Learn the Basics of a Great Email Marketing Campaign 

You know you need a good email marketing campaign, but do you know how to make it truly great? 

Do you know the email marketing best practices, understand the essential building blocks, and have the vision in place for a campaign to take off and be a success? To welcome and nurture your leads to the point where they want to buy from you? 

If the answer is no to some or all of the above, then there’s no need to panic. We’re here today to give you everything you need to learn the basics of a great email marketing campaign. That, and to show you how ScoreApp fits into the equation to lift a campaign from ‘good’ to that ‘great’ standard we keep talking about. 

In this blog post, we’re going to show you how to separate and speak to your audience, why personalizing your email content is the key to success, and how to use analytics to buff your campaigns and boost results. And that’s just for starters. 

First thing’s first, though. Just why do you need to nail the basics of email marketing? What are the benefits of putting in your time and effort? Let’s find out. 

Why you need to nail the basics of email marketing

Put simply, if something’s worth doing, then it’s worth doing right. If you try to jump in at the deep end and put together a campaign without knowing and implementing email marketing best practices, then the results are unlikely to be spectacular. In fact, they’re not likely to be anywhere near what you’re hoping for at all.

To get the most out of your email marketing campaign, you really do need to know the basics first. There’s one guaranteed route to success: taking the time to understand what makes a great campaign, and making sure you lay down the groundwork in advance. By doing that, you set yourself up to create campaigns that always nurture leads and boost conversions.

With that in mind, here’s what you need to do.

1. Know your audience

If you’re not sure who your audience is, then you won’t be able to make the necessary connection. That’s why it’s important to define your target audience and ideal leads. Are they SMEs or international businesses? Market leaders or upstart challengers? Once you have that, you can segment your email list. 

ScoreApp makes audience management instantaneous. Create your categories, design your quiz questions to identify certain traits, and ScoreApp will do the rest. Once a lead has answered, they will be automatically placed into relevant segments. 

Once you know who you’re talking to, and what their goals and pain points are, you can create personalized content that hits the mark. 

Personalization is more than just including a name in the subject line, although that is an important starting point. It’s actually about using what you’ve found about each lead through ScoreApp, then tailoring content to their needs. Send them relevant blog content, testimonials from customers who had similar concerns, and invite them to useful webinars. It’s all part of the nurturing process. 

ScoreApp gives you audience insights based on their quiz results, but you can also look to your email marketing campaign platform to see how they respond to your email marketing campaign. 

2. Set clear email marketing campaign goals

Before you do anything, you need to know the purpose of your email marketing campaign. 

Are you looking to:

• Generate new leads?
• Nurture your existing contacts?
• Promote a particular product or service?
• Retain or tempt back customers?

Whatever the focus of your campaign, you must remember one of the most important email marketing campaign best practices—measuring analytics. 

Your measurable KPIs will show you how successful your campaign is. We’re talking about open rates, clickthroughs, and conversions. And if it turns out that something isn’t connecting, then ScoreApp’s instant A/B testing will help you figure it out. Change subject lines, CTAs, body copy, and more to see what works and to optimize any campaign in seconds. 

3. Build a high-quality email list

For your email marketing campaign to hit your goals, you’re going to need a high-quality email list. 

Growing your list organically is always recommended, which is why ScoreApp gives you the tools to do it. Lead magnets such as sign-up forms, downloadable content, waitlists, and even our speciality quizzes are all designed to add names and addresses to your email list. As for the quality, using segmentation and pre-qualifying questions in your surveys and quizzes will make sure you’re able to give the most attention to your ideal leads. It’s about quality over quantity at the end of the day. 

Oh, and a side note on email marketing best practice—be sure you’re sticking to GDPR compliance at all times. It’s not worth falling foul of. 

4. Craft compelling and engaging personalized emails 

You don’t get a second chance to make a first impression. That’s why your email subject lines have to grab the attention, pique the interest, and tickle the brain of the reader. 

A short, impactful statement works best, especially if there’s a sense of urgency powering the message. Using the lead’s first name is always a good shout, especially since it can increase the open rate to over 18%.

Of course, the subject line is just the front door. Once you’ve brought them inside, there are certain elements that every great email needs:

• An eye-catching header to set the scene.
• Value-driven copy that effortlessly engages without waffling.
• A strong call to action (CTA) that tells the reader what the next step is and why they should take it.
• Mobile-friendly design. If your email isn’t optimized for mobile, you’re waving goodbye to readers from the start.
• Personalization using your ScoreApp data. Make sure each email is relevant to whoever opens it.

With all that sorted, it’s time to send your email marketing campaign out into the world and track the results. 

5. Track and measure email campaign results 

We’ve touched on this, so unless you’re skimming this blog post you should already know how important it is to A/B test. It’s part of the larger process of tracking and measuring the results of your campaign. No matter how much you love the subject line, CTA, or email copy you’ve written, you need to make sure it’s doing the job.

Analytics will show you how effective each element is, including: 

• Subject lines
• Email layout
• CTAs
• Send times.

Once you have that data, you can use A/B testing to create the best version of your campaign. It’s a task that needs continuous refinement—it’s a learning curve—but it will improve your success rate.

What to do after you’ve nailed the basics…

It may seem like a lot to think about, but they’re the basics of email marketing best practice. Don’t worry, you’ll pick it up in no time. 

Now, though, it’s time to get into more advanced territory. Here’s what you should be focusing on after you’ve nailed the basics of email marketing campaigns. 

Use automation to scale

Automation is a lifesaver. More than that, it’s a time saver. 

Automation takes jobs like replying to triggers (downloads, sign-ups, etc.) and gets them done at any time of the day or night. It can take the lead data in your CRM (integrated with ScoreApp, naturally) and use it to personalize the content of an email based on your segments. 

It can even automate entire nurturing and sales campaigns, like:

• Welcome series
• Lead nurturing sequences
• Retention and abandoned cart emails
• Post-purchase engagement and follow-ups.

That’s a lot of time saved on manual intervention, but automation also helps with the next point. 

Stay consistent 

Consistency is key if you want to build trust and a following. Use A/B testing to find which days and times have the best success rate, then stick to them. Also, don’t mix up the design of your emails too much or too often. People find comfort in what they come to know and recognize from you.

That said, you don’t want them to get fed up with your messages. If you’re using a value-led approach, then it’s all about the quality of the content over the quantity of engagement. 

Focus on delivering value 

The best way to avoid email fatigue (aside from sending too many messages) is to give the reader something valuable each time they click ‘open’.

Educational content, exclusive offers, and insights based on their ScoreApp data are all tried and tested ways to draw leads in and build long-lasting relationships.

Using ScoreApp to improve email marketing campaign results 

There are a few basic elements to creating a great email marketing campaign. There’s the clear vision of your goals and ideal lead, the personalization and compelling messaging that grabs the reader, and the need to monitor and improve the results. And that’s before we get into the advanced stuff, like automated workflows and focusing on consistency. 

Regardless of where you are in the process, ScoreApp is here to help. ScoreApp gives you everything you need to elevate your email marketing campaigns, including:

• Automation for scaling
• Personalized insights for every lead
• Email list segmentation for better engagement
• Instantaneous A/B testing for quick optimization
• Integration with email marketing and CRM platforms.

With all that behind you, your email campaigns can’t fail.

And the best thing? ScoreApp is free to try. Start creating great email marketing campaigns with ScoreApp today.