11 Ways Email Marketing Can Boost Your Startup Leads

If you’ve come up with a business idea that you can go with, that’s a job well done. You’ve taken the first step towards building an actual business, but you must then follow through with execution. The next step is to get startup financing to put down the foundations of what would become your business. Once you open up shop, you then have to put thought into marketing, and that’s where hair-splitting commences.

There are many ways to marketing your startup, ranging from traditional to online methods. Among all online marketing solutions that are proven to work, the most old-school one is perhaps email marketing. Even to this day, email marketing still has power because there will always be opportunities to market your business as long as people still use email at some capacity.

With a good bit of thought and effort, you too can harness this power through these 11 simple tips.

1. Choose the Right Email Marketing Platform

   Very much like choosing a type of web hosting, blogging platform, theme layout, and so on, choosing an email marketing platform can be rather daunting due to the variety of options and lack of common knowledge about them. Plenty of people have their own blogs and some even separate web hosting for them, but it’s safe to say that not everyone partakes in email marketing.

   Among them, MailerLite is perhaps the most well-known. It works for most people and it does most of the things that are expected of from an email marketing platform. However, it may lack some of the features that the more discerning entrepreneur may wish for. Whichever you do choose, remember to put it up against four basic criteria.

   The chosen platform must have customizable email templates, audience segmentation so you can send targeted emails according to customer profiles, opt-in forms to let you do things like raffles and user registration right on the email itself, and detailed analysis to monitor whether your email marketing campaign is doing well so far or not.

2. Short Yet Strong Subject Lines

   Just like with titles on blog posts, videos, and other things, the subject lines on your emails should be short. It’s recommended that you keep them shorter than 50 characters since having more than that can have it cut off in the recipient’s inbox.

   Despite the shortness, it must still grab the recipient’s attention, so it must be succinct like with any other headline. That’s where your creativity and savvy can come in since the email subject line is like a really short sales pitch.

3. Know Your Metrics

   Being able to track your progress is crucial as it lets you become aware of successes and failures, adapt to changes, and learn from mistakes. Your metrics are what keep you from treading the email marketing road blindly, so make sure to look at your email marketing campaign’s metrics to plan your next move.

4. Remove Inactive Subscribers

   When looking at your analytics, you may notice that there could be some subscribers who are no longer engaging or even giving much thought to your email marketing campaign. In such a case, you may want to engage in some spring cleaning for your mailing list. Email marketing is all about quality over quantity, so it’s not just about numbers.

   However, make sure those are truly inactive subscribers as you wouldn’t want to cull those who actually still care about what you’re delivering.

5. Make Everything Mobile-Friendly

   It goes without saying these days that a significant percentage of people now access their email on mobile devices, reportedly a 500% jump from 2012 to 2016. Therefore, it’s imperative that you design your marketing emails to be easily viewed on them. Responsive design isn’t just for websites—it works for emails too.

6. Prioritize Readability

   This is something that goes with making your emails mobile-friendly. By making your emails readable on even smaller mobile screens, you’re making sure that you don’t alienate a big portion of your subscribers, thus giving your email marketing campaign a greater chance to succeed.

7. Build a Mailing List Before Launch

   A lot of people tend to wait until launch to start doing everything, and that’s why plenty of would-be entrepreneurs burn out before they really get started with their businesses. As the old adage goes, “Victory loves preparation,” so you need to do whatever you can before you even launch. That includes building a mailing list before launch so that you’ll be ready to send those emails once you’re about to launch.

8. Don’t Just Sell – Engage

   This seems rather cliché, but it’s a wonder how some people treat selling like they’re writing a dissertation. It’s not that it can’t be as technical as that, but there’s more to it than just a cut-and-dry process. Interfacing with customers is the essence of sales, and the key is convincing them to engage. Unlike other marketing campaigns wherein it’s all about giving more and more value and then presenting a call to action, email marketing is about doing both at the same time in every email. Whatever value is given in that email must be convincing enough for them to engage in return.

9. Use Cross-Platform Fonts

   Since your emails will be viewed by a wide variety of devices, the fonts used for them must be available across the board for them to be shown properly. Few things are uglier than an email with its text using the system default font because its design made use of a font not found in that device.

10. Emphasize Important Details

    Most people who view your emails will do so with a glance, so catching their eye is important. However, the subject line may not be enough to hold their attention, so make sure to emphasize important details in your email so that it has a better chance at holding their attention. In any case, it’s best to make sure that subscribers get a good gist of what your email is about before they direct their eyes elsewhere.

11. Make Good Use of White Space

    The aforementioned emphasis of important details may be undermined by improper use of white space. By having no ample space between sentences or paragraphs, it becomes an incomprehensible wall of text that requires readers to squint or move their eyes closer to the screen to read whatever is there. Most people won’t even bother when they see such a thing, so don’t skimp on the white space. Use it just right and your email will do well to market for you.

Conclusion: Email marketing is a tried and tested method, so all you have to do is to execute it properly in order to get more customers. Be good to your subscribers and give them good value so they will want to be your customers in due time.