Website Tune-Up: Email Marketing

Are you looking to increase new customer leads as well as engagement? Email Marketing is one of the best tools you can use to drive traffic to your website, increase customer engagement, and convert leads from your funnel. How? We’ve got some simple, actionable steps you can take today to make your website and email marketing more effective for your business goals. This is our Website Tune-Up: Email Marketing edition.

Website Tune-Up: Must Have Summary

If you read our Website Bootcamp summary then you know the importance of engaging, educating and keeping visitors on your website with must-have pages. You also want to make sure that your website has a way to collect leads and client contact information. This can be as simple as a contact form or can be collected using an external email marketing tool. And finally, your updated website should be attracting NEW leads with some simple tech-tips that increase SEO and engagement.

Email Marketing Background

Some skeptics believe that email marketing is a dying channel, turning inboxes into a pit of junk messages never to be read. While it may seem like that can be the case, proper email marketing can actually deliver an ROI of 122%, which is 4x higher than other marketing channels, including social media, direct mail, and PPC. (DMA and Demand Metric)

According to Smart Insights, email marketing is the key to a successful marketing strategy.

“Our lifecycle marketing model shows you the potential customer touchpoints and how email marketing aids in increasing relevance and response of communications. Marketing activities such as personalization, loyalty programs, and re-engagement email programs are vital to your email marketing strategy. Whilst SEO, PPC, social media, and advertising may contribute to getting your customer into the top of your sales funnel, it is essentially your email marketers that keep them there, increase repeat purchase and increase customer-brand engagement.”

Getting Started With Email Marketing

What you’ll need to get started with Email Marketing:

An Email Provider
An Opt-In Form

Two easy steps, right? Not so fast…Before you sign-up for an email marketing platform, make sure you do your due diligence and research. Here are some features you should consider:

Email template options
Email list segmentation (think session types: Wedding, Maternity, Family, etc.)
Broadcast emailing to segmented email lists
The volume of email sends/month
Customer data retention
Extra features: lead forms, pop-ups, or landing page options; Custom branding; Easy reporting; Email scheduling;

These are just a few quick questions you’ll want to note before you sign any 1-year contract. To get you started, here are a few of our favorite providers:

Drip
Constant Contact
MailChimp

But, feel free to check out any of these options:

Creating an Opt-In Form

Only include relevant fields for your campaign:
- Name (First / Last only if needed)
- Email
No hassle submission
Easy to read exclusions
Single landing page
Social Integration (refer/share with a friend)
Enough detail and reason to drive a sign-up

Automated Email Campaigns

Email automation helps marketers send custom emails based on a specified schedule, or sequence of events, to a specific list of users in your database. Automated emails can be created in a variety of ways, here are a few that we use regularly:

Automated “Drip” Sequence
- Sends out a series of emails with a pre-defined delay between each send
- Allows you to write a single email and send to every individual who acts upon a certain call-to-action
- Examples: New Account Sign-Up, Request for Review
Custom List or Segments
- Send an email to a specific list of individuals who fulfill your inclusion criteria
- Recipients are based on relevancy to their interest
- Examples: Wedding, Boudoir, Family, Senior Portraits, Engagement, Fall Wedding, etc.
Retargeting
- Send follow-up emails or remarket to individuals based on their interaction with your email marketing
- Export lists of your most engaged customers to Facebook and target for seasonal sessions, engage with social accounts and build brand loyalty

Emails come in ALL lengths, colors, times of the day, and days of the year. Remember to create your emails tactfully and tastefully. If you think you’re sending too many emails, you probably are. We will continue to expand upon our insights behind email marketing in upcoming blog posts. If you’re interested in learning more about building your business, subscribe to our Facebook Page and LIVE Event with Swift Galleries Creator, Chris Scott.

Are you enjoying this series on Building Your Business? Check out these other fantastic articles, aimed to help you and your photography business grow!

Artsy Couture

Leading Professional Photography Insights