab your audience's attention. This is especially important if you have a product based service! Opening up an email campaign with a novel of text inundates us with too much information at once. Break up your text with visuals that makes it easier to digest all that awesome content you're providing.If you're on a budget, a great source of free images are available on Unsplash. There's also very affordable options, such as small shops, that have consistent images that you can use.If you're aiming to sell a product, make sure you have amazing images to show it off! It's difficult for us to image a product that we can't tangibly feel, so it's important that your images can express the awesome qualities. If you're not keen of the DIY route, hire a professional to take care of those images for you! 

4. Meet expectations

If you've promised to deliver 4 emails every month, then your subscribers expect that from you. Keep their trust (and subscription) by delivering that content you promised.Stay consistent with your emails. If you only pop into someone's inbox once every 6 months, then it's possible they've forgotten they subscribed to your list. Stay at the top of mind with your audience by sending emails consistently to ensure they don't unsubscribe when you do send emails. 

5. Craft that amazing subject line

Great first impressions are essential. Create a subject line that entices your viewer to open your email. Some great starting points include:

• Being blunt—tell your audience what to expect with a subject like, "Yes, 50% off everything!"
• FOMO—or, fear of missing out. It's in our nature not to want to miss out on something. Try crafting a subject line with "last chance" or "you don't want to miss this!"
• Curiousity—arouse someone's interest by asking a question or letting them know of a surprise.
• Making it personal—add their name into the subject line for that personal touch!
• Have fun—maybe there's a sweet pun you can use that mingles into your email subject. Make your viewer feel happy to open your email!

Keep it short and sweet. Longer subject lines are more apt to get cut off, so aim to keep your subject under 50 characters. 

6. Test, test, test

Did you not get the open rate you were hoping for? Or maybe there were a lot of unsubscribes. With each new email campaign, test out different factors. For example, maybe your email does best a 7:30AM as opposed to 9AM. Or perhaps Tuesdays aren't as successful as sending emails on Mondays.Review through your old campaigns and see what did work. If your open rate was particularly high on one email, then perhaps the subject line was amazing. Try to replicate those qualities that are working and improving where they're not.While there are many factors that create a great email campaign, these are among the most essential to building a successful email. Know your audience, have marvelous images, and test to see what works best for you! Every business is different, but starting with these essential steps will guide you to that successful email campaign.

What do you want to improve with your email campaigns? If you have any questions, I'd love to answer them in the comments below!

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