Email marketing. Yes, it’s still a thing. However, getting it right may be more difficult than anticipated. Email marketing has nothing to do with “blasting.” Trust me, I often tell our clients that the word “blast” is a 4-letter word to any email marketer who knows what they are doing (CASH!). So here are some tried and true best practices about email marketing and getting it right in HubSpot.
Know the Rules
Email marketing isn’t a game. However, there are some laws, rules and regulations, and even platform-specific limitations designed to keep email marketers from using and abusing their contacts. Three Ventures is well-versed in these rules and guidelines and can help you implement your HubSpot account to follow them. As long-time HubSpot users, our senior consultants can draw on real-world experience to keep you on the right path as you roll out and scale your email marketing activities.
Have a Plan
If you start sending out emails without having a plan you’ll be setting yourself up for eventual failure. (see: Top Reasons your HubSpot Implementation Might Fail) Your plan should be developed independent of HubSpot consideration. That’s right - create a plan for how your email marketing efforts will operate before you log into HubSpot and begin firing out the mass emails.
Your email marketing plan should account for different approaches, such as cold outreach, inbound lead nurturing, warm lead engagement, and re-engagement of inactive contacts. It’s also important to set your parameters for when and who is included in recipient lists as well as when and who is excluded from certain emails or campaigns. Factors that contribute to which approach and who to include/exclude would be, for example: contact type, source or origin, previous email interactions, previous actions completed, and so forth.
Map it Out
Now that you have a plan, you can begin taking steps to prepare yourself for executing the plan. In this stage of developing your email marketing strategy it’s beneficial to know and understand your audience. It will help to think of the emails being received and how, from their perspective, those emails have the right combination of meaning, usefulness, timing, and guidance on what to do next.
Find Your Email Voice and Style
Email is only one of many different channels your business uses to communicate with prospects and customers. Since email is so widely used, there are endless tests, studies, and research papers devoted to identifying what is effective. One element in the effectiveness equation is the style of writing you use in your emails.
Eye tracking studies reveal that we are all guilty of skipping and skimming to decide if we really want to read something. This is important to know because a lot of energy can be wasted on word smithing the last sentence of the 3rd paragraph, only to have nobody ever read it. So, when developing your email voice, be sure to account for the typical behaviors of email recipients.
Automate to Eliminate Repetitive Email Tasks
As someone who has been running email marketing strategies for more than two decades, one of the most baffling situations I encounter is when HubSpot users have little to no automation going on. It’s far more common than you may guess. In fact, it may be the biggest failure in the HubSpot accounts I audit.
To maximize the ROI on your HubSpot investment you absolutely must leverage the platform’s power to automate high-volume, repetitive tasks. Specifically concerning email communications, automation helps HubSpot users efficiently scale their efforts. With help from Three Ventures, automation can give your marketing team a much wider reach, while simultaneously delivering more customized, personalized emails to help generate and qualify more leads. Your sales teams can benefit as well by getting tools to drastically reduce time spent on monotonous follow up emails. Properly configured email automation gives your people back valuable time and an opportunity to focus on more valuable tasks.
Test, Track and Tweak
Email marketing gives you the ability to reach a large, diverse audience. Over time, you can learn valuable information about your audience as well. By continually testing variables in your email messaging you can fine tune your approach to incrementally improve your results. You can also track changes in behaviors, trends or tendencies, and pinpoint what’s working and what’s not. With a healthy dose of testing and tracking the results you’ll have empirical data you can use to make informed decisions on what to adjust.
Email Marketing Works. It Works Better in HubSpot.
In the end, email marketing’s purpose is to keep the members of your audience engaged and informed about your company and your products or services. When done correctly, emails can foster loyalty and build trust. And, most importantly, email marketing can help you generate more revenue by capturing new customers, expanding relationships with existing customers, and giving you valuable insights into what’s important and meaningful to your audience.
For help with maximizing the value of your HubSpot account through email marketing and automation, feel free to reach out to our team for an initial discussion. You'll get to talk directly with our senior consultants. They’ll help you answer tough questions about your needs and potential projects. We can also help you audit your existing HubSpot implementation to provide recommendations for how to fix your install!
