grow your business, Marketing Tip, small business

7 Simple Tips to Use your Customer Email List Effectively

using your customer email list to your best ability

There was a time when receiving a new email alert was such a big deal. Sadly, those days are now behind us, and people today rarely get excited when they receive a new email message. What’s more, most people now think that email alerts are bothersome.

However, some businesses have found a way to rekindle that glorious past. This should interest you, especially if you are planning to create a useful customer email list. This article will explore the process of building and utilizing an email contact list effectively.

For a quick summary of the major points, you can directly jump to the infographic towards the end!


1. Provide Non-promotional Information

It would help if you approached your leads with some subtleness. Unfortunately, some companies bombard their potential clients with unlimited product offers. But nobody likes to have an email inbox full of free shipping information and daily discounts. If your business pursues this route, most of your emails will end up in the spam inbox.

It would be best if you stopped pushing your email recipients towards the sales team. Although this should be your end game, you should adopt some maneuvers. And the best way is to mix informative content with product-specific information. This way, your clients will gain some practical knowledge from your emails.


2. Grab Their Attention

The majority of subscribers usually glance at their inbox before they decide to open one email message. You want subscribers to pay special attention to your email message. One way of achieving that is to provide something of value.

For example, subscribers will like things such as infographics, market reports, or a tutorial. They will know that your message contains something with real-life applications. Consequently, make sure that your headlines scream ‘value’ before you click send.


3. Create Personalized Messages

Sending personalized emails should not be confused with sending individual emails to each customer. Instead, it means that your business should utilize data analytics to craft customized emails.

Amazon has expanded its customer base by using the personalization strategy. For instance, they don’t use a blanket term such as “Dear client”. Instead, Amazon refers to the customer using their actual name. A customer called Jane will receive a message from Amazon that starts with “Dear Jane”.

An email from Amazon will also make references to your purchase history. For example, they will remind you of a product that you recently purchased. Then, they will tell you that people who bought that product were interested in another product. To this end, Amazon can effectively improve its conversion rates.

Most businesses have not discovered this trick, and you may have a head start if you implement it now. You must collect identifiable information from your clients. Then, you need to find smart ways to integrate that information into your emails. The idea is to make the customer feel unique and valued.

But how do you get this information? You can start by asking people to fill out forms. The collected data will include the location, company, and name. Nevertheless, you must remember that strict rules, such as GDPR, control the use of private data. Therefore, customers must give consent before you can use their private data.

Another way of collecting customer information is by creating an authentic reply-to email address. Customers can contact you at this new email address because it looks credible and personal.

Finally, it would be best if you always remembered to sign off your emails with an email signature. Signing off with your company name will not create a personal bond. Instead, use your legal name, such as James Moore. 


4. Conduct Subscriber Segmentation

Some companies think that their subscribers are homogeneous. However, each subscriber has unique traits. As such, it is important to have customers with specific attributes in the same group. For instance, if you are selling to retailers, you should not send emails to wholesalers. Similarly, if your event will be in a particular location, sending emails to people outside that location won’t do you any good.

Segmentation works best when you use CRM software. A customer relationship management tool will segment your subscribers. It will also provide suggestions based on the database information.

There are many parameters that you can use to segment your customers. First, you can group consumers from the same industry. These are people who use similar products and services. For example, they could be people interested in buying car spare parts.

Secondly, you can segment your clients based on their income. For instance, people or companies earning less than $200,000 a year will be in the same segment.

Finally, you can deal with segments based on purchasing habits. One segment will have people who make weekly purchases, while another one will feature clients who buy services or products once a month.


5. Customize For Mobile

What do you normally do when you wake up in the morning? Nowadays, most people check their email on their mobile phones as soon as they wake up. Before you leave your bed, you check if you have any new messages, missed phone calls, and new email messages.

It would help if you kept this in mind as a marketer when crafting your email marketing strategy. You want to create an email that customers can read from their mobile devices. Remember, not every email that you send will be readable on a small screen.

Responsive email design is key to the crafting process for marketers. It helps you to optimize your emails’ readability on small screens. Thankfully, the common email service providers, such as Gmail and Outlook, have embedded this function within their platforms.

Similarly, you should create a concise subject line. It shouldn’t be more than six words, and your reader should understand it immediately. Also, the snippet text should include a quick summary so that your reader knows what to expect.

Finally, your call-to-action should be conspicuous on small devices. Therefore, when you are writing the text for small devices, make sure that the call-to-action is large, bold, and legible.


6. Wisely Choose Your Sending Time

One common misconception is that people read their emails during the day. While this is true, your email will be competing with many business emails. You can separate yourself from the rest by avoiding the 9 to 5 hours. Instead, send your emails from 8 p.m. However, it is not a good idea to send an email after midnight. Sending an email at night increases the chances of delivery.

Sending emails from 8 p.m. is effective, but you shouldn’t ignore the weekends. The main reason why you should send your emails during the weekend is that there will be slow email traffic at that time. Your customers will be receiving few emails, and therefore, the projected click-through rate will be significantly higher.


7. Offer Freebies

If your customers are expecting to receive something for free, they are likely to open your emails.

It would be best if you created a habit of including freebies within your emails. For example, you can give free shipping to the first 100 clients. Alternatively, you can slash your sales price. Once subscribers realize that freebies are offered via email, they will make an effort to open your emails. Consequently, you will increase your open rate.


Quick summary

Using an email list

Final Thoughts

People send more than 293 billion emails daily. This is a massive market for any serious business owner. However, it would help if you approached this subject from an informed position.

Utilizing proven strategies to use your customer email list increases your chances of success and reduces your costs. These steps are essential for your strategy.

So, get yourself out there and make use of your email list as a solid marketing strategy to drive more clients to your business. Happy emailing! 🙂


About Appointy

We at Appointy, help business owners grow and run their businesses with our online scheduling software. This blog was a part of our ‘Manage your Business’ category, where we provide expert tips, and resources, or simply talk about the challenges that small and medium businesses face every day. 

If you have any thoughts on this blog or would like to chat about your business struggles and achievements, let us know in the comments below. 

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